Planning for what?
Planning For Whose Future?
The astronomical figures being tossed around by the feds blow my mind. I have no idea what four billion dollars would look like, but the Feds are promising this over the next two years on infrastructure spending, with the other levels of government matching the funds. In his budget speach, Minister Flaherty invoked the nation-building rail investments of Sir John A Macdonald, yet it would amaze me if alternative transportation is held in the same high regard in 2009 as it was in the late 19th century.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities asked the larger municipalities to submit lists of “shovel-ready” projects for funding, and Windsor was up to the task. You would have to be living under a crumbling bridge to not know that our city is collapsing under the weight of itself. Chris Schnurr found the list for us, and it highlights the priorities that our civic leaders have for funding. From $31 million for greenfield servicing of the annexed lands to $122 million for road reconstruction (plus another $38 million for combined road/sewer work) and automotive-focused infrastructure (with the city earmarking an insignificant 0.007% of the total requested for transit spending) it is clear that our municipal priorities haven’t really changed. Apparently, my plea went unanswered.
Apparently, we cannot afford to maintain the infrastrucure we currently have. Can we really afford the city that we are mortgaging our kids future to pay for?
I have learned to trust my gut-feelings, and my gut is telling me that we are going to continue pouring money into the status quo. I understand that many of the items listed by the city are important for the quality of life for Windsor residents. How can you enjoy time with your family when you are bailing raw sewage that has backed up into your basement. Yet I cannot help but feel that all the resources we have poured into expanding the suburbs and its related infrastructure have put these necessary items on the back-burner for decades enabling the crisis we are currently experiencing. It is widely known that sprawl development doesn’t pay for itself, yet our elected officials continue to throw good money after bad by earmarking over half of the requested funds to continue what J.H. Kunstler calls “the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world“; auto-centric sprawl development.
So, are we planning for future prosperity or future collapse? Somebody is going to have to make the tough decisions very soon. Will this council have the testicular fortitude to do what is necessary?
Tags: investment, subsidization, transportation costs, urban sprawl
Post Feedback
$1,800 tax increase due to sprawl! The city projects population to grow in the city by 50,000 over the next 25 years. A U of Kentucky study found the cost of government services – like police, schools and sewage – were much higher in counties with low-density sprawl. For every 1,000 residents who move into an low density urban county, taxes increased by $36.82 for a household of four. (50,000 x 36.82 / 1,000 = $1,841)
I want city council to please justify this tax increase.
Paying for the New Neighbors
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/08/05/weekinreview/20060806confessore_graph.html
Budget deficit, credit ratings downgrade to junk, public service layoffs, closing parks and recreation centres, and selling assets this is what the status qou will lead to (look at Detroit).
Detroit mulls new tunnel deal
By Dave Battagello
The Windsor Star, January 29th 2009
http://www.windsorstar.com/news/Detroit+mulls+tunnel+deal/1232954/story.html
Our city is decades behind other leaders like Portland, Chattanooga and Victoria that have adopted a smart growth policy. This is no time to dither it is time for leadership.
From:
Cities Grow Up, and Some See Sprawl
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
The New York Times, August 6th 2006
[There] is a slow but steady resurgence of urban life over the last two decades. “People are beginning to realize that living far away from your jobs both has a personal cost and a financial cost,” said Amy Liu, deputy director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution and a supporter of infill development.
That influx has helped spark growth in places like San Diego, Chattanooga, Tenn., and Portland, Ore., where once-fallow downtowns now bustle with new shops and restaurants. Though nationally the housing market shows signs of softening, in some cities, the resurgence of urban living has created strong housing markets where none existed before. Elsewhere, it has driven up demand where prices were already high.
I echo your sentiment Edwin,
WHERE ARE OUR LEADERS?!?
Cities at night
Detroit is facing a 300 million dollar deficit. It is being forced to cut services and sale assets. But, is it a surprise that Detroit can’t maintain its’ infrastructure when you consider its’ sprawling size.
I’m always amazed at the huge blob of light that is Detroit when flying over it at night. For a medium size metropolis the sprawl is shocking. It is very different from the planned and efficiently designed cities of Europe.
Cities at Night, an Orbital Tour Around the World
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=eEiy4zepuVE
Let’s hope that with these investments in infrastucture we don’t repeat the mistakes of Detroit and contunie to build and support infrastrature we can’t affoard longer term.
Exactly Chris! My gut also tells me that the city’s list is nothing but catch-up and keeping the status-quo of the automobilecentric nature of this city! And when it is all spent and done, where is the cost of maintaining this insanity going to come from?
There is nothing from the feds, the provinces or our cities on SOFT infrastructure, such as libraries, culture, the arts and heritage. There is nothing for improving or repairing communities. Little if anything for scientific and technological research.
The list that Chris Schnurr supplied is nothing but 19th century wish list of a post-industrial city to maybe bring it into the 21st century.
Japan learned the hard way that spending billions of dollars on anything infrastructure in the 1990’s, from the smallest of schemes to the grandest dreams, did not bail them out of 10 years of economic depression. This new federal budget is to little to late and with most of government schemes, municipalities have to come up with at least 1/3 of the financing. Where is Windsor going to get the minimum of 100 million dollars to do everything on their wish list? With a shrinking economic base, high unemployment, out migration of its citizens, neighbourhoods turning to waste lands …. and we aren’t done with this economic crisis yet! The worst is yet to come!
We are nowhere near bottoming out yet of this crisis!
In the end, the city’s list of shovel ready items will leave us with nothing to show but more traffic congestion, new sewers to empty and emptying homes and businesses.
There is no forward thinking or creativity, nor dreaming of something better than the status quo. I am so tired of the sewer and roads people in this city, I wish they would leave. They are a drag on this community.
We need the younger generation to become more vocal and demanding of this city, that a city is more than just sewers and roads! They are intelligent, mobile and creative, if we do nothing for them now, will they stick around when we really need them …. like now!
No, this infrastructure budget will leave nothing behind for the next generation to admire or believe in, it is a stop gap at best and drain of tax dollars in the future.
There is a caution against dismissing all infrastructure investments as bad. Sewers are absolutely, 100% needed to maintain the current sanitary system. I agree whole-hearedly with the diagnosis that roads are a questionable, at best, investment, but sewers are almost a given.
What needs to happen, and this drum has been beat before, is for cities to examine the REAL costs of hinterland expansions and charge developers the real cost of building. Stop leveraging low-density, suburban growth on the dense urban neighbourhoods. Hey, if you want to have a half acre lot in an exclusive community, more power to you — but pay the true cost of ownership. Once you add the 10s of thousands of dollars PER HOUSE into the equation, suddenly redevelopment of the urban landscape becomes trendy and economically viable for everyone.
Look at what is happening in the US — cities are actually opting to raze some homes because nobody can buy them and the city cannot, or is choosing not to, support utilities and services in those areas. (I can’t find the reference, but I think this was Youngstown, OH). If Windsor would take stock of its’ assets and leverage them then, and only then, will there be a chance for survival. Without it, Windsor is doomed to disappear as most post-industrial towns, at least those who refuse to change, adapt and innovate, have.
My opinion, for what its’ worth.
When reality comes crashing down- the theory of reflexivity.
Chris, I think our leaders, especially at city hall, are stuck in the past at a time when our view of reality is going thru revolutionary change. The new and true reality is so novel and unexpected and changing so rapidly that our leaders cannot keep up with the changes. This is a classic example of our leaders not recognizing a paradigm shift.
The theory of reflexivity suggests that in the social sciences our bias’ can distort our views of reality. This can lead to a far-from-equilibrium situation, which when it ends means our reality comes crashing down (a paradigm shift).
We are in the mist of two such paradigm shifts: 1) end of consumerism (credit bubble bust) and 2) the green shift (sustainable living).
These two paradigm shifts have many serious implications for how we govern our city. Unfortunately our city leaders are stuck in the past. They are still holding on to the now debunked old realities where you never have to payback debts and where inefficiencies don’t matter.
Planning for what? This just might be the big question of the day!
The Toronto Star editorial below points to a flaw in the Feds new infrastructure budget, that has been nagging me and others across this country. Harper and his party are still not committed to helping cities.
Clear the fog on funding for cities
“There are no assurances whatsoever,” says Toronto Mayor David Miller. “This program has been designed so that the government picks and chooses projects across Canada. As far as we know, there are no clear criteria, no funding formula, and no clear commitment to when and how.”
Miller says federal help remains vague even for renovation of Union Station, which was specifically mentioned in federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s budget speech. It’s not yet clear if the city will get $120 million for the project or only $75 million, or some other amount.
Other municipal leaders have expressed similar concerns. Sherbrooke Mayor Jean Perrault, head of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, is urging Ottawa to be flexible. He warns that requiring cities to share a portion of project costs in order to access the new infrastructure fund would be a “roadblock” to stimulus.”
Full editorial here: http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/580704
Josh, I didn’t dismiss basic infrastructure projects out of hand and I would go with sewers more than roads (modern sanitation has saved more lives than all the medical advances) but if this is the time to build for the future most cities wish lists just fail to the complete paradigm shift that we in cities are facing.
I have said what you have said above about the burbs, sub-urban cities that the home buyer IS NOT paying the real cost of development for his house. And I don’t know when cities are going to wake up to this gross subsidization of sprawl. They made a choice to live where they do and it follows they should pay for that choice! Not me, not you and the many others who have not chosen to live sprawlsville.