Time to redirect to the NEW Scale Down!

It appears that we are now having some great Scale Down discussions in two separate arenas. I would urge everyone to redirect over to ScaleDown's new website, located conveniently at

www.scaledown.ca

Our incredibly successful launch party last night, attended by over 100 of the cities movers-and-shakers, proved to us that we are onto something here. The dialogue the we enter into with our readership is trickling into some of the mainstream media's coverage, and our city councillors are paying attention.

So change the URL of Scale Down in your "favourites" to http://www.scaledown.ca/, as we will not be utilizing our blogger site much any longer, though it will live on in cyberspace as a way of preserving our archives and redirecting our readers over to our new active site.

Thank you all so much for all the support and thought you've given ScaleDown. We are enacting some positive change and we really want to keep this ball rolling.

Sincerely,

Josh,

Mark,

James,

Chris

Challenging Windsor's Future

The American Association for the Advancement of Science, through its' Grand Challenges for Engineering project, has identified 14 areas that it views as essential to "secure against both human and natural threats [and] improve the quality of life in our nation and around the world" according to Charles Vest, president of the National Academy of Engineering.

A quick review of the intentionally non-partisan, unranked list, demonstates that the 18 members of the project committee are some of the most forward-thinking, cutting edge intellects of our time. Granted, the members of the committee did not have to actually solve the issues, but simply identify the areas that they felt were criticial to the preservation and advancement of our global society.

The areas, as listed on the project website, are:

• Make solar energy economical
• Provide energy from fusion
• Develop carbon sequestration methods
• Manage the nitrogen cycle
• Provide access to clean water
• Restore and improve urban infrastructure
• Advance health informatics
• Engineer better medicines
• Reverse-engineer the brain
• Prevent nuclear terror
• Secure cyberspace
• Enhance virtual reality
• Advance personalized learning
• Engineer the tools of scientific discovery
  

While I don't agree with the list in it's entirety (Does society really need virtual reality so that we can continue to hide from our actual reality?), I was impressed with the trend toward sustainability, both social and environmental. The list got me thinking -- are there 14 Grand Challenges for Windsor? If I had to compile a list, without the assistance of some of the most forward thinking and brilliant intellects of the modern world, what would they be?

Here are the 14 Challenges for Windsor, according to me:

• Re-build urban and regional mass transit
• Develop and adhere to sustainable land-use plans
• Incubate a knowledge-based economy
• Create a 'green' manufacturing industry
• Eat, build, buy and live locally
• Become a living showcase for academic innovation
• Reduce government bureaucracy while increasing accountability
• Implement aggressive environmental sustainability policies and procedures
• Re-invest in local arts and culture
• Build walkable neighbourhoods
• Interconnect neighbourhood districts with non-motorized transit options
• Transform downtown into a destination for all ages
• Charge 'true-cost' development fees to encourage intensification
• Provide sustainable, cost-effective utilities from generation to delivery

Implementing these changes locally and regionally would provide the environmental, economic and civic health we need to succeed. There will be challenges and opposition to the changes we need, but only by making these changes can we guarantee our long-term success. NIMBYs and nay-sayers will try and dissuade us, but we can build a city and a region that meets our wants and needs this, and future, generations.

What do you think of the 14 Challenges for Windsor? What challenges does Windsor face in the next 25, 50 or 100 years?

Tonight, Watch Council make a Smart Choice

In the past, countless times I have gone before council with important reports from experts in other jurisdictions about what Windsor should be doing. Tonight marks a turning point where I can refer to reports from experts in our jurisdiction when talking about the future of Windsor-Essex Region.

Tonight, Windsor's planning department makes a presentation to Council with the following Recommendation

I. That Windsor City Council and Administration continue to work cooperatively with our neighboring municipalities and our community partners to adopt and implement planning policies that:
a. responsibly address the regional challenges and opportunities identified in the IMPCC 2007 Annual Report.
b. support the principles that are contained with in the "
Healthy Places, Healthy People, Smart Choices for the Windsor-Essex Region of Ontario" document; and

II. That the IMPCC2007 Annual Report BE FORWARDED to the Windsor Planning Advisory Committee as a resource document for its deliberations on the City Official Plan review.

At Scaledown we believe this report is a significant sign of progress for several reasons

1. Regionalism: The fact that every planning official in Essex county is a party to this report shows that we can work together as a region
2. Urban and Town Centers focus: "Within each community in our region, clearly defined, compact, pedestrian and transit friendly city and town centres
need to be maintained, created and enhanced."
3. Walkability - transforming suburban sprawl into walkable neighborhoods

We believe that scaledown embodies the values of this report. Sure, some might say it is only a statement of principles and policy that has not been acted upon. However this is where it all begins, this report is a turning point for our city.

It is fitting that this happens the day before Chris Turner speaks in Windsor about the Geography of Hope

And the Winners are...

The long anticipated draw for our two copies of Chris Turner's The Geography of Hope is finally over. Utilizing the cheap labour costs and impeccable integrity of my children, I put them to work (after they were done sewing up that last pair of Nikes' that is) drawing the two winners names.

And here we go...

So, you two winners, we will be seeing you at the big SCALEDOWN UNVEILED launch party this Wednesday evening where you can pick your copy up and get Chris Turner to sign it for you Congratulations again and a big Thank You goes out to Random House for providing the giveaway copies of the book!

Kick back and enjoy Family Day.

In light of our new February holiday "Family Day", I am going to suggest that you go out to your friendly neighbourhood video store and rent a movie.

No, not just any movie. Specifically, a Sundance nominee from last year; The King Of California.

In it, you'll find Michael Douglas' character deal with the fact that his childhood home has disappeared under a wash of suburban sprawl while he chases a treasure that leads him through a private golf course to breaking into and excavating under a Costco store.

Sure, that's not the focus of the film, but it could have been. You'll also find a redemption-themed father/daughter tale that should delight other members of your audience, so don't feel too guilty about forcing them to sit through a "moral-of-this-story" tale.

So spend some quality time with the family today and tonight, sit down and watch a film about sprawl swallowing the California countryside :)

What am I doing here?

The lead-up to the website launch on Wednesday has got me asking myself; what is my contribution to scaledown.ca? I really believe in what we are trying to do here, but sometimes I worry that the task is so big and I worry that I’m not the right person to be out writing about how we should live our lives.

I’m not going to get all philosophical like Chris did the other day but, I just want to take a little bit today to let you know where my part in scaledown.ca is heading.

I’ve been researching stories for future posts. My background is in civil engineering and I have knowledge of and access to information on structures and civil-works. So I’m putting stuff together for posts about infrastructure and what needs to be fixed and what the costs might be. Personally, I am very interested in peak oil and its ramifications, I think understanding this issue will be important to how we move forward. Therefore, a couple of posts will talk about Transition Towns and initiatives like the Portland Peak Oil Advisory Group. Then there’s my love of bicycles. There will be posts from me about my bikes and commuting and maybe even a little “bike porn”. “Bike porn” is what my wife calls any website that features pictures of bicycles that I tend to spend long periods of time just staring at, usually followed by longing glances at my bank account. LOL.

Besides my posts I have been working on a public event to help us all learn more about Urban Planning and what is involved in the planning process. This event will feature professional planners and educators with a panel discussion and a question and answer session. Keep Saturday, March 22 open on your calendars.

My hope is for scaledown.ca to be a source of ideas and solutions for our community. What I really want is to bring the message that there are better ways to live than sprawl/consumerism. I want to help our community prepare and make changes for a future that could be very rewarding for the people of Windsor/Essex.

Bridge access to downtown

Just some clarifications.

This is not the first time the issue of downtown access from the Bridge has been dealt with. Several years ago the Bridge requested that the access route to downtown by way of Riverside Drive be closed down. That access to downtown be gained by Wyandotte.

The bridge had several valid safety concerns with keeping this route open, mostly to do with car traffic crossing truck traffic

Notwithstanding the valid bridge concerns, the DWBIA and the city asked the Bridge not close this access as Riverside was an obviously far more convenient, scenic and attractive route to downtown.

Examples
1. You cannot turn left from Wyandotte to Ouellette
2. If you turn before onto pelissier, most one way streets will lead you west and away from Downtown
3. If you turn after Ouellette One way streets on Park and Pitt will lead you east and away from downtown
4. As much as I like the asian flavor of wyandotte, it will never appeal to tourists as much as our world class waterfront which also has significantly less left turn traffic and traffic lights.

Now these traffic issues are not the fault of the Ambassador Bridge Company. Also, I understand and appreciate that the Ambassador Bridge may very well have perfectly good cause to temporarily close this access. As many have stated at many times, they are concerned with running an efficient operation at their location as they should be.

Many are fearful that in this antagonist climate that the Bridge company may be trying to test the waters to see if it can achieve its previously stated intentions which were to close this exit permanently. Without assigning fault, I personally think it sucks that this type of climate even exists in this day and age.

I think that a simple clarification of the Ambassador Bridge Company regarding the long term use of this downtown access would be appreciated and resolve this once and for all. I for one would be immediately satisfied by a clear statement of this nature by Mr. Stamper as it is the long term strategy for downtown access that is of greater concern. Riverside Drive is how we should want visitors to first experience Windsor rather than a congested and transitional Wyandotte Street. If someone thinks that difference is unimportant, I would suggest that reveals more about them and their motives.

The Casino's downtown road closures are not a comparable situation as the DWBIA was given notice months before the decision was made. In addition to that, Public meetings were held. The DWBIA had the full ability to express its concerns and weigh the pro's and cons. The elected DWBIA board unanimously supported that decision.

The same meetings have also taken place regarding a potential tunnel plaza. Again the situations are not comparable.

Hopefully in the long term, visitors to Windsor will remember their first impression being the Waterfront which we have so heavily invested in as a world Class Showpiece

The Arts: London funding vs. Windsor’s Creativity

london arts budget

Contrasting the way that London contributes to the the arts will ultimately address funding deal with funding. We are currently seeing across the board cuts in the Libraries, Art Gallery, Arts Council. Meanwhile we watch Arts funding in London Ontario increase, not only by the city but also by the Private sector. Further on this post, I’ll show examples of where Windsor’s creativity trumps London

Municipal revenue is $951,000, Windsor’s contribution is 2/3 of that amount

If it gets final approval later this month, council's vote to contribute $160,000 to a recently established public art fund could usher in a new era and reinforce London's future as a creative city. The Mainstreet London Association paid $200,000 for the public art that is the multi colored tree art downtown
In Windsor we see arts funding significantly reduced, even the Capital Theater dispute has funding as its root cause.

I am not one to simply want my tax dollars thrown at the arts, but we have to acknowledge what other cities are doing to find best practices. Secondly, there are ample opportunities to contribute to the arts with little or no cost by the city. One source I found that has not seen a dollar spent on Windsor is www.businessforarts.org.

One thing I see advantageous for Windsor over London is the fact that we seem to do things for a fraction of the cost of London. A couple of examples include downtown security camera’s up costing $30,000 per year while London’s program cost $200,000 or London’s Ambassador program spent $51,000 for a promotional video, while the DWBIA was able to make a much better promotional video for far less cost.\

Right Now, Londons’ struggling TAP (The Arts Project) cost hundreds of thousands while local artist Christian Aldo his own version of an arts incubator by creating Galleries displaying the work of local artists on Pelissier simply by working with building owners and artists with no other assets than his colourful and dynamic character. This initiative deserves its own attention and kudo's to Mr. Aldo

Before she left, Judith Veresuk proposed the idea of cladding the stark white new planters downtown with mosaic tile art. Implementing this public arts partnership with business could be a testament to Mrs. Veresuk downtown efforts.
Think of Cartunes, businesses could sponsor the winners from an art competition to decorate the planters like they did with Cartunes, except this time they would get far more than a one year bang for their art donation. We would have a permanent display of their contribution.

Secondly, the DWBIA has already committed $100,000 additional to maiden lane streetscape to turn it into a “European” style road with the plumbing infrastructure for a fountain in the center. No funds have been allocated or raised for the actual fountain. The DWBIA needs to come up with terms of reference and criteria for this fountain design. After that a design competition should also be conducted for this fountain to become another proud piece of public art.

Separately, the best thing Windsor could do for the arts is to coordinate grant writing between the different groups. This position was filled by Ed Agnew before but there needs to be a “311” type program to access this moneys.

The meaning of it all....

It has long eluded me as to the meaning of exactly what we do here at Scale Down. OK, in my heart I know what it is we do; I just have a hard time explaining it sometimes.

I was being interviewed by Windsor Star reporter Ted Whip yesterday, and he asked - simply enough - what Scale Down is all about. I've been asked this so many times before, and have given a different answer each and every time, that I paused for a second before answering him.

If we distilled the essence of Scale Down into a perfume (without adding the 13 virgins - that would just be overwhelming!) what would the scent be like?

I was actually contemplating this very notion as I was performing my household duties yesterday prior to being interviewed. That is the time (aside from showering) that I do my best thinking. The kids aren't bugging me (they're alergic to doing the dishes, didn't you know) and I'm free to let my mind wander.

I know that we are continually backing the local business wo/man and their desire to make an honest living while providing a valued service to the community in which they live. I know we are always talking about our built environment and how "New Urbanism" and traditional neighbourhood development has proven itself superior for getting to know our neighbours as well as slimming our waistlines while we walk the couple of blocks to the store to get milk. We value a quality public transportation system as an efficient way to gain mobility. We espouse the arts and our cultural heritage as a way to reinvigorate the "Main Streets" of Windsor and how lively and exciting a neighbourhood that values its artists can be. We also get into the huge waste of money that communities spend as they duplicate and triplicate their infrastructure trying to service far-flung suburbs and their 3/4 acre raised ranches.

Then it dawned on me. We're all about the pedestrian! The notion of the human being, on foot, signifies progress in all aspects of our daily lives. When we get out of our cars and walk along our streets, we bump into the people who cut our meat at the deli and dispense our prescriptions at the drug store. We interact with each other and become involved in each other's lives. We don't mow each other down in our SUV's as we race to pick the kids up from daycare, because we have cut down our spending as we cut down our car and insurance payments and are able to spend less time at work. We're not working overtime to fuel our hyper-consumer lifestyles, so we're able to spend time with our significant others as we visit the theatre or art gallery. The only peopl less than thrilled with us when we focus on the foot are the big-box stores and the weight loss emporiums.

We're more human when we use our feet.

Whether this has brought me closer to understanding the essence of Scale Down or not, I don't know. We're all these things, and then a little something else thrown in the mix to shake things up a bit. I was hoping to come out of this mental exercise with an apporpriate slogan we could use to describe our actions, but I don't know whether I'm at that point yet or not.

I had come up with "Pedestrian Powered Rejuvenation", and am going to let that sit with me a while to see if it stands the test of time.

Get (scale)Down!

Did you honestly think we would host another boring lecture for our big website launch party? Think again...

StereoGoesStellar to play at SCALEDOWN UNVEILED!

from SGS's media release...

State of the Stellar Address

"StereoGoesStellar, Windsor's premier piano based indie poppers, have been in the studio since early January this year. The ScaleDown.ca Website Launch Party will be their last show in Windsor until the band releases their first and highly anticipated full length album in May 2008."

Stellar Biography

"Composed of four of Windsor's least attractive musicians, and one of it's hottest (Keith), StereoGoesStellar aims to provide it's small but loyal following with a good time, every time, but not for a long time. That is to say that prolonged exposure to the members of StereoGoesStellar has been found to result in a gashes, thrashes, and of course, rashes.

While a spoonful of recordings are available from the ferocious fivesome, the nostalgia that radiates from the very centroid of the group's improbable inertia of instrumentaion is something that is to be experienced live when it is traversed to the crowd in a slurry of blood, sweat, and a number of unknown and indistinguishable substances that for the most part merely offend all five senses, but to a lesser degree, entertain and enthrall.

And despite the power and driven tones of the bands inadvertently large and rounded sound, the soft and fuzzy lyrical eccentricities that tell of unrectifiable mistakes and the unfortunate reign of hindsight are seldom lost, but alternately amplified to polar bear sized proportions that will in turn musically assault you and feed you to its young."

There's nothing boring about what Scaledown.ca is trying to accomplish, so it is perfectly natural that their launch party is anything but boring as well...

The Crisis of Happiness

As a lead-up to the February 20th launch party, and the presentation by guest speaker and author Chris Turner, I wanted to take a look at some of the progressive ideas being implemented in cities abroad that are making drastic changes to the way humanity is able live.

London, England

The view of London as a commuter nightmare is not one that most North Americans would readily apply, but, in spite of the classic double-decker buses and subway system, London has had to take drastic measures to improve air quality and reduce traffic congestion in their city core.

According to an Associated Press article posted on MSNBC, Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, increased commuter charges and are going after the big polluters, targeting 4x4 vehicles and luxury sedans. The average commuter pays $16 a day to drive in the city; the 33,000 vehicles targeted under the new legislation will pay $49 a day, if approved.. Even NYC is proposing a 'sin tax' for cars in Lower Manhattan.

Think a 'sin tax' on driving is a steep price to pay? Paris plans to ban suburban cars from the city centre by 2012 to reduce noise, pollution and congestion and recreate "the art of urban joy".

Paris, France

The Pompidou expressway, stretching from the Louvre to the Pont de Sully, is covered in sand. This is not a natural disaster, or a corporate publicitiy event, but an intentional act to reclaim city streets for the citizens of Paris, a city which Kunstler referred to as a "human-scale touch on the urban form", during the summer months. The Paris Plage, as the summer road-to-beach transformation is called, is part of an on-going movement in Paris to transition the city streets from the motorized masses and return them to Parisian people.

An article called The Happy City, written by Charles Montgomery, details French, among other, reclamation projects designed to increase human interaction. Montgomery states that these changes will "change not just streets but the very soul of urban spaces." -- and we tend to agree!

Bogota, Columbia

Under the direction Enrique Penalosa, Mayor of Bogota, and in an effort to combat a city "mired in poverty, chaos, violence and crippling traffic", this South American city ditched a freeway intended to ease the commute of the suburbanite masses (ED: Sound familiar?), and instead invested in the "frequencey of positive interaction". By building "parks, hundreds of kilometers of bikes paths and pedestrian 'freeways' [and] an efficient rapid bus system" the happiness of the city increased. How do you measure happiness? Road fatalities fell by 33% and the murder rate dropped by 40%. Now wouldn't that make you happy?

Bogota is on a roll and has voted to ban private cars from rush hour traffic by 2015. Imagine the changes in a city where rush hour traffic was concentrated on mass transit or pedestrian scale mobility. Montgomery quotes John Helliwell, a University of British Columbia professor emeritus and economist, when he states "[f]requency of positive interaction is the key."


Through these examples Montgomery emulates Chris Turner who, in his book The Geography of Hope, demonstrates that the changes we need to make in Windsor are already being made in other cities in the world with amazing success. Montgomery's article details some of the largest cities making even bigger changes successfully increasing happiness among their citizens. The message of ScaleDown.ca echoes the refrain of Montgomery -- we can make drastic changes to 'they way we have always done things' and not only survive but thrive as a community, an economy and a part of the human collective.

Windsor can, must, and will make the changes necessary to revitalize itself through the work and efforts of an engaged citizenry. We, as members of that citizenry, must decide whether we want to be as the French, making changes to increase an already high standard of living or wait until we are like Bogota, ready to pull out all the stops to make the changes necessary just to survive.

*****

International cities are making huge changes, implementing real ideas, to combat the erosion of urban happiness. What changes have you seen, or would like to see, in Windsor to increase, intensify or re-establish our urban happiness? Post your thoughts in our comments section


All quotes in the article, unless otherwise stated, come from Charles Montgomery's article "The Happy City"

Cities: A Smart Alternative to Cars

I heard a rumour that Buzz Hargrove ghost-wrote this article for Business Week magazine. It's a stretch. Let me know what you think...

Cities:
A Smart Alternative to Cars
Creating compact communities—and eliminating the need to drive everywhere—may be the best way to slash greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles

"...The best car-related innovation we have is not to improve the car but to eliminate the need to drive it everywhere we go. In the U.S,, we need to stop sprawl and build well-designed compact communities. The land-use patterns in our communities dictate not only how much we drive, but how sustainable we can be on all sorts of fronts. And sprawled-out land uses generate enormous amounts of automotive greenhouse gases. A recent major study, Growing Cooler, published by Smart Growth America, a coalition of national, state, and local organizations that addresses urban planning, makes the point clearly: If 60% of new developments were even modestly more compact, we'd emit 85 million fewer metric tons of tailpipe [car emissions] CO2 each year by 2030—as much as would be saved by raising the national mileage standards to 32 mpg."

You can read the entire article here.

Chris Turner Book Giveaway

You've just found Scaledown's first official schwag offer! It's an exciting time here and we would like to share some of this excitement with SD readers.

Over the course of this next week, we will be throwing all the names of everyone who comments on this blog entry into a hat, and the two names we draw out will receive a copy of Chris Turner's latest book, The Geography Of Hope. On Monday, Feb 18th, be sure to check back as we will be announcing the winners right here.

As you know, Chris will be the keynote speaker at the SCALEDOWN UNVEILED event on February 20th at the Caboto Club, and this is where you will be able to meet the author and get you copy signed. So get those names in so we can get this book into your hands.

We think you'll be better off after having read it :)

Under the microscope...

Well, since Window's Movie Maker apparently hates me, I couldn't embellish this video clip of my interview with Cogeco's Joe McParland. You'll have to deal with the raw footage that my friendly neighbourhood media-pusher Chris Schnurr sent over to me tonight.



Thanks a ton, Chris. I'll get this stuff figured out eventually.

The gift that keeps on giving...

Tonight, as you know, is our regularly scheduled city council meeting. (be sure to watch Joe McParland's Council Warm Up at 5:45, as Mark and I are being interviewed on it) There's some interesting items coming before council that I want to highlight here.

Drive-thrus

Do we have to repeatedly make our case every time there's a deferral? Again we revisit the new downtown Burger King and their desire to install a drive thru for their restaurant. Our illustrious Planning Advisory Committee (PAC), intensely aware of how a progressive city develops (sarcasm) recommended a zoning change to allow the drive-through back in January of '07. Through public backlash and insight, our council denied the applicants zoning change application, only to have it appealed to the OMB (don't you wish we actually had control of how we develop our community?). In August of the same year, PAC recommended the approval of the applicants new zoning application and this time council buckled and approved it. So now, this little plot of land will be accessed by three curb cuts/access points- - but at least they're giving us some bike racks and a promise to protect a couple of trees!

To show just how maleable our Official Plan actually is, I wanted to include this quote from the administration report...

"After due consideration of the City of Windsor's Official Plan design guidelines for mixed use development within the City Centre Planning District, The Site Plan Review Committee has proposed the following direction:. (i) to recess the building wall away from the Goyeau Street lot line so as to accomodate the proposed after-hour walk-up windows, and at the same time, ensure safe pedestrian movement on the sidewalk in front of the subject land, (ii) to eliminate the request for 4.95m land conveyance along University Avenue frontage since engineering and Cororate Projects, Public Works Department has given its waiver of the requirement, and (iv) to deny present or future vehicular access along University Avenue frontage, by imposing a requirement for conveyance of a 1-foot reserve along the entire length of the University Avenue frontage"

FYI - I didn't mis-number those notations, that was the way administration presented the report.

For those of you familiar with the term "Mixed Use", does Site Plan Review's recommendations have anything to do with the definition you hold in your mind?

This should help attract world-class talent to the newly revitalized Armouries concert hall next door, shouldn't it? Vicky Kyriaco-Wilson, representing the Armouries Concert Hall Committee, is scheduled to speak on the issue. In addition to Ms. Kyraico-Wilson on the delegate list are a couple of "mystery" speakers; Scott Arbuckle, representing Planning & Engineering Initiative Ltd (Kitchener, ON) is listed and judging by this company's website, it seems as though they may be speaking proactively regarding the impact of developments like this; and then there's the like of Stewart Elkins, representing iTrans Consulting (Richmond Hill, ON), who (once again just by going by their company's website) appears to be speaking in favour of the development. Folks, you need to jump on the phones again because the hired guns are on top of this one!

We've got to nip this trend in the bud...

...because the drive-through-happy PAC is recommending yet another drive-through, though this one's located in the sub-urbs so I don't believe it will meet much opposition. The funny thing about this recommendation is that the drive-through is for a financial institituon. Is there nothing that people won't get out of their cars to do? Not even the Tim Horton's across the street from this proposed location has a drive-through, and we all know how much Timmy-fans like staying in their cars while buying coffee.

Official Plan Review

PAC has received administrations Official Plan Review report #17 and is forwarding it along to council tonight, so the process is rumbling along as predicted. Reading through the document one thing struck me as being contradictory. In it, Chris Aspila, the Official Plan Review (OPR) Project Manager states that "Windsor's economy is restructuring away from heavy manufacturing..." and from everything that we are experiencing with our declining automotive industry as well as the supporting Tool and Die businesses closing up shop, we would be fools to disagree with him.

Supporting documents (foundation studies) provided by the Planning department include i) 25 year Population and Housing Projections, and ii) 20 year Employment Projections and Employment Land Needs Analyses, which were initiated due to provincial requirements during every Official Plan 5 year review. Now, I have yet to read through these documents, (they are sitting on my bedside table as we speak) however, there seems to be a focus on our supposed lack of shovel-ready industrial land.

"In order to enhance Windsor's competitiveness in attracting future investment, it will be important to ensure that a good supply of serviced vacant employment land is available through the current 20 year planning period. Given the relatively limited amount of uncommitted high-quality serviced employment lands available in Windsor at present, it will be particularly important for the City of Windsor to move forward with the development of Secondary Plans and servicing of employment lands in the Sandwich South Planning District."(which is essentially the Annexed Lands near the airport)

Considering the rate at which we have businesses occupying serviced industrial properties closing up within the city already, and our "supposed" focus of moving away from heavy industrial towards a more knowledge-based local economy, these plans don't make a heck of a lot of sense. They also want to provide land for "office park development" when our downtown office vacancy is sky-high. So, why would we "invest" in supplying this expensive infrastructure to what is predominantly agricultural land if "Windsor's economy is restructuring away from heavy manufacturing..."?

It's not too late for everyone to get their comments into the planning department for compilation of the Official Plan Review. So, if this focus doesn't sit well with you either, please let them know by dialling 311 or visiting the official OPR website.

Let's Co-operate

If ever there was a time and a place to look at re-localizing economic activity, it would be - here and now. This past week two more Windsor manufacturers called it quits. We lost another 600 automotive sector jobs and even worse will be the loss of the gel-caps jobs that represented some of our precious economic diversity.

Both companies are owned by corporations outside of the Windsor/Essex region. Neither corporation has any reason to consider the impact moving these operations will have on our city/region or the people that will be hurt. It’s not that these plants didn’t make money, or the quality of their work was anything but top-notch. The problem was they weren’t making enough money. And that is unfair. But it will continue as long as we rely on big corporations to drive our economy. Somehow we need to take control of the way we work and earn, spend and invest. We need to keep our money and company profits in this region.

In the course of last weeks comments, urbane cyclist asked, “What do we do about it (our economy) as a municipality? Because that is the level that scaledown is working at, that is the level that we can impose solutions.”

The easiest local economic system I could see us starting around here would be a series of co-ops. This would allow farmers, artisans, trades people and others an opportunity to share the cost of running their business with their customers. This kind of set-up is ideal because the customers and the business operators will develop the kind of relationships that used to exist before the big-box when the Main Street merchants knew their customers and worked hard to make sure they were satisfied and the customers felt appreciated. Those relationships are missing in our world today. You go to a big-box and there is no personal service. The employees are anonymous and the people that come in are just customers/consumers. Scaling back our economic world is not much different from our built world. We really don't connect with people anymore in our day-to-day because everything is so out of proportion to the individual. We need to make that connection, to work together to raise ourselves up again.

A co-operative economy would just be the beginning. As the individual businesses grew they could set-up on their own and expand and reinvest in themselves and the community. A co-op would foster the start-ups and after a while we could have a thriving local economy that, if supplemented with some new large corporate investments would make Windsor/Essex a great place to live and work again.

Congratulations to St. Clair Students

I’d just like to highlight a Windsor Star story and congratulate the St. Clair College, Interior Design Students on their fantastic work. These students beat out some very high-caliber schools to finish first and third out of a field of 45 schools (Canada, U.S. and England) each school was represented by three teams.

This just further demonstrates the talent of our young people and the quality of our post-secondary institutions.

1st Place
Second Year Students
Jeff Wortley, Megan Whittal and Tammy Bourke

3rd Place
Third Year Students
Cassandra Kotva and Magda Trzos

Only the first three places were reported but St. Clair's other entry was submitted by:
Third year students
Sheila Golez, Curtis Linder and Brooke Simon

For more information on the competition go to http://www.idec.org/

P.S. I had an image of the winning entry but blogger is not letting me upload.

The Arts Part 1: Introduction and Funding

I would like to begin with a disclaimer: I know very little of the history of Windsor's Arts Scene, my comments simply as an outside observer and are meant to provoke discussion vs. being a judgement on our arts groups.

My first experience with an arts Incubator was in Kalamazoo, Michigan where I was sent by the International Downtown Association to look at the downtown as a model for Windsor. Its an idea that seems to not be able to gain any traction in Windsor.

In London Ontario they have the Arts Program or TAP, although it is in financial difficulties you have to admire the ambition of the project. Conversion of a 15,000 ft2 bldg with a 100 seat theater. The Arts Program provides

- Exhibition space
- Performance Areas
- Educational Arts Program
- Arts Business Skills
- Mentorship Opportunities
- Arts Related programs
- Artist Studio's

Funded with a 2 year trillium grant of $100,000 in the year 2000 and another $130,000 in the year 2002 Trillium still obtains $13,000-$15,000 in city grants each year which are used to pay its property taxes. (Funding to be discussed on Tuesday)

The only comparables I'm aware of in Windsor are Artcite and the Arts Council office located in Walkerville with about 2000 feet of exhibition space between them. This is not a "jab" at Windsor, it's a contrast in what is possible. Remember if it exists elsewhere, you can't argue that its not possible here.

We have the vacant buildings for something like this. We can talk about the Pelissier Street parking garage main floor, the recently opened gallery by Christian Aldo in a creative partnership with a building owner that sees vacant bldgs made attractive.

There is so much to talk about but unfortunately today I only have time for the intro. This is where the blogging community comes in...

Next in the series are the parts entitled "The Arts mean Business" and "Funding"

After hours bars study correction

Just to correct the assertion that the closing of after hours bars was never studied. It was studied in council report 13049 and the DWBIA was denied the ability to put the issues, information and experts forward that would have prevented the current circus we see. As evidence THis letter was sent last year, I guess some councillors didnt' read this letter either.

Good Morning Councillors:
I have reviewed the Council Report 13049 regarding After Hours Clubs. As this is a “Note and File” recommendation, we were informed by the City Clerk’s Office that delegations will not be heard on the issue.

As such, the DWBIA requests that Council direct Administration to work closely with the DWBIA in researching this issue and that the DWBIA be included in the discussion from the beginning through to the end of the study.

As an FYI – the Licensing Commission met on October 9th, 2007. I was informed by a person in the Licensing Department that this meeting was open to the public, however when two of my Board Members tried to enter the meeting, they were told to leave. I was assured by Licensing that we would be involved in this process, yet this Council Report has come forward without consultation with the DWBIA.

Judith C. Veresuk
Executive Director
Downtown Windsor Business Improvement

Bringing Mom and Dad back into the city

For the core of a city to be revitalized, the base assumption is that the residential component must be one of the first aspects of the areas land use that must be strengthened.

This is a great place to start, because without people you have no business nor culture. People are at the centre of everything the notion of "city" stands for. it is the obvious place to begin. However, is the city the place for children?

People move to the suburbs (or so they say) because they feel it is in the best interest of the children. More green space to play ball as opposed to asphalt, hopscotch without worrying about cars, and clean, fresh, country-esque air. Since the rise of Levittown, NY, the first modern "subdivision", this was a major draw for young families. With the ever-increasing flow of families from the core to the suburbs, the school system has reactively moved their operations to reflect this trend.

Schools make 'burbs' place to be
The Ottawa Citizen
Monday, February 04, 2008

Communities need basic amenities to survive. A successful neighbourhood must have such things as grocery stores,churches, restaurants, hardware stores, medical facilities and schools to prosper.

More and more, our downtown neighbourhoods are being hollowed out of the basic necessities. And increasingly to live downtown, one must drive to the suburbs to get a plant, a stick of wood or a bolt. Living downtown is supposed to be a more pedestrian-oriented, environmental way of living. However, core dwellers appearto need cars to survive as vital businesses depart to the suburbs. The necessities of downtown are becoming caffeine and sushi rather than hammers and nails.

So too are demographics changing our urban landscape. The dominant post-war baby-boom generation has had its children so, in older neighbourhoods, schools are emptying. It is beginning at the elementary level now and will follow a relentless path through high school and university.

In fact, suburban schools are weathering the demographic onslaught best. That's because families, looking for inexpensive housing and a bit of green in which children can play, opted for the suburbs. That said, the decision to live in suburbs in not the most environmentally sensitive one. Suburbs create long commutes and promote sprawl -- the ultimate desecration of the land by paving it.

Ottawa's official plan is trying to contain growth within an urban boundary beyond which development cannot pass. The city is actively encouraging intensive development in the core areas to piggyback on existing services inexpensively and to cut environmentally unfriendly long commutes. But for intensification to succeed, to encourage families to live and work in the core, there must be the basic amenities of life -- including schools.

Our school boards are not in the urban-planning business. No, they need to educate young people well and efficiently. There is no money to maintain mostly empty schools downtown. Schools must remain open where they are needed and those institutions appear to be in the suburbs. It would be nice to keep a school or two open downtown for community purposes if that is possible. However, neither school boards nor cities are exactly flush with cash so this might be impossible.

The upside to this is that closing schools and decreasing enrolment is likely to make education less expensive. That will free funds for more pressing requirements in society. All this sad news about downtown schools comes as Statistics Canada released a report showing that car ridership continues to increase in Canada.

So at a time when the city would like people to move downtown, the future of our society, children, are being raised inthe suburbs. And with few schools to attend downtown, they are likely to stay there.

Is it fair to say that we will not be attracting families to our core in the foreseeable future? With childhood obesity rates attributed to a sedentary lifestyle that has been linked to suburban sprawl and over reliance on the automobile, could it not be considered "child abuse" for Windsor to not plan for attracting families to our core.

Just as the community has supported the University in their decision not to build their engineering campus downtown by stating that it is not within the mandate of that institution to revitalize a district, it is also not within the mandate of the other educational institutions either. Yet, with our school boards following the people out to the suburbs they have profoundly affected the health of of our communities as well as their students. While they may not have the responsibility of resurrecting a district, they have a responsibility to their students.

At what point do we determine that the school boards must play a proactive role in determining the physical layout of our community by cooperating in master plans as developed by our planning department? At what point do we transfer more of the control in determining the success of our communities from the school board trustees who merely follow the real estate developers over to our trained professionals who knows how to guide them?