On July 8th, City Council was presented a report on the state of residential "rural" roads in our City (Council discussion is here starting at 20:54 in the agenda tab) and local improvement initiatives that could bring these roads up to standard. With approximately 77km of roadways that are "sub-standard" and estimate of $400 million … Continue reading Windsor Research Project: Local Improvement

Anyone who says they know what the future holds is trying to tell you a bill of good but one thing that we don't spend a lot of time thinking about where we have come from. Of course plenty of ink has been spilled on the downfall (and revival) of the manufacturing sector the state … Continue reading Windsor Research Project: Economic Transformation

The last week was a pretty good one for me. ProsperUs released it's baseline neighbourhood report, a report that I played a major role in drafting. I got to sit and talk to Paul Schmitz for a couple of hours. He has some great stories about the Obama's that are pretty cool to hear. It … Continue reading A Sidebar: Mental Health

This past week an initial update service delivery plan was published by Transit Windsor along with a really good tool to explore the proposed routes and provide feedback. Despite some strange media coverage that saw push back on social media this is a huge step forward for our community and there are a number items … Continue reading Windsor Research Project – Wheels on the Bus

A couple of weeks ago, the Government of Canada announced the winners of our country's first Smart Cities Challenge. Windsor-Essex did have a proposal that unfortunately didn't make it through the initial stages of the challenges. I was apart of that process, a lot of hard work went into it and the idea was there, … Continue reading The Windsor Research Project: Are we Smart Enough?

Note this post is slightly more meandering and personal than previous posts in this series, but it does dig into data as well. In a society that is increasingly socially isolated and tribal in nature, the family unit remains a constant. For our region, the changing nature of the family unit may be creating additional … Continue reading The Windsor Research Project- Family Matters

For a while, I have been interested in Development Charges and their impacts on growth. The announcement that the Greater Essex County District School Board was reviewing their education development charges (EDC) was certainly interesting, partially because I didn't know that they existed. Originally set back in 2014, the charge of $305 per residential unit … Continue reading School Board Stuff: Educational Development Charges

Capital Budget First thing I have noticed is that it is a 7 year budget compared to the 6 year budget proposed in 2018 and 5 Year in 2017. I don't recall the shift to a 10 year plan that is coming but I think it is a good thing in principle. The items up … Continue reading 2019 City of Windsor Budget Hot-Take Part 2: Capital

According to the Mayor and Administration news conference (some audio issues for the first few minutes) there are two big items that are missing from the budget documents. Due to the timing of the budget along with council's strategic planning session tree trimming and economic development are not included and currently have a largely unspecified … Continue reading 2019 City of Windsor Budget Hot Take

The latest bugaboo in Windsor is around a wetland/woodlot/clumps of trees in Ward 10 ie. the South Cameron Woodlot and the surrounding lands. Just prior to the weekend the Mayor Dilkens celebrated the province removing the significant woodland/wetland designation, which would in theory allow for development. Social media has been a flutter with discussion condemning … Continue reading Out to the Woodlot…