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…

The past week or so has been interesting, as the direction of the City has been shaped for next 4 years. It began with a "strategic planning" meeting on Tuesday where City Councillors outlined their priorities for the term as part of the second fifth of the City's 20 Year Strategic Plan. To my embarrassment, … Continue reading Priorities, Opportunity Cost and Courage

Last week (Jan 23) the Brooksfield Institute put out a report that outlined wage and employment in Tech in CMAs across Canada. Windsor came out of the report ranked with the highest wage gaps between men and women in Canada. On January 30th a rebuttal emerged. Now I have a lot of respect for Yvonne … Continue reading On Tech Wages, YQG Perception and Leadership

Where are People in Windsor-Essex? As was mentioned earlier in a previous post, there is a lack of literature on mid-size Canadian cities and urban/sprawl issues which creates challenges in finding comparative context for our community. The vast majority of literature, research and best practices on sprawl focus on large urban centres. Large cities are home to … Continue reading The Windsor Research Project – Where are the People?

A tweet by former Councilor Bill Marra caught my attention. https://twitter.com/biagiobillmarra/status/1075206400429547520 As I responded when I retweeted his tweet, LRT should be considered but it needs to be done in the context of other possible corridor options like BRT, a street car or as a part of an traditional corridor with enhanced bus service and … Continue reading University Ave. Light Rail?