Governments have systematically stripped away the character of neighbourhoods

Sidewalks in commercial districts should be privatized to retire city debt, to perk up street life and city neighbourhoods and to free city businesses from the tangle of red tape that dampens their bottom line.  Full story »

The idea that country folk live a better, happier existence than we benighted slaves to the metropolis is a persistent myths of modern life.

Ah, for the country life.

When a new study this week said that people in small towns were happier with their quality of life than city dwellers, the big-city guy sipping his cappuccino at Bar Italia would not even have raised a sleek eyebrow. He would have thought, “But of course.”  Full story »

An Obama presidency will not end anti-Americanism. 
My American friends believe that, after Barack Obama becomes president, America will once again be loved around the world. They are wishful thinkers.  Full story »

A devastating new report from Canada's Senate – Beyond Freefall: Halting Rural Poverty – shows how hopelessly dependant, dysfunctional and uneconomic rural Canada has become.  Full story »

Charlottetown Mayor Clifford Lee wants to beautify his city. So does Toronto Mayor David Miller, Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan and literally hundreds of other mayors across Canada who tout beautification campaigns for their towns and cities, often with the sponsorship of the Canada Lands Company, a federal Crown corporation that's big on beautification.  Full story »

To combat rising gun crime in Toronto, Mayor David Miller believes young hoodlums need positive role models. Good idea. To set an example, the Mayor should choose a good role model for himself: Rudy Giuliani.  Full story »

Two years after he was elected to office on a pledge to clean up government, Toronto Mayor David Miller continues to preside over a corrupt administration. This corruption is not limited to the high-profile cases for which Toronto is making a name for itself. Petty corruption is the stuff of daily life at city hall.  Full story »

'She wanted to say something but she was afraid her house might get torched," one neighbour told me, referring to a friend who was afraid to speak up at a neighborhood meeting over a proposed addition to a local private school.

"It was a lynching," another neighbour explained when I asked him why he didn't ask the question he had gone to the meeting to ask. "Who wants to subject himself to that?"  Full story »

Great industrial cities have historically hosted world's fairs and world's fairs have augmented these cities' greatness. The first true world's fair, London's Great Exposition of 1851, created the Crystal Palace and attracted six million visitors. The Chicago World's Fair of 1893 brought us Ferris's Wheel, the 1889 Paris World's Fair Eiffel's Tower. The Chicago World's Fair of 1934 and the New York World's Fair of 1939, were also landmark, iconic events.  Full story »

Toronto is a drab city. Its residents make it so. Frank Gehry is among the world's best architects, certainly he is the world's most celebrated, following his soaring success in building Spain's Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. But he's not good enough for many at the Grange, the Toronto neighbourhood in which he grew up and site of a $200-million Art Gallery of Ontario renovation.  Full story »