unimaginative2
Senior Member
Province is quite capable of driving the Toronto engine
JOHN BARBER
October 2, 2007
Everybody complains that cities are "the creatures of the province" even as they boast that cities are "the engines of the economy" - a delightful contradiction currently inspiring whole new hives of academic expertise.
Yesterday, Queen's University economist Thomas Courchene, doyen of federal-provincial disputation, presented his recipe for radical, urban-friendly devolution for the second time to an influential Toronto audience. He is so keen on the prospect of federal-level change he worries the provinces will be left out of the emerging new game altogether. The result will be "hourglass federalism," according to Prof. Courchene, with all the action occurring in Ottawa at the top and cities at the bottom.
That would solve the "cities as creatures" problem. But what if it isn't a problem at all? Canadian cities have done pretty well in their thralldom to the provinces - despite general federal neglect. And, not to be excessively partisan nor disrespectful to conventional wisdom, recent actions of the Ontario government make a strong case that Canadian provinces, far from being automatic obstacles, are ideally constituted to meet the challenge of governing large urban regions in the 21st century.
This heterodox notion, which recalls the wisdom of older experts, was most recently updated in a provocative paper by Andrew Sancton of the University of Western Ontario. While the hives buzz with talk of European-style "subsidiarity," national urban policy and new "governance structures," Prof. Sancton points out that the actual Ontario government has quietly implemented almost all the policies the quasi-constitutional reforms aim indirectly to achieve.
The most dramatic example is the Toronto region greenbelt, a radical innovation that instantly and irreversibly emplaced the Holy Grail of regionalism: a strict legal limit on outward growth, based on ecological principles rather than the usual calculus of municipal interests. In another fell swoop, the government passed legislation demanding significantly higher population densities in all municipalities circled by the new border. More recently, it established a transportation authority to deal with the other big issue that demands action at the regional scale.
Prof. Sancton marvels at the lack of controversy generated by the firm new borders and distinctive Toronto-region zoning laws. He suggests that if the province had decided to establish a regional council in 2003 to deal with such matters - rather than deciding, as it did, to enact sound regional policy on its own authority - we would probably still be arguing about its boundaries four years later.
"In a very real way," he writes in the current issue of Plan Canada magazine, "the government of Ontario is now acting as the strategic planning authority for the territory of the ... city region."
His conclusion is that regional government is unnecessary. "It is the government of Ontario that is in charge - and there is no cause for alarm."
The point is not that the McGuinty gang is all-knowing. Its best policies are still untested and some are downright dubious. The point is that all the tools for dealing with the challenges of large-scale 21st century urbanism are ready at hand in Ontario - and now visibly in action.
Canadian city-regions, those oft-remarked "engines," have few advantages more important than their vassalage to governments that enjoy the clear authority to enforce regional co-operation. There is no equivalent to our system in the United States, where constitutional gridlock truly does impair the functioning of urban regions.
U.S. cities are enslaved by their autonomy. But when they get what they need, creatures can thrive.
jbarber@globeandmail.com
JOHN BARBER
October 2, 2007
Everybody complains that cities are "the creatures of the province" even as they boast that cities are "the engines of the economy" - a delightful contradiction currently inspiring whole new hives of academic expertise.
Yesterday, Queen's University economist Thomas Courchene, doyen of federal-provincial disputation, presented his recipe for radical, urban-friendly devolution for the second time to an influential Toronto audience. He is so keen on the prospect of federal-level change he worries the provinces will be left out of the emerging new game altogether. The result will be "hourglass federalism," according to Prof. Courchene, with all the action occurring in Ottawa at the top and cities at the bottom.
That would solve the "cities as creatures" problem. But what if it isn't a problem at all? Canadian cities have done pretty well in their thralldom to the provinces - despite general federal neglect. And, not to be excessively partisan nor disrespectful to conventional wisdom, recent actions of the Ontario government make a strong case that Canadian provinces, far from being automatic obstacles, are ideally constituted to meet the challenge of governing large urban regions in the 21st century.
This heterodox notion, which recalls the wisdom of older experts, was most recently updated in a provocative paper by Andrew Sancton of the University of Western Ontario. While the hives buzz with talk of European-style "subsidiarity," national urban policy and new "governance structures," Prof. Sancton points out that the actual Ontario government has quietly implemented almost all the policies the quasi-constitutional reforms aim indirectly to achieve.
The most dramatic example is the Toronto region greenbelt, a radical innovation that instantly and irreversibly emplaced the Holy Grail of regionalism: a strict legal limit on outward growth, based on ecological principles rather than the usual calculus of municipal interests. In another fell swoop, the government passed legislation demanding significantly higher population densities in all municipalities circled by the new border. More recently, it established a transportation authority to deal with the other big issue that demands action at the regional scale.
Prof. Sancton marvels at the lack of controversy generated by the firm new borders and distinctive Toronto-region zoning laws. He suggests that if the province had decided to establish a regional council in 2003 to deal with such matters - rather than deciding, as it did, to enact sound regional policy on its own authority - we would probably still be arguing about its boundaries four years later.
"In a very real way," he writes in the current issue of Plan Canada magazine, "the government of Ontario is now acting as the strategic planning authority for the territory of the ... city region."
His conclusion is that regional government is unnecessary. "It is the government of Ontario that is in charge - and there is no cause for alarm."
The point is not that the McGuinty gang is all-knowing. Its best policies are still untested and some are downright dubious. The point is that all the tools for dealing with the challenges of large-scale 21st century urbanism are ready at hand in Ontario - and now visibly in action.
Canadian city-regions, those oft-remarked "engines," have few advantages more important than their vassalage to governments that enjoy the clear authority to enforce regional co-operation. There is no equivalent to our system in the United States, where constitutional gridlock truly does impair the functioning of urban regions.
U.S. cities are enslaved by their autonomy. But when they get what they need, creatures can thrive.
jbarber@globeandmail.com
