Participatory budgeting originated in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1989. It’s driven by core principles such as democracy, equity, community, education, and transparency. Thousands of citizens assemble in Porto Alegre each year to elect delegates to represent each city district, prioritize demands, serve on the Municipal Council of the Budget, and produce a binding municipal budget. Proponents of participatory budgeting say that because people with the greatest needs play a larger role in the decision-making process, spending decisions tend to redistribute resources to communities in need. In Porto Alegre, for example, there has been a marked increase in funding for badly-needed sanitary sewer projects and schools. Participatory budgeting is used in about 140 municipalities in Brazil as well as towns and cities in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, India and Africa. It is used for municipal school, university, and public housing budgets.

Several Canadian municipalities have also used the process: Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) allows its tenants to participate in decision-making on local, neighbourhood and city-wide spending priorities. TCHC’s participatory budgeting process first took place in 2001, when tenants were asked to help decide how to spend $9 million per year (13.5% of TCHC’s budget); 237 local capital projects were funded. In Guelph, residents allocate a small portion of the City’s budget through the Guelph Neighbourhood Support Coalition. Since 1999, neighbourhood groups have been sharing and redistributing resources for local community projects, including recreation programs, youth centres, and physical improvements to community facilities. In 2005 some 10,000 people participated in the process and 460 events and programs were funded.

In a review of participatory budgeting efforts in Canadian cities, Daniel Chavez and Einar Braathen outline several challenges for participatory budgeting in Canada: the fact that Canadians are extremely diverse in language and culture, the small scale of these efforts so far, the limited power of citizens in the process, the fact that none of them have fundamentally changed their cities’ political systems or created a more progressive social agenda, and the potential for the process to become co-opted by politicians.

City of Calgary Budget planning website

Other efforts at participatory processes in budget planning have included the Cities ofToronto, Calgary and Vancouver. In each case municipal officials encouraged citizens to get involved in the City’s budget planning. For the 2004 City of Toronto budget, Mayor David Miller initiated the Listening to Toronto consultations. A City Budget Community Workbook was posted on the website and seven public sessions were held. This wasn’t participatory budgeting (participants didn’t help formulate priorities that were then adopted); in a process similar to integrating feedback from public meetings, participants’ ideas were used to guide City Council during the drafting of the budget.

In February 2011, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nehshi opened up the budget planning process to the public through a citywide engagement process. In “Our City. Our Budget. Our Future.” the City aimed to help people feel like they were part of the process, make the budgetary process clearer by simplifying communication from city staff, and gather ideas on the budget. Their online budgeting tool allowed users to see how much each department currently spent, and what an increase or decrease in areas like transportation or safety would look like. The City heard from 24,000 people during this process.

“We used to do things like open houses and town halls when we had those discussions. And what we learned this time around is that the open houses and the town halls are the most expensive and least successful part of the process.”– Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi

Again, citizens’ ideas were considered in drafting the budget, which was adopted in November 2011. The new three-year budget resulted in property tax rate increases of 6.0% in 2012, 5.7% in 2013 and 6.1% in 2014 and included (among other things) additional funding of $1 million for Calgary Transit, a reserve fund of $3.5 million for snow clearing in 2013 and 2014, a $225,000 increase to the Calgary Arts Development Authority.

A screen shot from the City of Vancouver Budget Allocator

The City of Vancouver followed suit this year, encouraging citizens to get involved in the 2012 budget process. In addition to attending public meetings and completing an online survey on budget priorities, a section of the City’s website lets users to download a primer explaining how the budget works (how the city raises funds, what percentage of taxes goes to pay for utilities, fire and police services, etc.). The interactive tool lets them “be Councillor for a day, see what it costs to run a city.” This simple tool gives you options to remain at the current level of funding or to increase or decrease funding levels in each area. When you’ve finished making your budget, the Budget Allocator tells you whether you have a surplus or a deficit, and how much you would have to raise taxes to cover the increased costs. You can submit your budget, along with the reasons for your choices, directly to city staff: if you’re a local, go to www.talkvancouver.com/Budget 2012 before February 10th to have your say.

In short, there are varying levels of participation in budget processes, from consultation to surveys to participatory budgeting. In addition to various levels of power for the participants, the educational aspects differ as well: one could argue that while Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver have made strides in educating the public on the budgetary process, they stop short of allowing residents to learn how to prioritize spending objectives and vote on them. Nevertheless, Canadians in other municipalities might want to find out how their budget works, when their budget is up for adoption and what the process is for citizen involvement. With so many online and interactive ways to get involved, there seem to be many opportunities to inform and involve communities that may not participate otherwise: young adults, immigrant groups, seniors living in facilities, etc. High school teachers, college and university professor could use the online budgeting tools in civics, planning, political science, or urban studies courses. Immigrant groups could organize online participation at a community event. Residents and health care support workers could help seniors participate. If your municipality doesn’t currently encourage participation in the city budget process, ask your councillor to suggest the idea.

Katherine Ashenburg’s “Do Vancouver men suck?” (published on that most optimistic of dates, January 1, 2012) tears apart the West Coast male, citing passivity, lack of career motivation, over-attention to fitness activities like the Grouse Grind, and teenage fashion sense among the city’s singles. (To be fair, Vancouver’s third-place finish on the worst-dressed cities list can be attributed as much to women as men: Lululemon yoga pants are as common as the fleece-and-hiking-boots combo in this city.) Ashenburg writes, “The Grind is indeed a metaphor for the single life in Vancouver–daunting, strenuous, semi-natural, and so not romantic.”

As many readers commented, Vancouver men might be less likely to approach women, flirt with them, or assist them with daily activities like carrying heavy packages…but Vancouver women are also notoriously cold, treating harmless social advances as acts of harrassment. Ashenburg’s article opened with the tableau of a group of women bitching about the crappiness of men in this city, illustrating the unapproachable social characteristics that seem to evoke bitterness in the males of the species. One commenter, fedupvancouverguy, pointed out the mismatch between the overly-materialistic women portrayed in the article, who refuse to look past the scruffy, laid-back exterior that is the norm in a city where relentless pursuit of money is not the end goal: “The guys dressed in jeans and scuffed shoes sitting at the longbar at Joeys at 2 pm on a Tuesday might be losers, but there’s just as good a chance that they’re mining-industry guys discussing yet another deal to sell their find or project to a bigger firm for big, big money. Welcome to Vancouver.”

Whether or not readers agree with Ashenburg’s portrayal of the masculine, responses to the article consistently point out the social differences between Vancouver and international cities, notably a painfully strained cultural norm where cliquey behaviour and closed responses make it clear that your attempts at friendliness are going nowhere. VanMag’s editors published one reader response to Ashenburg’s article: Jorge Amigo’s “Do Vancouver women suck?” (January 9, 2012) Amigo cites the numerous attempts he’s made at conversation with women over the past five years. Whether on the bus, the beach, the park, Vancouver women have returned his friendly comments with panic, coldness, and even outright rudeness. Numerous responses confirmed his suspicions: Vancouver women find random friendliness threatening, because inevitably they’ve been approached/trapped in weird conversations/followed home/groped by men they’ve met in public settings. However, what is interesting is that again, nobody is questioning that this is the norm in Vancouver. Are female residents of other cities, like Toronto, New York, or London, any less likely to have experienced random creepiness? Having lived in many different cities, I’d say that women’s fear of being approached by strange men is pretty universal. But somehow in these other cities, men and women flirt, ask each other out, and date…and the crux of Richmond’s, Ashenburg’s and Amigo’s articles is that, outside of the random creepy advances that exist in every city around the world, normal conversation and friendliness between the sexes are much more constrained in Vancouver. This applies to people trying to make friends here as well: numerous responses highlighted the cliquey behaviour of those who were born and raised here, already have their group of friends, and don’t want to add any outsiders to their close-knit group.

In a city renowned for its banal social scene and steeped in social media, have men and women forgotten how to actually talk to each other? If this weren’t the case, dating and relationship coach Ronald Lee would have no clients. But there is hope in another cliché: according to Amigo, the only places women let down their guard a little is in the ubiquitous coffee shop. There, a woman might “temporarily defrost her Vancouver ice-wall” and “respond normally when you ask to borrow a chair, offer a friendly nod when you comment on the amazingness of the shoes she’s wearing, poke fun at your accent, and appreciate your healthy banter.” While it seems to be acknowledged that there’s something in the water out west that kills mojo, more efforts at friendliness would seem to be the solution. As one of Ashenburg’s female interview subjects stated about the single scene in Vancouver, “Men need to take more risks and women need to shut up [about how crap men are].”

The mayors cite increased traffic levels and the 19.6 percent jump in transit ridership from June 2010 to July 2011 (due to transportation mode shifts during the Olympics) as proof that the region is overdue for transit improvements. 2011-2012 is shaping up to be another record year. They also reflect on the vision of previous leaders, who in 1980 struggled with the concept of rapid transit lines but eventually decided in favour of them. Clearly, they see themselves in sync with the region’s early strides towards sustainability.

“We have had the debate. Now we must move from words to deeds. The decision we make on Friday will forge the path Greater Vancouver so badly needs. Passing the 2012 Supplemental Plan is the right decision for Metro Vancouver’s transportation system, economy, and future livability.” –Dianne Watts, Peter Fassbender, Richard Walton, Gregor Robertson, Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, Greg Moore, and Richard Stewart

However, the municipalities of Burnaby, Richmond, the City of North Vancouver, Delta, and Langley Township have said they will probably vote against the plan. This is surprising considering TransLink’s extensive public consultation during the creation of Moving Forward showed that 80% of those consulted agreed with the proposed improvements and 75% said the Evergreen Line was important in reaching the goals outlined in Transport 2040, the regional transportation strategy. It’s also surprising considering Burnaby and Richmond have both been big winners in terms of transit infrastructure: the three existing LRT lines have paid off for them. With municipal elections a mere five weeks away (November 16th), the stakes are high; yet the stakes for the region have never been higher.

Update: The Mayors’ Council voted to support the Moving Forward Plan with 70% support from its 22 members.

A sign in Portland's Pearl District

Stereotypes of urban groups are well-known: hipsters, yuppies, DINKs, soccer moms. Writers exaggerate them for comic effect: we’re all familiar with the suburban family (starting way back with Leave it to Beaver), the glamorous single girls (Sex in the City), and the teen misfits (Degrassi, Glee). Urban cultures are also contrasted: in Hot in Cleveland, four L.A. women decide to move to Cleveland when the local men show a lot of interest in them. In real life, there’s practically a cultural divide between the urban lifestyles of Toronto and Vancouver, or New York and L.A.

Portland can be characterized as a West Coast city, with its attention to local food, emphasis on physical activity, and enormous variety of independent retailers. You’ve all seen the video clip by now: a couple of hipsters grill a waitress about just how local their chicken is, and are presented with every minute detail of their dinner’s upbringing, habitat size and even its name. The series Portlandia has become somewhat of a cult classic in its portrayal of overzealous hipster culture: it parodies fixi bikes, facial hair, animal protection, and independent bookstores. My first visit to Portland occurred last week, before I’d seen a single episode of the show. So how do Portlanders measure up to their stereotypes?

Many have written about Portland’s devotion to public transit and urban planning initiatives, including the urban growth boundary adopted in 1976. To the tome of articles written on this topic, I have nothing more to add: I also found travelling in Portland quite easy thanks to the streetcar, which extends to the northwest neighbourhood where I was staying, and the MAX LRT lines. I could walk to the Pearl District, home to many independent shops including the legendary Powell’s Books. But I suspect that I got to know Portland in somewhat of a unique way: through food. Specifically, gluten-free food.

Food cart "pod" downtown

Travelling with dietary restrictions can be brutal, especially if we’re talking about allergies or other life-threatening conditions, as opposed to our militant foodies in Portlandia’s pilot episode. Put a couple of these conditions together and it can be really difficult to find anything to nosh: I vividly recall planning a high school camping trip with a vegetarian, a celiac, and a dairy allergic among our party of six. Now, in Vancouver there’s no shortage of restaurants catering to every dietary need (or people with dietary needs). Recently, my husband and I went to a gluten-free dinner at Whole Foods to learn recipes that he can safely eat. There, we met two women who blog on gluten-free restaurants and products in Vancouver (glutenfree-vancouver.blogspot.com). Based on this experience, we decided to search for a similar website on Portland. And there it was: Gluten Free Portland (www.glutenfreeportland.org). Thanks to their restaurant list and Google maps, we were able to find places all over the city that met my husband’s celiac needs: in fact, we wanted to try the restaurants so much that we actually explored neighbourhoods that we probably wouldn’t have, including the Hawthorne District and the Belmont area.

Local winery

The neighbourhoods are Portland, with main streets full of shops, restaurants, and food carts that have more or less become permanent installations: one coffee cart had an attached seating area with stools and a corrugated plastic roof. There were even “pods” of food carts with four or five vendors in a row. We feasted on fried yucca and quinoa-breaded shrimp, drank hazelnut milk, and tasted the local wines. These folks do, indeed, take their food seriously. One restaurant had a cheese menu as extensive than their wine list, mostly sourced from Oregon dairies.

Within 40 minutes of Portland, wineries share the land with hazelnut orchards, grazing horses and alpacas, corn fields, and dairy farms. I doubt that any of this is an accident: the Portland/Multnomah Food Policy Council runs immigrant farmer workshops, completed an inventory of city-owned land available for urban agriculture, awarded Portland State University $125,000 to initiate its Learning Garden Laboratory, and addressed food security in Lents with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

So is Portland, in fact, Portlandia? Well…yes. At one point, two bearded men in their mid-20s strode towards each other on Belmont, and one said to the other, “Hey man, what it is,” despite the fact that it is not 1971. (My husband and I burst out laughing, as we strode out of yet another gluten-free bakery). The same urban stereotypes can be found in Vancouver, Toronto, London, and Melbourne, but Portlandia writers really know their subject material!

Song blames the prevalence of that Kits classic, “unnamed local brand” yoga pants, as the reason for her choice. Isn’t it interesting that yoga, a practice that originated thousands of years ago as a Hindu spiritual practice in India and is studied at colleges in that country, reaches its ultimate shallowness in Vancouver, the pretty boy of Canadian cities? There’s nothing like $100 pants to center yourself in a practice whose ultimate goal is enlightenment. Wearing them for your every activity makes just as much sense as a dancer wearing tap shoes to do her grocery shopping. And insisting that they’re comfortable doesn’t do you any favours. What are you, a two-year old who insists on sleeping in his Superman costume for days on end?

Other cities on Song’s list include Seattle (#2) for trying to keep grunge alive almost 20 years after Nirvana’s Nevermind (and the picture that goes with this is hilarious), Pittsburgh (#9) for its constant sporting of Steelers/Penguins jerseys, and Ottawa (#8), the only other Canadian city included. Having experienced the 80s suits and drab colours of government town firsthand, I heartily agree with #8. Right on, Song!

Since I finished my Ph.D. this month, today was officially my last day to use my U-Pass, and a sad day it was! Long past young adulthood, my grad school status awarded me a universal transit pass since 2005; the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University started the program as a sustainability measure way back in 2003 with the cooperation of TransLink and intense student lobbying. I’ve travelled the entire region with my U-Pass: it’s taken me to North Vancouver’s Lynn Canyon, Surrey City Centre, Richmond Centre, and New Westminster Quay, all for less than $30/month. Among other things, it’s allowed me to avoid car ownership for another six years; the U-Pass and my Modo car sharing membership meet all my travel needs. The U-Pass has since spread to encompass other colleges in Metro Vancouver, and has had a major impact on transportation mode shift in the region.

U-Passes are part of a demographic swing that’s taking place among young people in Canada and the US. Unbelievable as it may seem in countries that have espoused driving and highways as the only way to traverse our expansive vistas, young people are actually driving less than in previous years (check out the Transportation Research Board’s presentation on this among other demographic trends in the US). Car ownership rate has decreased among youth and young adults. Part of this shift is due to increased availability of programs like university U-Pass programs, better transit service, and growing mainstream popularity of sustainable transportation. Today’s young adults also spend more years in post-secondary institutions, take longer to enter the labour market, graduate with more debt, get married and have children later, if at all.

In honour of my last day with a U-Pass, I travelled to East Vancouver to the Pacific National Exhibition at Renfrew and Hastings. The #14 UBC/Hastings and #16 Arbutus trolley buses travel there, as well as the #135 express bus to SFU. The bus routes along Hastings Street transect the entire sociodemographic range that is Vancouver, from the suit-wearing jewellers in the stone-clad Birks store at Granville Street to the homeless and addicted masses gathering near the faded grandeur of Main Street’s Carnegie. It seemed a fitting way to end six years of unlimited, supercheap transit travel in Metro Vancouver; as of tomorrow, I’m buying full-fare tickets like everyone else.

Until now, the city has remained in limbo in terms of building affordable housing, despite millions of dollars in contributions to its Affordable Housing Fund through density bonusing and a 20% social housing requirement for major rezonings of lands to multiunit residential use. Leaving construction of affordable homes to private developers hasn’t worked, so the city will partner with developers by providing grants and land in exchange for social and supportive units. The city will also lever its land resources and capital projects against funding from provincial and federal governments. The plan also calls for the city to approve more laneway housing and secondary suites. New affordable rental units have been achieved recently through the City’s Short Term Incentives for Rental Housing (STIR) initiative.

Like many municipalities tired of playing chicken with upper levels of government, Vancouver now has its foot firmly on the accelerator. The housing affordability crisis in Canada has reached ridiculous proportions, but we’re still working on the national affordable housing strategy (Bill-C-304), which passed third reading in the House of Commons and is now under Senate consideration. Industry warnings of a housing market collapse have been circulated. And yet, the price of renting has increased much slower than the price of ownership over the past twenty years, as Canadian Business illustrated recently (“Rental Complex”, July 14, 2011). This article, the latest in a series of pieces in the popular press exploring the follies of ownership in today’s market, exposes the increasingly doomed love affair Canadians seem to have with homeownership:

“With widespread warnings that we’re approaching the peak of the housing boom, with Canadians more indebted than ever…why aren’t more of us re-examining the math? The reasons are cultural and emotional, backed by ill-conceived public policy. This Canadian Dream is an expensive delusion. There’s never been a better time to rent.” Joanna Pachner, Canadian Business

Along with increased acceptance of renting, the fallout from the US mortgage crisis includes recognition that the suburban, single-family home is no longer in huge demand: households without kids will increase by 90% from 2010 to 2020, according to Arthur Nelson, professor of planning at the University of Utah. This means far fewer buyers than sellers for single-family housing and an increased demand for multi-family and rental housing. As demographics and attitudes towards housing shift, the City of Vancouver is once again on the leading edge of policy innovation, though the plan is not without its critics. Hopefully elements of the plan will be evaluated throughout implementation, and discussed in other municipalities, which could help accelerate Bill C-304: the absence of a national affordable housing strategy has been holding up programs and funding between all three levels of government.

During last year’s Winter Olympics, city planners decided to close the viaducts, along with several major streets downtown, for safety reasons. TransLink and municipal governments actively promoted public transit use, increased service, and encouraged walking and cycling for the Olympics’ 22-day run in February 2010. The Olympics showed City Council and local residents that traffic on the viaducts could be completely replaced by increased bus and SkyTrain service; there is now a serious proposal underway to tear down the viaducts, which many consider a physical barrier to East Vancouver.

Georgia Viaduct: street view

Vancouver Director of Planning Brent Toderian and city engineer Jerry Dobrovolny recently released a report stating that the number of heavy trucks using the viaducts is now half of what it was in 1996. In the past decade, planners have also introduced key initiatives encouraging trips made downtown by cycling, walking and transit, and discouraging driving trips. The viaducts are now responsible for about 20 percent of trips into the downtown peninsula, but Toderian says this percentage will decrease even more as more people switch to the sustainable modes. Toderian and Dobrovolny are requesting that City Council continue analysis, beginning with public consultations in 2012, and including an Eastern Core Strategy with detailed land use and transportation options for the viaducts, recommendations on planning principles and policy directions. What a fantastic, and long-lasting, insight from the Olympics!

Many other cities have removed freeways in recent years, as I wrote in an earlier post. New York City agencies are currently considering tearing down the Sheridan Expressway, a 1.25-mile structure that is considered a barrier to the Bronx River. The Sheridan carries about 35,000 vehicles per day. It took 60 years, but post-war innovations to planning problems are finally giving way to new–or should I say, old–solutions.

Vancouver’s farmers markets are great for trying artisan breads, organic meats and gorgeous mustard greens, but like everything in this city, they’re expensive. This summer, several Neighbourhood Houses in Vancouver have partnered with local food security groups to offer pocket farmers’ markets in areas known as “food deserts”. Trout Lake, south of 12th Avenue between Victoria Drive and Nanaimo Street, is one of these areas. The Trout Lake-Cedar Cottage Food Security Network is a non-profit group that runs pocket markets, community gardens, tasting kitchens, and workshops on how to prepare healthy food. This summer, they partnered with the Cedar Cottage Neighbourhood House to establish a year-round pocket farmers market on the third Saturday of each month at Nanaimo SkyTrain station. Interested shoppers buy $1 tokens in advance at the Neighbourhood House, and use them to buy local foods at wholesale prices. TLCC aims to supply local and organic items as much as possible. In May, TLCC expanded their program to partner with the South Vancouver Neighbourhood House: the mobile market will be held at Helping Spirit Lodge (3965 Dumfries Street) and Orchard Park (5988 Nanaimo Street) on the second Saturday of each month, and Brant Villa (2290 East 25th Avenue) and Culloden Court (1375 East 47th Avenue) on the third Saturday of each month.

The Westside Pocket Markets are hosted at Kitsilano Neighbourhood House, (2325 West 7th Avenue) every Thursday from July 7th to September 8th from 3-7pm. These markets are hosted by Society Promoting Environmental Conservation (SPEC BC), who run all sorts of fantastic urban food programs. These markets also have a voucher system, so check out their website for more details.

Another fantastic boost is Vancouver City Council’s recent decision to expand its Mobile Food Vendor program. Last year, a lucky 17 vendors were chosen to pilot the program and have been wildly successful. Vendors are selected on a points system determined by their foodsafe certification, previous street food vending experience, cart readiness, commitment to local, organic and fair trade foods, menu innovations, nutritional content, and waste reduction/green packaging. Council decided to add a further 19 vendors this year; many were profiled in the media, including CTV News (“From tacos to takoyaki”, April 4), the Georgia Straight (“Vancouver’s new food trucks off to a fabulously tasty start,” May 18), and The Globe and Mail (“Vancouver vendors serve up food a la cart”, June 10). Here’s the list of new vendors, and 2 apps to help you find them:

• Cartel Street Food: Korean tacos, west side of 500 Dunsmuir St.
• Chawalla: Indian teas, parantha (stuffed Indian flatbread), east side of 800 Howe St.
• Didi’s Greek: souvlaki, spanakopita, south side of 1700 Robson St.
• Feastro: tacos, fish and chips, Thurlow Street at West Cordova Street
• Finest at Sea: seafood, southeast corner of Robson and Hornby streets
• Gourmet Syndicate: Asian fusion, east side of 900 Burrard St.
• Kiss Kiss Banh Banh: Vietnamese subs, northwest corner of Howe and Robson streets
• Mangali: shishkabab, salads, north side of 900 West Georgia St.
• Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck: sandwiches and soups, 600 Hornby St.
• Off the Wagon: tacos, 600 Howe St.
• Osa Tako Hero: takoyaki (octopus balls), south side of 800 West Pender St.
• Roaming Dragon 2: comfort foods, east side of 800 Burrard St.
• Soho Road Naan Kebab: Indian fusion, west side of 900 Howe St.
• Tacofino Cantina Inc: tacos, burritos, 1800 Morton Sts
• TBA: souvlaki, north side of 800 Dunsmuir St.
• The Hut: vegetarian, south side of 1200 Pacific Blvd.
• The Juice Truck: juice and smoothies, 200 Abbott St.
• The Re-Up BBQ: barbecue, south side of 800 Robson St.
• Trailer: Asian barbecue, west side of 1100 Burrard St.

The Food Vendor program will grow by 60 new vendors in the next four years. This year, the City also held a public survey to determine which types of food were in high demand, so check their website to vote next time around. Korean tacos or Asian barbecue, anyone?

This Canada Day also marks a one-year anniversary for www.renthomas.ca: it has been a year since I have begun collecting stats on this website. In the past year, over 10,000 viewers have visited the site; this June a record 1,200 viewers stopped by (an average of 40 per day). Just because anniversaries tend to bring out reminiscing, here are the most popular posts in the past year:

Top 10 Posts on www.renthomas.ca

1. Does Canada have an Ivy League? (1,500)
2. Modern racism in “the most multicultural city in the world” (922)
3. Segregated or integrated? American and Canadian ethnic populations (358)
4. SCARP + SALA: Design presentations (347)
5. SCARP + SALA: Our new building (186)
6. A roundabout way of decreasing pedestrian safety (122)
7. Toronto’s “class divide” (120)
8. Immigrant settlement patterns in Toronto (99)
9. Toronto does not equal New York (82)
10. A new era for transportation planning in Toronto? (76)

Wait, what? 1,500 of you read a little piece I wrote on Canada’s lack of Ivy League schools? Amazing: a post that grew out of observations I had made whenever I presented at American conferences has somehow drawn so many to this site. I’m pleased that hundreds have also been interested in my main areas of concentration: immigration and transportation issues in Toronto, Vancouver, and Canada. Stay tuned, I’ll be writing more on these topics in the coming months. Many local readers found my site through a couple of articles I wrote on the design process for the proposed School of Community and Regional Planning joint building with the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (#4 and #5); their publication resulted in my highest daily number of viewers in November 2010. Clearly I have attracted both local and international readers who share my interests and follow the latest posts. Thanks so much to everyone who has found the site and stopped to read some of my thoughts on urban planning issues. Happy Canada Day and for those of you in the US, Happy Fourth!