Parties lack vision for our cities
Here is a quick question to all the federal campaigns: Where is your election platform for cities?
From the Conservatives came some pre-election promises of goodies such as an LRT line for Calgary and some funding locally for research at the University of Saskatchewan. Similar plans were sprinkled all over the country, but they were ad hoc. The Liberals promised an infrastructure plan that in part will go to cities. The NDP promised more spending on affordable housing, which is always welcome.
If you could combine all three party platforms in that area, we would have something. Across North America, cities struggle in good times and bad. During the good times they are caught by having to expand to accommodate growth. But growth doesn’t pay for growth.
Growth means new infrastructure for neighbourhoods, new overpasses for traffic and costly renovations to widen arterial roadways because of a long tradition of car-centric planning. The price of housing lots doesn’t cover the entire cost, which puts a city in a difficult spot.
Growth is often a case of build first, design later. This leads to a host of problems that were never considered when the neighbourhoods were built, but they, too, need to be fixed.
Cities often can’t afford to pay for new neighbourhoods. In the United States there have been countless cities asking their state to allow them to access rainy day funds during the good years because of the crippling costs of expansion and growth. That happens during the good times, so what happens when they end?
I have talked to many city councillors and civic administrators across Canada over the past several years. We always end up talking about the infrastructure deficit and how it happened.
I get told that during the recession years of the 1980s, the money wasn’t available for repairs. These were delayed until the backlog became enormous. Eventually the bill became due, and it is massive.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has called for years for a federal program to address this issue nationally. Every year its call mostly goes unanswered, except an occasional program such as the transit plan in the last federal budget. However, by and large cities are left waiting for another short-term infrastructure program.
Cities help drive economic growth in Canada, but they also have to deal with the resulting population growth. Because of the limitations of having to rely mostly on property taxes for revenue, cities will always be cash-strapped. More tax money leaves the cities for the two senior layers of government than is collected locally.
In real terms, it means that the provincial government has the money to fix remote Saskatchewan highways that are travelled by heavy vehicles while in our cities your teeth shake while driving on some roads.
The solution starts with a vision and plan for cities, which none of the three major parties have. It also starts with a new way to deal with civic leaders as partners.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi of Calgary long has called on the Alberta government for a better process than waiting for budget day for his city to know what help it will get. The same thing needs to happen federally. Cities need a long-term vision from the federal government, along with stable funding commitments to plan and build around.
Infrastructure programs in the past have brought short-term cash that often was misspent. During the Chretien years, Calgary spent much of its infrastructure money renovating the Saddledome to ensure more luxury seats were available closer to the ice surface and thus more revenue for the wealthy owners of the hockey club. Then it asked for more money to do what actually needed to be done. There are better solutions. Long-term funding would allow cities to plan and execute ambitious plans not only to patch problems but also create lasting solutions. Stable federal funding is what has allowed transit to be an integral component of many American cities.
Committed long-term funding for affordable housing and housing first programs could end homelessness in Canadian cities in a decade. Even working with the railways on a longterm plan to remove the tracks that divide many Canadian cities would make them both safer and open up prime real estate for development.
But you first need a vision for cities.
Maybe we will see some of it in 2019 because in this election, very little of it is being shown for the places where most Canadians live.