SAINT JOHN - It’s official. The City has finally implemented a new municipal plan to replace the outdated 40 year-old plan whose policies have ransacked the city. Sprawl, encouraged under the old municipal plan, has shifted the population around, outside the city’s borders, and created a doughnut hole where a densely populated city once stood. Of course, this is an easy conclusion to reach with hindsight at our disposal but, to be fair, I’m sure the Council, city staff and consultants of the day had the best interests of the city at heart. In the prevailing 40 years, however, the trends and practices in urban planning have made a massive about-face. No more of this idyllic “city-country” state, the suburbs, but a focus on density, walkability, and sustainability. The residents of Saint John appear to have sensed the impact of these old outdated policies and have begun rejuvenating the city even in the absence of a new municipal plan. The city is seeing a natural resurgence and the new crowd-sourced municipal plan will be a fantastic guiding document and development tool reaffirming the direction the city is already heading in.

SAINT JOHN – We are now a few months into the City of Saint John’s experiment with bike lanes on Main Street in the city’s North End and, from all reports, the world hasn’t ended yet. Traffic has naturally slowed to non-freeway speeds without backing up (or really being noticed at all) and the route sees many cyclists use it every day. It has even been popular enough with pedestrians that the City thought it was necessary to issue a statement saying that the bike lanes are approved for – you guessed it – bicycles only. Too bad for the pedestrians in need of a safer walking route, but that’s another story.

Still from Leonardo Dalessandri film Under the Lucan Sun WHAT: Design the Network - Session #2, It's More Than Just Buses WHERE: World Trade and Convention Centre, Argyle Street WHEN: Tuesday, July 19, 6pm-8pm HOW MUCH: Free! HALIFAX REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY - A bus stop could be an amazing thing (gardens, playgrounds, outdoor gym) is one point which came up in the first public session - "Exploring the Options" - at It's More Than Just Buses on Tuesday, June 28th, 2011. It's More Than Just Buses is a public discussion initiative that explores the options of public transit, designs a better network and mobilizes for support, organized by the Planning and Design Centre and Fusion Halifax. Guest speaker Steven Dale, also raised another smart key point with regards to transit administration, which is the development of a staff policy for all Metro Transit employees, particularly the network planners, whereby they must take the bus at least once a week, if not more. Why I found this to be such a brilliant idea, is because you can only understand how something works in practice and how it could work better, by using it and taking part. This fact was evident at the public session, where all those that attended and rode the bus frequently, had lots to offer the discussion. Of course, there was frustration concerning the current infrastructure and digression from discussion questions, but only because people wanted their experiences and ideas to be heard and they were! Find more of the group discussion points here.

WHAT: It's More Than Buses - Public Forum on Public Transit WHEN: Tuesday, June 28th (July 19 & Sept. 7), 6pm-8pm WHERE: World Trade and Convention Centre HOW MUCH: Free HALIFAX - Waiting for the bus each morning to start my short daily morning commute to work in Downtown Halifax, I observe the regular bottle-necking on Robie Street, whereby cars are narrowly packed together carrying generally one driver each. In much larger cities, transit is used more often by commuters and helps to create a more active, efficient and accessible transit system and urban culture. If you have ever used Metro Transit in the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), then you have likely thought of ways that the infrastructure could be improved. As a daily bus commuter, I really enjoy the transit system - but it has only come with time of understanding the way it works in Halifax, particularly, by having a cell phone to check the exact time in which I can expect the bus to arrive. I have also been privy to peoples opinions about the HRM transit system - referencing specifically (in)frequency of buses and (in)consistent schedules.

HALIFAX - On May 3, 2010, The Coasts' Tim Bousquet wrote an article titled Proposed YMCA/CBC development will break HRM By Design height limits which covered the YMCA/CBC buildings deconstruction on South Park and Sackville Streets and the Y's controversial future development in the same location. Nearly a year later, HRM By Design is hosting a public information session at City Hall in Halifax, NS tonight, Thursday, April 21st at 7pm. As reported on the New Halifax YMCA website, the Public Information Session is a chance for the public to get a ...

ST. JOHN'S -  How can we as a community of individuals, organizations, businesses and politicians shape the future of St. John's together? That's the main question Happy City will be asking at their next meeting - "Your City, Your Future" - on Saturday, March 26th, 2011. With facilitator, Bui Petersen from the Centre for Negotiation and Dialogue, participants will also be broken into small groups to discuss three other questions: How do citizens and decision-makers connect? How can decisions best reflect the needs of the community? How can we, as a community of individuals, organizations, businesses and politicians, shape the future of St. John's together? In addition, Happy City will take time to brainstorm a large list of local community groups that are already doing work in St. John's. Collectively, all in attendance will work together to find common connections between these groups, and begin to see how some might work together to "pull in the same direction" on issues that are important to citizens and the city.

HALIFAX - Ka-Ching. With a $13 billion dollar debt in NS (cleverly illustrated by Hugh Pouliot), how can we not talk about value? It is ironic really, that HRM with its past spending habits, has not fully assessed the value(s) of, and in, the HRM Regional Municipality Strategy Plan. Thankfully, on Saturday, March 12, 2011, a panel consisting of IMAGINE conferences' key-note speakers - Bruce Tonn, Hugh Millward and Patricia Gordon, as well as city councillor Jennifer Watts - talked about planning values in relation to the HRM's Regional Municipal Strategy and long-term planning, in general. Despite spending a significant value in, on and for HRM in the past, the conference revealed that money rather than planning took a priority in the 25-year Municipal Strategy plan. Millward suggested that a lot of smart growth ideas were watered down in the actual HRM plan; he assumed that it was a result of municipal resources, specifically financial. He also attributed the watering down to the fact that "the plan had to be sold as a package", which may be why certain topics had less of an impact. Watts pointed to the fact that there was and is no conversation about water, despite the fact that there are 46 watersheds in Nova Scotia with a majority of them in the HRM area. Watts suggested that "It would be important to address water and understand the implications of water. I've been hearing lots of land-use planning, but what is our relationship to water? Again though, planning water is really expensive." Gordon indicated that "the scope of any municipal plan is hard to address." When Gordon was working for the City of Calgary, during ImagineCALGARY, they reduced their municipal plan to two key areas that would shape the plan and long-term planning - Energy and Water. Gordon felt that both were missing from the HRM plan and both are really important and necessary to assess now and in the long-term: "To me if you don't have energy (in the plan) you have a problem ... you are going nowhere without energy." Tonn expressed surprise that NS still relied heavily on fossil fuel energy, when the province had access to other sustainable resources. But Tonn also indicated that a challenge of transitioning to sustainable energy resources is that, as evidenced in the USA, the traditional grid energy infrastructures are not capable of distributing the new and long-term energy technology. Watts quipped in indicating that "it is a hard slug and that hands are tied to what we can do." She did indicate however, that council has hired legal teams to write new charters. What is clear though, is that planning is expensive or at least it is under the current bureaucratic (debt) structure.

I like it here. So why is my neighborhood and thousands more like it, so often ignored by architects and architecture schools? The very environment where a good number of students were born and raised is relegated to a bench seat when it comes to academic discourse, or - even worse - treated with derision or scorn. "Leave it to the developers," is the refrain. I whole-heartedly disagree. There is fantastic essay by Albert Pope, a professor at Rice University in Houston, where I received my education, entitled "The Primacy of Space." In it, Pope writes: "The contemporary city, the city that is, at this moment, under construction,  is invisible. Despite the fact that it is lived in by millions of people, that it is endlessly reproduced, debated in learned societies, and suffered  on a daily basis, the conceptual framework that would allow us to see it is conspicuously lacking. While the contemporary city remains everywhere and always seen, it is fully transparent to the urban conceptions under which we continue to operate." In other words: old rules don't necessarily apply. The formal ideas which stem from urbanity are often rendered powerless or irrelevant when haphazardly overlaid on suburban spaces. We need new tools in the toolbox. Hell, we need a whole other toolbox. HALIFAX - The above image and text is care of Halifax Architect, Eric Stotts and was originally published on the blog, Building Social Value; a blog about Socially Responsible Architecture that features writings and observations by Stotts, as well as Angela Henderson. Stotts' above text and photo montage will likely provide an interesting entry point into his PechaKucha (PK) presentation (20 images, shown for 20 second each) tonight at The Carleton, and is likewise fitting for his PK presenters tag name - 'Suburban Apologist'.  Angela Henderson, will also be giving an engaging presentation at PK#7. From her blog entries on co-design, community building, public space, and place-making, I can understand the correlation between her two-word PK presentation descriptor - 'Incurable Humanist'.