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'.

CHARLOTTETOWN - The Charlottetown Area Development Corporation is ready to reveal the Eastern Gateway Master Plan that will (we hope) transform the area at the foot of the Hillsborough Bridge, the Red Shores Raceway and the gateway to Charlottetown into a true representation of all that PEI's capital city has to offer. WHAT: Eastern Gateway Waterfront Presentation WHEN: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 WHERE: The Rodd Charlottetown Hotel (75 Kent Street) This is a great opportunity to participate in the landscape of our city. Photo by:  Stephen Desroches

CHARLOTTETOWN - When voters in Charlottetown head to the polls on November 1st they will be casting a vote for not just for a mayor and council to represent them, but will declare their preference for election reform through a plebiscite. While the plebiscite is non-binding, the newly elected council will use the results of this vote to determine if and how the current electoral process should change. Election reform offers little of the glitz and glamour of a heated political race.  In a race where incumbant candidates were asked by the City to not publicly declare their preference on this plebescite so as to not influence the voting public, the importance of this historic vote has been further devalued. Without candidates taking positions, and in spite of public information campaign, the plebescite issue has received little attention by most media organizations and even less among the voting populace. Consider the state of the electoral process in the provincial capital — the birthplace of Confederation. In 2006, incumbant councilors where challenged in 9 of the 10 wards. Jump forward 4 years, and only 7 of 10 wards have challengers this year, and only 1 of 10 wards has more than a single challenger to the incumbant. That means that roughly 30% of Charlottetown's residents will not have an opportunity to exercise their right to vote for council representation. That is a travesty and has only contributed to the disconnection of voters from the plebiscite process.

HALIFAX REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY - Ever wondered how decisions in this city are really made? Tried to decipher one of City Hall's official reports? Pondered how your councillor voted on the latest issue? Well, ponder no longer. Brand new website, Show of Hands Halifax, aims to provide a one-stop facility for political accountability and dialogue in HRM. Created by Spacing Atlantic contributor Emily Richardson, and described as "an independent resource for city-council goings-on", Show of Hands hopes to better connect councillors to their constituents through the pure power of simple, ...

Halifax - Nocturne, what a time! These oft empty streets were teeming with citizens and music and art OH MY!  But now that the dust is settling and the sun is back up Max Haiven is asking us to ask ourselves whose interests events like Nocturne and Nuit Blanche serve. This evening, at the Roberts St Social Centre, Haiven is going to be ruminating on the motives behind the "creative economy" and the capacity of this economy to benefit urban infrastructure and social programs.  He is interested in ...