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 ...

HALIFAX - Halifax is small enough that you learn the names and faces of the homeless and impoverished folks who have taken to panhandling or busking to get by. Probably the most well-known gentleman was affectionately called the "Clyde Street Pirate" because of his eye-patch. His name was Chris Doyle and he passed away this week after having a heart attack. Chris seemed like a friendly, happy guy. He gave great high fives and liked to tell ladies "You're breaking my heart"! I have a ...

HALIFAX - For the 3rd annual Mayor’s Award for Excellence & Innovation in Planning competition, eligible  post-secondary students living in the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) were challenged to conceptualize how cities will function in 100 years. Applicants were provided a selection of questions as imagination foder for their entries - questions like,  how will we get from point A to point B? What will our homes look like? What will we eat? And, where will our food come from? The annual competition became a fixture at the recently past IMAGINE conference at Dalhousie University's  School of Planning. In line with the mandate of the conference, the Mayor’s Award was an opportunity for aspiring planners to get creative, to imagine what life could be like in the city in 100 years (or more), and to illustrate the importance of long-term planning. Although only post-secondary students were eligible to submit, the criteria was otherwise wide open, and could include any combination of words and images, hand-made or digitally constructed. The award, worth $500, was solicited by the School of Planning and the Mayor of Halifax, with submitted entries a focal point of discussion and interaction, during the IMAGINE conference. Conference organizers and participants were asked to vote on the most innovative idea, with the award going to Kourosh Rad, whose winning entry is illustrated above.

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'.

HALIFAX -  In 2005, Halifax's north end collective consciousness came together to sprout Imagine Bloomfield in an effort to renew and preserve a nexus of history, community and cultural activity relevant to the needs of the area. Since 2005, needs assessments have been conducted, consultants hired, volunteers amassed and finally in 2010 a MasterPlan for redevelopment of the site was tabled and accepted unanimously by Halifax Regional Council. Recently, Imagine Bloomfield reported that “an implementation process report is expected to begin being acted upon in 2011.” Without saying, Imagine Bloomfield is an incredible project which has been inspired by the the passion and dedication of a group of people and has successfully inspired city planners to imagine new ideas for their property to move a little quicker to get this development off of the ground. Based on my own observations and experiences of developments and planning in Halifax for the last 9 years, the skeptic in me still wonders when this project will in fact bloom. Seriously - IMAGINE - planning in Halifax. From March 10- 12, 2011, Dalhousie University graduate students from the School of Planning have organized a conference titled IMAGINE. The intent of IMAGINE is to explore long-term planning through speakers and activities to create an understanding of how long-term planning should and can influence how cities are planned today. The conference will facilitate the sharing of ideas and lessons learned between professionals, academics and the community, while exploring a combination of initiatives and ideas from a wide range of speakers with diverse backgrounds.

ALL OVER - "Jane’s Walk is the street-level celebration of Jane Jacobs’ legacy that combines the simple act of walking with personal observations, urban history and local lore as a way of knitting people together into strong and resourceful communities." Since it's inception in Toronto in 2007, every first weekend of May (to coincide with Jane Jacobs' b-day), Jane's Walk sends swaths of pedestrians out to infiltrate and explore the urban landscape. The walks honour urban activist and writer Jane Jacobs who championed the interests of local residents and pedestrians, ...

HALIFAX - It's December. Inevitably, this time of year makes us all take the time to reflect on the year that's past; what's changed, what's stayed the same, what it was you said you'd do and never got around to, and what you wish you had done.   And then there are the things that you couldn't have anticipated doing, but are so happy you did. In her December 10th District 14 E-mail newsletter, Councillor Jennifer Watts informed her constituents that she had taken up a challenge to travel car-free for the month of December as a part of the A Dare to Remember campaign. I wondered why, so I wrote to Jennifer and asked her some questions. Here's what she had to share: What inspired you to get involved with the Stephen Lewis Foundation's Dare to Remember project? JW: Kristin Roe contacted me to ask if I would take part in the campaign. Kristin swam the English Channel (and Halifax Harbour!) earlier this year to help raise funds for the foundation and when she asked if I would take on a challenge it was too hard to say no. The Stephen Lewis Foundation is doing really important work in Africa and I was glad to take on a dare that supported their work and also supported sustainability in HRM. Why did you decide to challenge yourself in this way? JW: Kristin suggested that I take on a challenge related to my interest in the environment.  I talked with my family about it and they suggested that I give up driving my car for the month of December. It was kind of scary since the weather is unpredictable and there are lots of social functions to go to on top of regular meetings but I thought this is the best month to see if it can work or not work. So far I have been cycling, walking, transiting, taxi-ing, and hitching rides in other people's cars. Women in developing countries often are dependent on walking, taxis, buses and the generosity of others for rides to get around — driving a car is not a reality for a majority of these women and yet they are the backbone of their families and their communities. It seemed that the dare for me would not be as challenging as the reality that these women live every day of their lives. So from Dec 1 to Dec 31 I decided to not drive my car and to rely on other modes of transport and the kindness of friends, colleagues and family for carpooling when necessary.

[caption id="attachment_4765" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Source: Statistics Canada"][/caption] Despite dramatic differences in population, density, infrastructure, and growth, there is remarkable consistency between commuting patterns in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Halifax, particularly when it comes to travelling by car. And incidentally, when it comes to getting us out of them, we seem to find buses and bike lanes unconvincing. A closer look at our most recent census data raises some surprising – and some predictable – findings about the way we get to work and how preferences change as our cities grow.