HALIFAX - This summer across the country, the idea that vegetables can and should be grown in the city continues to gain momentum. Urban agriculture is a lot of things, but as a formal movement promotes local, sustainable food systems, renewed inner-city social and physical health, and a shift toward people-oriented urbanism. Inner city food production has obvious impacts on the urban landscape, creating pleasant productive spaces in otherwise unproductive, sterile land. Halifax has many lovely gardens, many of which can be found on the Halifax Garden Network’s user-generated map. You can, of course, engage in urban gardening in a variety of ways, ranging from formalized municipal allotments, to semi-private community gardens, to straight up guerilla gardens.

WHAT: Outdoor Concert, Save the Bedford Reef WHEN: Monday, May 30 6:30 - 8:30 pm WHERE: DeWolf  Park,  Bedford HOW MUCH: Free BEDFORD - Alongside the Ecology Action Centre and the Sackville River Association, join Save the Bedford Reef advocates and musicians this evening for a Free Outdoor Concert at DeWolf Park in Bedford, NS.  Tonights' concert will showcase talented local musicians including Singer-Songwriter Dusty Keleher performing his new song "Mile of Ocean" with Amy Lounder and Jeff Harper.  The concert also features Cassie & ...

"Machine Space, or territory devoted primarily to the use of machines, shall be so designated when machines have priority over people in the use of territory" - Horvath, Ronald J. 1974. "Machine Space." Geographical Review 64 (2): 167-188. Photo by Danny Cornelissen, Creative Commons ST. JOHN'S - Writing almost 40 years ago, Ronald Horvath wanted to translate technological questions into questions that were explicitly spatial and political. Today linking technology, space, and politics may not seem so strange, but even with Lewis Mumford’s writing preceding Horvath’s, this was still heady stuff at the time. What Horvath does so well is to give our taken for granted assumptions a good shake: the car is not just a technical object, a mere tool to get us from point A to point B. The car is urban North America’s sacred cow, he writes, but “[would] an Indian imagine devoting 70 percent of downtown Delhi to cow trails and pasturage, as we do for our automobiles in Detroit and Los Angeles?”. The language of the comparison might seem a bit anachronistic now – and Delhi's machine space has exploded since the 70’s – but students at Memorial University (MUN) in St. John's, where I teach Geography, love it. Suddenly the technology of the car becomes a lively thing suffused with meaning, symbolism, and myth as well as its own political and economic geographies: “Each year we sacrifice more than 50,000 Americans to our sacred cow in traffic accident fatalities. In search of fodder to perpetuate the existence of our sacred cow, we support despotic governments in oil-rich lands”, writes Horvath.

[caption id="attachment_9095" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Scouting plants on the Princess Path."]What is Swag? Walking. HALIFAX - Haligonians enjoyed a quick respite from the seemingly endless deluge this past weekend while participating in the city’s well-timed Jane’s Walk walking series.  Over 100 people came out to walk, talk and learn about their neighborhoods.  A variety of folks, young and old, shared stories, maps and anecdotes about the places we live and the paths we use to navigate ourselves around the city. Janet Barlow, coordinator of the Active and Safe Route to School project, kicked off the series with a walk to school in Clayton Park, a suburban development off the peninsula.  Parents from the nearby Park West Elementary joined some curious city folk for a stroll, as we meandered through the system of cul-de-sacs. Although most children live within walking distance, 25% of them are chauffeured to school, causing unnecessary traffic congestion and danger. Barlow, a treasure trove of information, showed us the paths that connect the dead-end streets meant to encourage pedestrianism.  Unfortunately, some of the residents have been successful in shutting down these paths to public usage.  What would Jane Jacobs say? Trouble arises when a neighbourhood is designed in such a way where there are no eyes on the street to collectively supervise the goings-on. Janet Barlow shows us the way to school.

HALIFAX - Today and tomorrow ( May 7 and 8), Haligonians will take to the streets for a series of free urban neighbourhood tours that inspire citizens to get to know their city and each other by getting out and walking  for Jane's Walk Halifax. Jane's Walks' are coordinated nationally and internationally in the spirit of Jane Jacobs - a highly regarded community, grassroots urban planner. 2011 marks the 50th anniversary of her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961); this critically-aclaimed publication serves as an ongoing powerful critique of urban renewal policies. Jacobs went on to publish other books and to successfully protest major urban projects that endorsed urban sprawl.  Her community-centred vision started with the idea that local residents know best how to shape and improve their neighbourhoods. Foremost is her simple yet revolutionary idea that dense, mixed use neighborhoods are the key to the health and survival of a city. Decades later, her vision and approach has become a model for generations of architects, planners, politicians and activists. Following Jane Jacobs' influential visions on what makes cities great and how to advocate for their inherent community value, Jane’s Walk was developed to cultivate further a broad understanding of how cities – their economies, neighbourhoods, communities, and institutions – organically develop and thrive. The Walks also work to advance walkable neighbourhoods, to increase urban literacy and promote neighbourhood cohesion, civic engagement and leadership. Jane's Walk Halifax coincides with more than 30 city walks across Canada and in more than 70 cities worldwide in celebration of Jane Jacobs’s birthday on May 4th.

The other day, I had a discussion with a friend about the election. He asked about proof of residence and was kicking up a fuss about needing to find a piece of ID or registered mail in order to vote and was, overall, unsatisfied with my regurgitation of voting protocols around security and proof of address (i.e. so everyone votes in the appropriate riding). As a recent Dalhousie University graduate who had moved 8 times in the last 6 years, he couldn't even say for sure where he was living at the time of the last election, let alone have a piece of ID with his most current address. Essentially, one of his major beefs with Elections Canada centered around the need for a more accessible voting system. To illustrate his point, he asked "What about street people? How do they vote without a permanent residence?" If it weren't for my recent meeting with EJ Davis - downtown Halifax's very own Navigator - I wouldn't know for sure how to answer. But there is, in fact, a protocol, as well as volunteers who visit shelters to assist occupants with elections registration and voting procedures. So, don't worry - Canada's homeless populations are able to vote. But this process is more complicated and labour intensive than is the case for those of us with permanent residences. The process for voting as a homeless citizen breaks down in one of the following four ways: Option one, you are a registered voter and have ID to prove that you are who you say you are. Option two, you ask your shelter to set you up with an "Attestation of Residence," an official document that confirms which riding you are meant to vote at. Option three, you swear an oath and someone you know vouches for you. (With the catch being that this person must also be a resident of the same riding, and have the necessary ID, themselves). Option four, screw it. So it's not that homeless people are not able to vote, but just like many other day-to-day processes, they almost always start out at a disadvantage. While certain tasks are annoying for you and I, street-involved people face real barriers at almost every turn, when trying to make positive, pro-social choices. Ok, let me back it up. We all know that homelessness is a serious and complicated matter. Depending on how much these issues speak to you, you may also know that the system we have currently set up to support this population is incomplete, if not broken. Enter EJ Davis, the Navigator.

HALIFAX - The CBC and YMCA buildings occupy a prominent corner in Halifax - a stone's throw from the bustling Spring Garden Road, the Citadel and Public Gardens. In recent years, its neighbours have undergone extensive changes, including the addition of the Martello atop Park Lane Mall and the construction of the Paramount Apartments, directly across from the Public Gardens. And while much of the block has “grown-up”, the CBC building and the adjacent YMCA have sat comfortably, tucked away between civic landmarks, new residential towers and a busy retail strip. But now, the CBC and YMCA are ready and willing to work together to exploit the potential of the strategic place that they hold in the city. View in Google Streetview [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="568" caption="Top: Current view of CBC building from Bell Road. Bottom: Conceptual rendering of proposed development."][/caption] View in Google Streetview [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="568" caption="Top: Current view from South Park Street. Bottom: Proposed development."][/caption] In December 2010, the YMCA and CBC Radio-Canada submitted a Plan Amendment Application to HRM Planning Services to allow for the joint development of their properties. The current application seeks site specific amendments to the Regional Municipal Planning Strategy, the Halifax Municipal Planning Strategy, the Downtown Halifax Secondary Municipal Planning Strategy and the Downtown Halifax Land Use By-Law. Current regulations limit post-bonus building height to 23 metres (CBC) and 49 metres (YMCA); the application seeks to increase the height limit only for the CBC site in order to match current height limits in place for the YMCA parcel.

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 ...