‘Canada’s urban tribes’ by Chairman Ting for the Guardian
“The implementation vehicle for so much of the nation-building that we’re working together on is actually on the ground in the hands of local government… We’re on the front lines.”
Earlier this year, the mayors of Canada’s biggest cities came together with a pitch for the Prime Minister: if you want to improve life in this country, skip the provinces and work directly with us.
From improving transit to resettling refugees, from solving housing crises to preparing for the effects of climate change, they said, the biggest problems facing Canadians aren’t being solved in cabinet meetings— they’re being handled at city halls and community gatherings: the front lines of Canada.
Canada is an urban country
For all our talk of being a country of untamed wilderness and vast northern landscapes, Canadians are a largely urban bunch.
83 per cent of us live in cities, and a full 12 million are in the greater Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver areas alone — that’s more than one in three Canadians in just three urban centres.
And, just as those mayors said, this urbanization is coming with problems: long commutes, skyrocketing rent, rapid development…
But the rest of us have problems, too
Meanwhile, much of the rest of the country is dealing with aging (and shrinking) populations, an inability to attract newcomers and dying industries.
And everyone is struggling with issues like ballooning city budgets, the opioid crisis and the effects of climate change.
Figuring out how to live together, better
The through line in all these stories is one of people trying to figure out how we can best live together.
Whether it’s experimenting with Uber for buses in Belleville, a raccoon-proof garbage can in Toronto or a ban on new work camps in Fort McMurray, some of the most interesting stories in this country rarely travel beyond the “local news” section, even though they might have lessons we can take back to own experiments in living together.
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I’m making this newsletter in an effort to gather the best of those stories in one place. But I don’t plan to do it alone.
I’m hoping you’ll share your own insights and stories: you can find me on Twitter or email thelocalcanada@gmail.com.
