Build you own city. The growth of it will depend on how many people click on your link.

It’s not that exciting, but it requires no sign up.  Here is mine:

http://emastee.myminicity.com/

A Man's Lair

The Toronto Sun ran an article on the grand opening of Don Mills new shopping village. Essentially Cadilac Fairview tore down the old mall and replaced it with a smart centre type outdoor shopping centre.

While its an interesting experiment one quotation from the developer really jumped out at me:

“Morash said nothing has been left to chance, including the cleanliness of the bathrooms, and the fact the indoor parking was designed specifically with women in mind, offering more open air, brighter lighting and easier access.”

So I am to understand that parking garages have been designed to be dark, tight claustrophobic difficult places to navigate because it reflects the preferences of men for those kinds of places?

What I really hope the developer meant to say was that they designed the indoor parking with people in mind, not just cars.  We all enjoy more open air, brighter lighting and easier access.

Worthwhile Canadian Initiative

Interesting article about Canada in Newsweek.  Thought I would crosspost it.

Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1–compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1.

Published Feb 7, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Feb 16, 2009

Fareed Zakaria

The legendary editor of The New Republic, Michael Kinsley, once held a “Boring Headline Contest” and decided that the winner was “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative.” Twenty-two years later, the magazine was rescued from its economic troubles by a Canadian media company, which should have taught us Americans to be a bit more humble. Now there is even more striking evidence of Canada’s virtues. Guess which country, alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors. Yup, it’s Canada. In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada’s banking system the healthiest in the world. America’s ranked 40th, Britain’s 44th.

Canada has done more than survive this financial crisis. The country is positively thriving in it. Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize. The Toronto Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn’t grown in size; the others have all shrunk.

So what accounts for the genius of the Canadians? Common sense. Over the past 15 years, as the United States and Europe loosened regulations on their financial industries, the Canadians refused to follow suit, seeing the old rules as useful shock absorbers. Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1—compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1 and European banks at a frightening 61 to 1. Partly this reflects Canada’s more risk-averse business culture, but it is also a product of old-fashioned rules on banking.

placeAd2(commercialNode,’bigbox’,false,”)

Canada has also been shielded from the worst aspects of this crisis because its housing prices have not fluctuated as wildly as those in the United States. Home prices are down 25 percent in the United States, but only half as much in Canada. Why? Well, the Canadian tax code does not provide the massive incentive for overconsumption that the U.S. code does: interest on your mortgage isn’t deductible up north. In addition, home loans in the United States are “non-recourse,” which basically means that if you go belly up on a bad mortgage, it’s mostly the bank’s problem. In Canada, it’s yours. Ah, but you’ve heard American politicians wax eloquent on the need for these expensive programs—interest deductibility alone costs the federal government $100 billion a year—because they allow the average Joe to fulfill the American Dream of owning a home. Sixty-eight percent of Americans own their own homes. And the rate of Canadian homeownership? It’s 68.4 percent.

Canada has been remarkably responsible over the past decade or so. It has had 12 years of budget surpluses, and can now spend money to fuel a recovery from a strong position. The government has restructured the national pension system, placing it on a firm fiscal footing, unlike our own insolvent Social Security. Its health-care system is cheaper than America’s by far (accounting for 9.7 percent of GDP, versus 15.2 percent here), and yet does better on all major indexes. Life expectancy in Canada is 81 years, versus 78 in the United States; “healthy life expectancy” is 72 years, versus 69. American car companies have moved so many jobs to Canada to take advantage of lower health-care costs that since 2004, Ontario and not Michigan has been North America’s largest car-producing region.

I could go on. The U.S. currently has a brain-dead immigration system. We issue a small number of work visas and green cards, turning away from our shores thousands of talented students who want to stay and work here. Canada, by contrast, has no limit on the number of skilled migrants who can move to the country. They can apply on their own for a Canadian Skilled Worker Visa, which allows them to become perfectly legal “permanent residents” in Canada—no need for a sponsoring employer, or even a job. Visas are awarded based on education level, work experience, age and language abilities. If a prospective immigrant earns 67 points out of 100 total (holding a Ph.D. is worth 25 points, for instance), he or she can become a full-time, legal resident of Canada.

Companies are noticing. In 2007 Microsoft, frustrated by its inability to hire foreign graduate students in the United States, decided to open a research center in Vancouver. The company’s announcement noted that it would staff the center with “highly skilled people affected by immigration issues in the U.S.” So the brightest Chinese and Indian software engineers are attracted to the United States, trained by American universities, then thrown out of the country and picked up by Canada—where most of them will work, innovate and pay taxes for the rest of their lives.

If President Obama is looking for smart government, there is much he, and all of us, could learn from our quiet—OK, sometimes boring—neighbor to the north. Meanwhile, in the councils of the financial world, Canada is pushing for new rules for financial institutions that would reflect its approach. This strikes me as, well, a worthwhile Canadian initiative.

The Liberals just stepped in to approve building the rail link.  I think its the right decision and the hints dropped in the press release seem like they’ve choosen to address some of the communities concerns by including a tunnel and a stop in Weston.  However, it will still be operated privately and be a bit too expensive at $20 dollars a trip to use to commute to Union from Weston.  But who knows what the final fair structure will be.  In my opinion this is good for both Toronto and Weston and long overdue.

Proposed Route of Blue 22. Graphic courtesy of The Toronto Star.

The globe has an article on the always present but never quiet finished blue 22 project.  The project is a proposed rail connection between Union Station in Toronto and Pearson Airport. The project has had many incarnations over the last several years and at one point almost seemed ready to be built.  More recently it reappered as an issue.  The globe has taken the position that the project should be built because it is both simple and ’shovel’ ready and that it should not be tied up in an environmental assessment because it is a social issue not a environmental one.  I disagree.  The social and environment are both strongly related.  The modern environmental movement at its core is a social movement and to dismiss the concerns of the Weston Community is both foolish and short sighted.

Two great pictures of Lincolns Inauguration in 1861, courtesy of Toronto Before. I had heard that the dome wasn’t finished until sometime during the civil war but had never seen any pictures, so these are great.  The famous Dome was still being built during the inauguration and wasn’t finished until 1863, the middle of the Civil War. Apparently most of the dome was built using slaves labour.  Anyway looking forward to tomorrow.

Segment from 60 minutes on why oil has been doing what its doing. Apparently the experts hardly know whats going on in the oil futures business and its not oil companies doing most of the damage but huge investment companies.

more about “Peak Oil? Not quiet yet…“, posted with vodpod

A very interesting program on BBC that shows some of the great tools changing planning and city building. I recommend looking at some of the other videos free on the website.

more about “Britain From Above “, posted with vodpod

Today there was some musing about why Montreal can’t be more like the City of Lights.  Henry Aubin, in the Montreal Gazette, defends denser living, in an argument against sprawl and uses Paris as an the example. The article argues that

“the municipality of Paris (as distinct from its suburbs) has 2.2 million people, not that many more than Montreal Island (1.8 million). Montreal Island (500 square kilometres) contains almost five times as much land as Paris (105 sq. km.). If it were developed the same way as the City of Light… the island could hold 10 million people…Dense development, in short, can be fully compatible with a high quality of life. But it takes good, foresighted planning”

For those who need some christmas warm up here is a great cover of The Pogues and Kristy MacColl Fairy Tale of New York by Amy Macdonald.