Calgary’s water main break should set off warning bells in Edmonton city hall and in Millwoods as well. The fact that that water pipe is 50 years old may be relevant to the break happening. Does Edmonton have the money to replace its water pipes when they reach 50 years or the end of its expected useful life, or even to maintain them meanwhile?
No. The City is running a deficit even without such special efforts.
If the City does not have money to maintain what it has, should the city expand and build more pipes?
Some might say growth is everything, a city not growing dies. We have only to look at Detroit to see the fallacy of that.
Detroit’s population grew and grew in the first half of the 20th Century. Then in 1950 it began to lose population, and since then it has dropped by half, finally declaring bankruptcy in 2013. Some say that that city’s disastrous decline will not be a one-off but instead is the destiny that many other North America cities will suffer in the next 30 years.
That is how Chuck Marohn, an urban-affairs specialist from Michigan, described it when he spoke in Edmonton last February on the subject of “Building Strong Towns.”
He said the best thing a city can do is to stop building. “If you can’t afford to maintain the streets and pipes you have, don’t build more.”
A second water main break has occurred in Calgary recently. It is smaller than the major one, but that and the use of an underwater camera to look for other potential failings of Calgary’s main water pipe hint that the major pipe failure may be just the beginning of major troubles for Calgary’s water system.
Parts of Edmonton’s system are likely of about the same age, and trouble here too may be not far behind.
While Marohn advises to stop building, Edmonton has a choice to make over the next few years. In 2018 Edmonton grew larger, taking in an additional 82 sq. kilometres of farmland. Now the City extends to the International Airport. The intent at the time of annexation was to convert the farmland into urban communities. For that to happen, the City would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. This money will have to come from tax money paid by landowners in established communities, increased city debt, savings made by reduced maintenance of infrastructure in established communities or other reduction of city expenditures.
And that is a recipe for mass demographic change in Edmonton. If services deteriorate in established communities, this could easily affect Millwoods and The Meadows, and other older neighbourhoods. Millwoods, now 50 years old, can be considered an established subdivision. The Larkspur in The Meadows is about 40 years old, also. The City may ignore such older established communities to free up money to lay the base for development of the new areas.
The nicely-supported and shiny-new communities in the annexed districts will attract families from older parts of town. And as they fill up, the City will be on the hook for building and maintaining massive freeways for people there to commute into and out of the city every day. These new freeways and roads will slice and dice the southern part of Edmonton.
It will be decades before the taxes raised in the annexed land begin to cover the costs of developing the annexed land. It will be taxpayers in established areas that will cover the outlay one way or another.
Marohn made a strong distinction between older neighbourhoods, and the planned communities that have been built since WWII and will be built in the future. His research into the finances of cities shows him that planned communities are not efficient. He mapped where prosperity lies in a city, and where a city takes in more tax revenue than it spends. Both show the same areas - the communities that were built prior to the Depression and WWII. That is where businesses are profitable, streets and sidewalks are active 12-plus hours of the day, and where a city collects more taxes than it pays out.
The old-time communities grew up organically and have businesses, residences, industry, entertainment all mixed together. And they work, while he sees that planned suburban bedroom communities built after WWII do not.
Millwoods and The Meadows were built as planned communities. They are “bedroom” communities - predominantly residential, with some retail but little industry and very little employment opportunities. Most working people living there work outside the area.
And such bedroom communities draw on the city budget more than they pay in. Even if a house is taxed $3000 or $4000 annually, that does not go far if you calculate the city’s expenditures on roadways and public transit, water and sewage, street, police, fire department, streetlights and parks for the neighbourhood.
Marohn says the communities built pre-WWII are walkable and have the usual things you expect of streetscapes of that vintage - corner stores and on-street parking (so less land is used for low-taxed parking lots). Higher taxes paid by neighbourhood businesses help cover the costs that residences do not cover themselves. Land is used intensively - with apartments using space above first-story shops.
“Modern” communities have big box stores, parking lots, and streets and streets with nothing but houses.
Small businesses in older areas use local attorneys and other professionals, while box stores have their head office function done at the head office - in Toronto or New York.
Edmonton appears to be taking Marohn’s advice to heart and has embarked on a vision of 15-minute districts. The City has come a long way since the 1970s when it planned to build a freeway through the Old Strathcona area, which would have killed what has since become one of the city’s best known attractions.
The “15-minute district” plan will see the city divided into 15 districts. Travel is allowed between the districts obviously, but the city would like to see each district become somewhat self-sufficient. Businesses in each district should offer most of the goods and services a local resident wants and needs to buy.
Chain stores scattered through the city may do some of this. Canadian Tire, Home Depot, large drugstores, dollar stores provide a wide selection of goods.
But also the city will allow small house-based businesses and redevelopment of land to secure higher density through infill. These are intended to diversify and deepen land use. Through such ways, more goods and services will be obtainable locally, within a 15-minute walk, bike ride or transit ride. Narrower roads with fewer lanes would be required, easing the burden on the city.
The City’s new small-scale informal approach to 15-minute districts is in line with the way cities grew up in the early years, one building or one business upgraded and expanded at a time, the change spawned and nurtured by the owner himself or herself. Small risk and small gain but it added up over the years.
And when it comes to the newly-annexed land, I hope the City will take it slow despite pressure by land developers for massive fast development and massive profits. The city, I think, should develop the land in small increments, developing neighbourhoods one by one, offering affordable starter homes and business streets filled with small business buildings that have room to grow. Making places where local residents could find employment and get what they need for a good life, right in their own district. Meantime hopefully meshing the new suburban communities in with the farms that now use the land.
Such rational growth means perhaps less tax revenue for the city in the short term but is a way to grow the city that does not land the city with the kind of debt-heavy “wealth” that could potentially over-stretch it and kill it. A heavy and growing tax burden and population decline can hurt a city as much as a huge fire. And if a City over-stretches and loses water or other basic service in a big way, that would mean having no city at all.
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sources:
Chuck Marohn "Building a Strong Town" (speaking in Edmonton, Feb. 7, 2024)
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Here are some notes on the topic and other observations
Edmonton's 15-minute community plan
About half the needs of residents would be served with a distance of 15 minutes by foot, bike or transit ride. Of course, 15 minutes by transit is about the same as 5 minutes by car.
So in effect Edmonton's 15-minute plan is ot have each of 14 districts in Edmonton to be moderatley sefl-sufficient. Perhaps the things that residents would need to purchase on an average day would be obtainable within the district. Restaurants, retail stores, child care, industries, offices and home-based businesses for employment a nd business opportunities, churches, in each district. Locally accessible goods would include food,
There is difference in convenience implied between 15-minute walk and 15-minute drive.
As well, someone living one edge of one district may find it more convenient to soho in nexxt district than in the district where theri residentce is. In fact City of Edmotnon is quite clear that the 16-minute commuity shceme is not meant to fence in resdients within their district . Right of free travel is not meant ot be trmeeled but the scheme is meant ot make it un-necessary to have to travel more than 15 minutes to get most things needed.
"Most" is also loose term - is most just more than half -- 51 percent -- or almost all -- 80 or 90 percent?
Special items such as Christmas gifts, appliances, hardware, fabrics and other crafts,
A basic change involked by the 15-minute scheme is to allow mixed use in a neighbourhood or street, whereas historically the City has segregated industries and commercial uses from residences, entertainment from industries, etc.
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Chuck Marohn Building Strong Towns
Chuck Marohn "Building a Strong Town" (speaking in Edmonton, Feb. 7, 2024)
Having strictly residential develpment is characterized as complicated by urban critic Chuck Marohn, who spoke in Edmonton last year. He said on the other hand mixed neighbourhoods are complex. They have many types of residents and land uses. To a business located nearby, a resident might be a neighbour, a customer, an employee and/or a source of raw material.
Marohn said mixed neighbourhoods have thr abilty to evolve - if a business of a particular type prospers, it can gow. If there is greater need or profit from businesses than residences, businesses can expand. If residences are in short supoly (as now in Edmonton), space occupied by businesses can convert to loft apartments, several one-room studio suites or other form of residences. Flexibility alos evolution and produces strength.
(A clear lesson in the fate of non-complex neighbourhoods - many all-residential neighbourhods in Detroit were completely abandoned and are now returning to nature. Once families left, houses became empty lots and empty lots became woodland. Land-use did not evolve to keep the neighbourhood going and it died. In a mixed neighbourhood, businesses - industrial or agricultural - would have filled in the gap left by fleeing urban families, if they had had a foothold in the neighbourhood before collapse.)
Marohn again and again sees planned residential communities as not being wealth centres for cities. All cities that were going pre-Depression, pre-WW2 have their wealth centres still in the old neighbourhoods, the walkable neighbrouhoods with corner stores and other facets of the time before automobiles became the major emphasis of cities. These neighbrhbrouhoods wer established aorganiccally one small step and at a time, one land-owner after another, one house owner, one business, one industiral operation deciding to upgrade. If the upgrade wa amistake tht nthat perosn took a loss - as small loss and others tried next.
I see that city tax system atually help push businesses oiut to outskirts of the city, hollowing out the older central districts. Councillor Michael Janz said there are many "perverse incentives" that cause urban sprawl.
He recommended information provided by Chuck Marohn, of the Strong Towns organization.
48:40
innovation from the top down is orderly but dumb
innovation from the bottom up is chaotic but smart.
Canadians prefer order to chaos so much that we accept alot of dumb.
Steps toward bottom-up innovation:
lower the bar of entry
to invite many new people to help build up our cities.
by offering micro-business oppoortunities.
allow the next increment
But abide by these rules:
No neighbourhood should experience radical change
No neghbourhood should be exempt from change.
1:00:30 all things that are successful and prosperous over time are successful and prosperous because they allow themselves to change.
1:03 Respond to the way people use our city
if you don't have money to maintain the roads you already have, don't built more.
If you are not using the land you have now, don't take more land
don't expand - just don't.
We need to focus on how people around us are struggling to use the city, and respond to that struggle aggressively, systematically and with alot of joy.
The Strong Town strategy of lowest-risk, highest return-on-investment process of city government
step 1: humbly observe where people in the community struggle
step 2: what is the next smallest thing we can do to address that struggle?
step 3: do that thing. do it right now.
step 4: repeat
We don't need to find the ultimate solution to the problem. We only need to improve the sitution for those who are struggling. and do it right now.
Currently we are committing ourselves to massive liabilities for things we don't even really value.
======= End of Marohn notes =====================
Jane Jacobs also applauded mixed-use communities
Jane Jacobs has pointed out in Decline of Great American Cities that having mixed uses actually makes it safer -
business streets are not abandoned during the evening if residences are nearby, during the day adults in busineses can observe kids playhing in the streets, sidewalks are used during the day for businesses and industries and in evening for those enjoying entertainment and leisure pursuits.
Not only would city infrastructure be used more deeply, but ther are other factors in addition to savings on travel and gas consupiton. Public safgety if streerts are not abnadoned quite so thorougly, with more and better distributed grcocery stores food security woudl be imporved. Currently parts of Edmotno either have no food stores or unheatlhy food is more available lthan wholesome food. These areas are sometimes described as food deserts and food swamps. Availability of wholesome less-processed food would, it is hoped, lessen Canadians' consumption of ultra-processed foods, which many nutritionists claim are creating health issues among many. (To be picky, we see that the City's Kinsman Park sign advertizes a brandname soft drink.)
While having food stores scattered through the city means more robust food security. A city dependent on a relatively few mega-stores means a corporate financial disaster could imperil city's food supply. A building suffering a problem or a city-block-size disaster involving a store's critical infracturee could mean a whole neighbourhood may be without a nearby food source. A food system based on minimum stockpiles also means a break in the supply chain due to surprise shortage of truck fuel, highway closure, extreme storm, labour strike or employer lockout could create a food shortage in quick time.
Edmonton's "foodprint' has not been measured. Each resident of Melbourne, Australia consumes an estimated 3.5lilpgramsof food ech day, with 15 hectares of agricultural land being used to feed the city in a year. Mielbourne is five times the size of Edmonton. But it is easy to see that Edmonton consumes perhaps 3M kilograms of food in a day,. This is about 3000 metric tons, the equivalent of perhaps the cargo of 120 large trucks, everyday.
obviously household food suppllies are depleted everyday. Gas too for those who drive every day. shelter and water is also basic need but we can count on City to provide water (barring one-off disaster like Calgary is enduring - its main water pipe having a major break - June 2024)).
Grocery stores are placed in each of the 15 districts, and gas stations are even more common.
A variety of household goods needed on regular basis are found in the "Dollar" stores. They provide a wide range of small everyday items.
Stores with general stock such as London Drugs, Canada Tire, Dollar stores, and the now-extinct Army & Navy stores are a boon to local shopping.
Downtown Edmonton and Whyte Avenue used to offer stores selling hardware, fabric, household items, food, every day cothing. Now those types of stores, often Monm and Pop stores, are gone, replaced by restaurants, and today empty store for-rent fronts.
There are 10 Candain Tire stors in Edmonton located along high-traffic roads.
The two in Millwoods are located along 51st Avenue, such Caglary Trail
2331 66th Street, 51st Avenue , not usually in walkable vicinities..
Large items such as appliances, winter clothes, cars, would not likely be included in the type of expenditure meant to be provided in each district.
When pointed out that Edmonton’s inclement winter weather makes transitt less than comfortable for many, a local urban planning expert, Sandeep Agrawal, said that that was a valid concern and perhaps the city would have more frequent transit stops with heating and better-cleared sidewalks in future.
Perhaps the city could look at Winnipeg where the city actually takes on the responsibility of clearing city sidewalks. In Edmonton, the system in place in Edmonton harkens to some feudalistic duty of residents to spend time clearing city property. This produces poor results - sidewalks in front of parking lots, empty lots or unoccupied houses are sometimes not cleaned until spring. Fines are a blunt way to punish those who don’t do “their duty” but more reliable for the City do its own work.
Heated transit shelters would provide comfort for those waiting . But we saw years ago that the heated transit centre at the Legislature was closed as it became a warming shelter or sleeping shelter for homeless people. So then no one could use it.
Obviously we have many social problems. So simply working to make transit usage more comfortable invites usage by homeless, who are just as much citizens of this city and have as much - or even greater - need for warmth as someone waiting for a bus.
And meanwhile if we want increased bus usage, the City should not be raising transit fees. Starting Feb 2025, single-ride ticket will go up to an even $3 for 90 minute use.
Already, riders must endure being squeezed into bucket seats instead of using a bench in a comfortable way, The bucket seats are intended to squeeze riders into as small space as possible and push them as close together as possible. Not the preferred social distancing of actual people in regards to strangers.
That is when they can get seats at all.
A hundred years ago a reformer boasted that his city operated to serve people’s wants. There was frequent and efficient bus service - and each rider was able to get a seat so the ride was comfortable.
It is hardly surprising that many prefer riding in a car for the commute to job downtown when in the car they can sit down and be in comfortable isolation. While in the bus they are jammed up and made to stand, holding on for dear life against the bus's jolts and jerks. Plus the news we hear of violent attacks on transit and just generally the City is not as nice a place as it used to be, so being isolated in a car protected from potentially-bad situations is appealing.
If the City put its money where its heart is, we would see a bus ride be much closer to the comfort and safety of a car ride than it currently is.
Yes, city neighbourhoods should be more self-sufficient. People should be able to get half or more of the goods and services they want within a short distance. This generally is taken to mean decentralizing the city with industry, retail, entertainment and sports at many locations throughout city. Edmonton has advance on this as our downtown is centralized concentration for little of this. Already West Edmonton Mall and big box stores along main roads have hollowed out the downtown. However they do little for making communities across Edmonton self-sufficient.
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Millwoods is pictured as having a major node of development at 50th Street and 23rd Avenue.
"enjoy more housing, recreation, education and employment opportunities in all of Edmonton’s districts and to have more travel options within and across districts."
from city info online
But the City tax policies actually work against that. The way big box stores on edge of the town are assessed means they do not pay property tax at the same rate per square metre as smaller buildings inside the city. A business in on the outskirts causes traffic burden on the city, while a business located in central location means less burden of that sort put on the city. A business on the outskirts should be taxed higher than central location. It just makes sense but big block stores along highways are assessed at lower value per square metre than land on Jasper Avenue. with taxes then in those proportions.
If Edmonton is to get off the dependence on the automoblie, its tax regime should be changed to encourge centralization. Its wownership of land should be maintained by erecting city-owned buildings on it for affordable housing, for instance, or leasing land out for development, but not selling it off.
City council seems filled by councillors knowledgeable and accountable to some in their own district, but not willing to fight for the city as a whole. Most of them were elected by just a minorty of voters in their districts so how much they reflect views of voters in the district is unknown. and they take this local perspecitve and then vote on wider city issues.
City approval of scooters may reflect that - concillors of suburban communities voted on whether to allow scooters which are mostly in the downtown/Scona areas.
if councillors were elected in city-wide district, they would more likely look at issues through city-wide lens.
The increase means on average, property owners pay about $766 for every $100,000 of their assessed property value
Residential single-family home $300,000 $3052
Non-residential value $300,000 $7900
Capilano mall assessed at $41M 2016
WEM 5.3M sq. feet
foodprint
food deserts and food swamps
food swamps have excessive amount of super-processed foods as well as sources of good food
Ultra-processed foods go through multiple processes (extrusion, molding, milling, etc.), contain many added ingredients and are highly manipulated.
Examples are soft drinks, chips, chocolate, candy, ice-cream, sweetened breakfast cereals, packaged soups, chicken nuggets, hotdogs and fries.
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sources:
Chuck Marohn Building a Strong Town (speaking in Edmonton, Feb. 7, 2024)
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