Reading List
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Books
Foundations of Governance: Municipal Government in Canada's Provinces
Edited by Andrew Sancton and Robert Young
University of Toronto Press © 2009
Municipalities are responsible for many essential services and have become vital agents for implementing provincial policies, including those dealing with the environment, emergency planning, economic development, and land use. In Foundations of Governance, experts from each of Canada's provinces come together to assess the extent to which municipal governments have the capacity to act autonomously, purposefully, and collaboratively in the intergovernmental arena.
Each chapter follows a common template to facilitate comparison and covers institutional structures, municipal functions, demography, and municipal finances. Canada's municipalities function in diverse ways but have similar problems, illustrating the importance of local democracy. Foundations of Governance shows that municipal governments require the legitimacy granted by a vibrant democracy in order to negotiate and implement collective choices about the futures of communities.
The New City: How the Crisis of Canada’s Cities is Reshaping our Nation
John Lorinc
Penguin Canada © 2008
Shaped by immigration and demographics, our hub cities demonstrate what’s best about Canada: our commitment to education, tolerance, culture, and innovation. Since the early 1990s, however, troubling trends have threatened to undermine our much-envied quality of life. In The New City, award-winning urban affairs writer John Lorinc offers a compelling vision of how to make Canada’s metropolitan centres sustainable, livable, and competitive. Incisive and broad-ranging, this is a timely reminder that all Canadians must confront urban issues if we are to succeed in the tumultuous economy of the 21st century.
The Limits of Boundaries: Why City-regions Cannot be Self-governing
Andrew Sancton
McGill-Queen’s University Press © 2008
With city-regions becoming increasingly important as sources of innovation and wealth in our society, does it follow that their institutions of government will become increasingly autonomous, allowing them to become self-governing? Andrew Sancton combines his own broad knowledge of global changes with an outline and comparison of the viewpoints of prominent social scientists to argue that city regions in western liberal democracies will not and cannot be self-governing. Self-government requires a territory delineated by official boundaries. However, the multiple boundaries of city-regions, unlike the clear and undisputed boundaries of provinces and states, continue to move outward due to the constant growth and expansion of urban populations and services. The Limits of Boundaries clearly shows that difficulties in reaching agreements on boundaries fatally limit the capacity of city-regions to be self-governing.
Welcome to the Urban Revolution: How Cities are Changing the World
Jeb Brugmann
Penguin Group © 2009
In Welcome to the Urban Revolution, internationally recognized urbanist Jeb Brugmann turns traditional thinking about globalization on its head to show that the city isn't a backdrop to global change; it is a central driver of change- political, economic, social, and environmental. This powerful reappraisal of the global role of cities brilliantly synthesizes urban studies, economics, and sociology to show how cities create but can also help solve some of the 21st century's major challenges, including poverty, inequality, and environmental sustainability.
City Politics, Canada
James Lightbody
Broadview Press © 2006
City Politics, Canada is an introduction to the basic politics and core policies of today’s city halls. While the book surveys classic discussions and accurately describes municipal institutions in Canada, it also explains why particular policies assume the specific shape they do. James Lightbody argues that transparent accountability from local public officials is an important and desired end for democratic city government. Lightbody examines the various facets of metropolitan politics in a lively and engaging manner, and explains why city politics are important to all Canadians. Provincial agenda setting is viewed through the lens of the urban political landscape, as are the reasons behind the Toronto Megacity and Montreal’s consolidation. Finally, the book expands its discussion to explore the global reach of the urban phenomenon and the impact of world practices on Canada’s metropolitan cities.
The Challenge of Urban Government: Policies and Practices
Mila Freire and Richard Stren, eds.
World Bank Publications © 2001
This volume examines wide-ranging issues confronting cites, and reviews tools, strategies and practices to address them. It examines nine "windows" of urban management in the context of the new urban strategy of the World Bank. The book recognizes that cities are crucial in efforts to address poverty and development issues. It combines theoretical discussions of new, fundamental principles of urban management with practical discussions that show how concepts are translated into policy tools and strategies.
Canada: the State of the Federation 2004 – Municipal-Federal-Provincial Relations in Canada
Robert Young and Christian Leuprecht, eds.
McGill-Queen’s University Press and the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations © 2006
Cities are rising in prominence within the Canadian federal system. While advocates are demanding more money and power for cities, traditional barriers to multilevel governance are weakening.
Canada: The State of the Federation, 2004 offers indispensable insights on the role of cities in an evolving system of multilevel governance. Contributors provide a background to the recent changes in policy and power structures and an analysis of amalgamation and restructuring. They also explore housing policy, the integration of immigrants, and regional development in places as diverse as Mississauga, Saskatchewan, rural Newfoundland, and Vancouver.
Electing a Diverse Canada, The Representation of Immigrants, Minorities, and Women
Caroline Andrew, John Biles, Myer Siemiatycki and Erin Tolley, eds.
UBC Press © 2008
Electing a Diverse Canada presents the most extensive analysis to date of the electoral representation of immigrants, minorities, and women in Canada. Covering eleven cities as well as Canada’s Parliament, it breaks new ground by assessing the representation of diverse identity groups across multiple levels of government. Electoral representation is an important indicator of a democracy’s health, and this book not only provides a baseline for future research but also outlines the key challenges facing Canadian democracy.
Immigration and Integration in Canada in the Twenty-first Century
John Biles, Meyer Burstein and James Frideres, eds.
McGill-Queen’s University Press © 2008
The "two-way street" of successful integration requires commitment from both government institutions and individuals. Immigration and Integration in Canada in the Twenty-first Century looks at the social, cultural, economic, and political integration of newcomers and minorities and establishes measures for assessing the success of integration practices.
The City Reader, Fourth Edition
Edited by Richard LeGates, Frederic Stout
Routledge © 2007
The fourth edition of the highly successful The City Reader brings together the very best of publications on the city. Classic writings by such authors as Lewis Mumford, Ernest W. Burgess, LeCorbusier, Lewis Wirth, Jane Jacobs and Kevin Lynch meet the best contemporary writings of, among others, Sir Peter Hall, Richard Florida, Mike Davis, Michael Porter, Robert Putnam, Andrus Duany, Saskia Sassen, and Manuel Castells. New to the fourth edition are important classic writings on urban economics by Wilbur Thomson and those on bosses and machines by James Bryce, Jane Addams, and William L. Riordan, and new contemporary material on sustainable urban development, the creative class, metropolitics, occidentalism, Asian megacities, and urban futurism by The Bruntland Commission, Richard Florida, Myron Orfield, Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit, Aprodicio Laquian, and Joel Kotkin.
The Global Cities Reader
Edited by Neil Brenner, Roger Keil
Routledge © 2005
Providing the first comprehensive survey of new interdisciplinary scholarship on globalized urbanization, this important volume contains fifty selections from classic writings by authors such as John Friedmann, Michael Peter Smith, Saskia Sassen, Peter Taylor, Manuel Castells and Anthony King, as well as major contributions by other international scholars of global city formation.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Jane Jacobs
Vintage © 1992
A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great American Cities has, since its first publication in 1961, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured. In prose of outstanding immediacy, Jane Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what constitutes a neighborhood, and what function it serves within the larger organism of the city; about why some neighborhoods remain impoverished while others regenerate themselves. She writes about the salutary role of funeral parlors and tenement windows, the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity. Compassionate, bracingly indignant, and always keenly detailed, Jane Jacobs's monumental work provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of all cities.
Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life (Canadian edition)
Richard Florida
Vintage Canada © 2009
All places are not created equal. In this groundbreaking book, Richard Florida shows that where we live is increasingly a crucial factor in our lives, one that fundamentally affects our professional and personal prospects. As well as explaining why place matters now more than ever, Who’s Your City? provides indispensable tools to help you choose the right place for you.
Cities and the Creative Class
Richard Florida
Routledge © 2008
Cities and the Creative Class gathers in one place for the first time the research leading up to Richard Florida’s theory on how the growth of the creative economy shapes the development of cities and regions. He argues that people are the key economic growth asset, and that cities and regions can therefore no longer compete simply by attracting companies or by developing big-ticket venues like sports stadiums and downtown development districts. Long-run success requires a reinvention of regions into the kind of open and diverse places that can attract and retain talent from across the social spectrum – by allowing people to validate their varied identities and to pursue the lifestyles and jobs they choose.
Available Online
Our Diverse Cities
Metropolis © 2004
Published with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, this magazine seeks to provide a look at population diversity in Canadian cities. Take note of volume 1, which focuses on how particular types of cities deal with immigration and diversity. Available online at: http://canada.metropolis.net/publications/index_e.htm
Emergency: Municipalities missing from disaster planning. A report to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities
June 2006
This report, prepared for FCM by the National Security Group, focuses on the roles municipal governments play in managing emergencies. It makes a number of recommendations, including the need for better cooperation and coordination among governments on planning and response capabilities; municipal involvement in setting the policies and programs for emergency response; and appropriate funding. Available at http://www.fcm.ca//CMFiles/emergency1MTC-3282008-7706.pdf
Poverty, Housing and Homelessness: Issues and Options
First Report of the Subcommittee on Cities of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, June 2008
http://www.parl.gc.ca/39/2/parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/soci-e/rep-e/repfinaljun08-e.pdf
Articles and Chapters
Christopher Leo (2006) Deep Federalism: Respecting Community Difference in National Policy, Canadian Journal of Political Science 39:3, 481-506.
Christopher Leo and Martine August (2009) The Multi-Level Governance of Immigration and Settlement: Making Deep Federalism Work, Canadian Journal of Political Science 42 (2).
Christopher Leo and Jeremy Enns (2009) Multi-level governance and ideological rigidity: The failure of deep federalism, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 42 (1).
Christopher Leo and Martine August (2006) National Policy and Community Initiative: Mismanaging Homelessness in a Slow Growth City, Canadian Journal of Urban Research 15 (1) (supplement), pp. 1-21.
Emergency Planning in Nova Scotia (2009)
Malcolm Grieve
Websites
American City Journal: http://www.city-journal.org
The Toronto Region Research Alliance: http://www.trra.ca
Christopher Leo's Blog
http://blog.uwinnipeg.ca/ChristopherLeo/archives/2009/09/mismanaging_hom.html
http://blog.uwinnipeg.ca/ChristopherLeo/archives/2009/09/immigration_and.html
