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CBC Calgary: Enid Slack on How Canadian Municipalities Face Similar Fiscal Strains

Global Radio: Enid Slack on the Challenges Facing Municipalities

Toronto Star: 13th Annual Toronto City Manager’s Address

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  • A City for All: Achieving More Inclusive Municipal Governance in Toronto

    Over the last several months, Toronto’s fissures and inequalities have been put on display. Protests against police brutality and anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism have once again highlighted the systemic racism that undergirds many of the city’s key institutions, all while COVID-19 has disproportionately affected areas of the city with large racialized and newcomer populations. These […]

  • Metropolitan Governance: Future Necessity or Misplaced Dream?

    Campbell Conference Facility Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Experts from multiple disciplines have argued in principle for the benefits of metropolitan governance, but how has it played out in practice? On September 19, IMFG Visiting Scholar Alan Harding addressed this question by drawing on his experience as Chief Economic Adviser to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority as well as his many years of […]

  • From the Top Down: The Governance of Urban Development in Mexico

    Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, Room 208N 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Although efforts were made to decentralize in Mexico during the late 20th century, federal and state-level policy has continued to supersede local governance. Local governments in Mexico have limited financial and institutional capacities and are seldom able to guide urban development and construction processes, for example. The result of this top down approach has sometimes […]

  • Toronto’s Future: Who’s Paying? The 7th Annual IMFG Toronto City Manager’s Address

    Campbell Conference Facility Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Chris Murray, Toronto's new City Manager, is a former planner who thinks of the future in terms of decades, not years. In his address, Toronto's Future: Who's Paying?, he will discuss the "elephant in the room" when it comes to municipal government: what kind of city are we leaving behind for future generations?

  • Housing Access & Urban Governance: Lessons from Mexico’s Recent Experience

    Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, Room 208N 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Changes to federal housing policy in Mexico in the 1990s helped finance the largest housing boom in the country’s history. During the 2000s, millions of Mexicans acquired mortgages to buy homes in the fringes of cities throughout the country. At the same time, decentralization efforts were under way to increase the capacity of local governments to, among other things, manage urban growth. Yet, even large municipalities have been ill equipped to provide adequate infrastructure and services to the new remote housing locations that have popped up in the last two decades. Furthermore, an increasing number of Mexican households have struggled to keep up with their mortgage payments with the result that some new developments have alarmingly high housing vacancy rates, all while about a third of Mexicans live in poor housing conditions.

  • Behind the City Beat: A Pre-Election Media Panel

    Campbell Conference Facility Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    In the lead up to Ontario’s upcoming municipal election, the Institute of Municipal Finance and Governance (IMFG) will bring together a panel of journalists who will address how they cover municipal elections; which policy issues matter most; and how they adapt and stay relevant in the changing media landscape.

  • Mind the Funding Gap: Transit Financing in Los Angeles County and Metro Vancouver

    Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, Room 208N 1 Devonshire Place, North House, Room 208N, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Across North American cities, the demand for better public transit is pervasive, yet many local governments lack the sufficient revenue tools to finance the construction of new infrastructure. To resolve this dilemma, some localities have turned to citizens directly, proposing temporary earmarked sales tax increases as a way to finance capital-intensive projects. Why have some communities been more receptive to this funding model than others?

  • Legacies of the Megacity: Toronto’s Amalgamation 20 Years Later

    Campbell Conference Facility Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    In 1998, Metropolitan Toronto and its six lower tier municipalities were amalgamated to form the City of Toronto. The decision to amalgamate was controversial then, and continues to be contentious to some today. Two decades later, what can we say about the megacity merger? Did it achieve its goals? Are Torontonians better served by one large government than the previous two-tier model? Looking forward, what lies ahead for regional governance in the GTHA?

  • Promise and Peril in the Smart City: Local Government in the Age of Digital Urbanism

    Campbell Conference Facility Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    The recent swell of interest in smart cities draws attention to the way the city of the future will be designed, built, and run. Increased use of technology in municipal servicing and governance holds tremendous promise to increase community engagement, create efficiencies in service production, better manage scarce resources and increase sustainability. At the same […]