The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on global cities in particular. Many of the assets of global cities – connectivity, proximity, agglomeration – almost overnight proved also to be vulnerabilities. As cities emerge from the pandemic into the economic recovery phase, their underlying strengths are beginning to re-emerge. But cities, and city policies, have also been changed by the pandemic, and cities will need to adapt and adjust to address some of these issues, particularly regarding urban inequalities, which the experience of the pandemic has exposed. In this talk, Professor Mark Kleinman of King’s College London discussed these issues with a particular focus on London UK, but drawing also on comparative evidence.

On April 26, IMFG Graduate Fellow Shervin Ghaem-Maghami examined how selected municipalities in the GTA are engaging immigrants in planning decisions, and how such public participation activities can be improved to most meaningfully draw upon the strengths and adapt to the needs of newcomer communities.

On May 10, 2022, IMFG Graduate Fellow Fernando Calderón Figueroa explored the relationship between trust and the built environment of neighbourhoods across Canadian municipalities. First, he used data from Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey to show that trust is spatially concentrated — in other words, that people with similar levels of trust towards others tend to be in proximity to one another. Second, he argued that the spatial composition of cities — measured through people’s proximity to amenities like libraries, parks, and schools — is positively correlated with trust, and that a having a lot of amenities in close proximity to each other promotes the kind of recurrent casual encounters that lead to higher levels of trust.

On May 25, 2022, IMFG Visiting Scholar Gerard Turley presented on the story of Ireland’s new residential property tax, covering the background and country context, design features, implementation, and reform lessons.

On June 14, 2022, IMFG Post-Doctoral Fellow Hsi-Chuan Wang presented his ongoing research on informal settlement policies in two capital cities in the global south: Accra, Ghana, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Both countries experienced significant financial system reform, economic liberation, and far-reaching public sector restructuring in the 1990s. Since that time, Accra and Buenos Aires have taken different approaches to housing and infrastructure provision in informal settlements. The findings suggest that the perceptions and approaches toward low-income residents changed in both places at the national and local levels between the 1980s and 2000s. Moreover, compared with Accra, Buenos Aires has undertaken a wider range of policies and strategies to improve settlements, especially after the economic depression in the early 21st century. This difference in approach can be partly attributed to different governance structures in the two cities.

On Wednesday, October 19, 2022, our expert panel examined what the “Strong Mayors” policy actually means: what difference will it really make? Is it a sea change or a tempest in a teapot? Will strong mayors actually mean stronger cities?

On November 29, 2022, IMFG Post-doctoral Fellow Robert Stewart discussed how Green Investment Banks can play a role in supporting key municipal investments.

On Tuesday, December 6, 2022, the CAOs of York, Peel and Durham regions outlined their current fiscal situations and provided a fiscal outlook. They explored their region’s COVID-19 response, and set out some future goals, including in the context of complex intergovernmental relationships across the GTA and with the provincial and federal governments.

Don Iveson, former Mayor of Edmonton and Chair of Canada's Big City Mayors’ Caucus, made the case for regionalism on January 17, 2023. He was was joined by Jen Nelles from the Oxford Brooks Business School and Zack Taylor from Western University who discussed ideas around regional coordination and highlighted some of the findings from their research.

On April 13, 2023, IMFG held a Toronto book launch to discuss "Sustainability, Citizen Participation, and City Governance" with Hoi L. Kong and Alexandra Flynn