His Worship Mayor Don Iveson of Edmonton is joined in conversation with Professor Richard Florida on a number of topics and issues related to the Role of Big Cities in Canada. This event is part of the Big City, Big Ideas series, which features global leaders in urban and regional policy.

Rapid developments in digital innovation and in the availability and application of large-scale data sets create opportunities both for new economic activities and jobs, and for new and cheaper ways of delivering city services. They also hold out possibilities for new ways that governments can engage with citizens, while at the same time raising concerns about data privacy.

Are infrastructure financing tools underutilized when it comes to planning for smart growth? Do we run the risk of undercutting “smart growth” efforts if we assume infrastructure financing tools to be growth-neutral?

The Indian Planning Commission was one of India's leading public economic institutions. The dissolution of the Planning Commission by the present government in New Delhi and its replacement by the Niti Aayog raises important questions for economic policy, explored in this panel event.

This talk surveys the fiscal impacts of rising police salaries for Ontario's municipalities, then goes on to present research about best practices for controlling costs.

Conventional wisdom and the literature in urban planning suggest that high density built form is preferable to low density because it is more environmentally sustainable and results in lower hard infrastructure costs. This presentation entertains the other side of the argument: that high density built form can increase soft infrastructure costs.

In 1970, the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco had almost identical levels of income per resident. In 2010, the San Francisco Bay Area was almost one-third richer than Los Angeles. This in-depth study draws on economics, sociology, political science and geography to shed new light on the deep causes of economic development and challenges conventional notions about development in urban regions around the world.

At this event, Martim Smolka speaks about the theory and practice of land value capture as it has been implemented in Latin America, and David Amborski discusses its use in Canada.

On the tenth anniversary of the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance, panelists Enid Slack, Richard M. Bird, and Zack Taylor look at the past, present, and future of these issues and give their progress reports: what, if anything, have cities learned?