As City Council debates the future of Toronto’s long term financial direction, what lessons can we learn from the past?

Which new financial instruments and strategies could municipalities rely on to take advantage of today’s low interest rates? What can we learn from municipal lending markets elsewhere?

Sydney and Toronto share remarkable similarities in culture, community and global economic status, and in major waterfront and city centre revitalization. This event features a discussion on the very different ways these cities are achieving similar goals from the leaders of waterfront renewal in both cities.

Toronto is facing tough decisions in the coming years: does the City have the right toolkit to fund high quality public services and badly needed capital improvements? Do we have a solid foundation on which to position our city-building objectives?

In this presentation, Zack Taylor explores findings from his recent IMFG Paper on the meaning of good local governance for Canadian cities, and how to measure it.

The national infrastructure deficit has been estimated at close to $400 billion, and much of it rests at the municipal level. Before local governments can raise these funds – through taxes, fees, or other revenue sources – residents must trust that the money is needed and that it will be spent wisely.

Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is among the new financing approaches being considered by city governments in Canada to finance their share of infrastructure spending. Can cities in Canada rely on the revenues generated by TIF? What are the mechanics of assessing the uplift from a TIF before a project is implemented? How much money has it actually raised in practice?

This talk presents findings from a new book about the peculiarities of city-county separation. What are the dangers of having municipal institutions that are too rigid to modernize, and what does it mean for the future of regional governance in Ontario?

In this talk, IMFG Post-Doctoral Fellow Abigail Friendly compares the use of LVC in two cities – São Paulo and Toronto – with a focus on acquiring local benefits and services such as park improvements, childcare and recreational facilities, and social housing.

Karel Martens discusses the consequences of “the accessibility turn” - arguing, first, that the assessment of accessibility is not merely an option, but a moral obligation for transportation authorities, and second, that the focus on accessibility inevitably requires these authorities to explicitly address questions of fairness.