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This collection of papers by leading experts, emerging scholars, and policy makers in the field of municipal taxation and finance sets out the financial challenges facing municipalities in Canada today and examines various practical means of navigating these challenges.
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Across North American cities, the demand for better public transit is pervasive, yet many local governments lack sufficient revenue 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? This study addresses this question by comparing the recent experiences of Los Angeles County (2008), where a ballot measure to raise money for transportation was successful and Metro Vancouver (2015), where a similar public vote was unsuccessful.
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New development is essential to supporting a growing city but it also leads to added costs for municipal governments. New housing developments often require new or expanded infrastructure, including roads, sewers, and water treatment plants. There is ongoing debate on how cities should pay for this growth-related capital. Some argue that user fees and property tax revenues are sufficient to cover these costs, and that development charges on developers will likely result in increased housing prices.
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Municipalities across the GTHA face many shared challenges. Ahead of last year’s municipal elections, the Institute on Municipal Governance and Finance (IMFG) published a series of essays from some of the GTHA’s most respected leaders offering bold ideas to push the region forward on key issues. In this video, four of these leaders discuss their bold ideas.
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Whether institutional constraints are desirable is a debate that may alternatively be framed as one over the merits of local government autonomy. This paper contributes to this debate by empirically analysing the effects of local government autonomy on several outcomes, including the size of government, the ownsource revenue mix, and fiscal sustainability.
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Transit presents unique challenges for metropolitan regions. In tightly connected metropolitan regions several questions arise: who should make transit decisions? Who should run the system? Who should pay for it? On February 21, Michael Schabas explored how different cities and regions around the world have addressed these questions.
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Transit presents unique challenges for metropolitan regions. These varied demands raise important governance questions in tightly connected metropolitan regions: who should make transit decisions? Who should run the system? Who should pay for it? In this video, Michael Schabas, Patricia Wood, and Joe Berridge explore how different cities and regions around the world have confronted these questions.
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Chris Murray, Toronto’s City Manager, is a former planner who thinks of the future in terms of decades, not years. In this video of his address, Toronto’s Future: Who’s Paying?, he discusses the “elephant in the room” when it comes to municipal government: what kind of city are we leaving behind for future generations?
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