I just stumbled upon an interesting piece in the Boston Globe (from last December) talking about how the bicycle is “emerging as a new conservative front in the culture wars.”

It starts by talking about Toronto mayor Rob Ford and asks: Who elected this guy? Their response comes down to mode of transport.

The answer, in large part, comes down to transit. Ford is famously pro-car, and his strongest support came from suburbs outside downtown Toronto, where voters drive into the city during the day and return by car in the evening. One political scientist found that the strongest predictor of whether someone voted for Ford in the 2010 mayoral election was the person’s method of commuting: Car commuters were Ford voters; everyone else wasn’t. Ford repaid their loyalty by declaring on his first day as mayor that the “war on cars” was over; he abolished the vehicle registration tax and announced a plan to kill light rail in the city simply because, he said, streetcars “are just a pain in the rear end.”

The article then goes on to argue that Ford is at the forefront of a growing conservative movement using bikes as a new political lightning rod. Conservative politicians view cyclists as urbanites (statistically this is true) and therefore not part of their core voter base (statistically this is also true). And so hating on bikes has become a convenient way for them to galvanize their support base.

But beyond bikes, we’re really talking about a bigger city building issue: How do you unify a city with such divergent priorities? How do we stop this downtown versus the suburbs mentality? These are important questions and I don’t think the answer is to de-amalgamate Toronto. That’s the easy way out.

Whether we like it or not, the Toronto region functions as one contiguous economic unit and, if we want to be able to effectively compete on the global stage, we’re going to need cohesion. We need to get our house in order. It’s still early days for Toronto’s 2014 mayoral election, but I really hope the next 4 years turn out to be better than the last. I think they will.

It’s nearly 2014. And I suspect many of you are about to begin pursuing your New Year’s resolutions (or are at least contemplating the idea). Unfortunately, I’m here to deliver some bad news: they don’t work. Statistically, the odds are against you. In fact, a 2007 survey done in the UK found that 88% of all resolutions end in failure!

So why do we keep making them? Well, old habits die hard.

But to be perfectly honest with you, I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions. They strike me as silly. If I smoked (which I don’t), why would I wait until the New Year to “quit”? Because I don’t really want to quit and this prolongs it. It’s a form of procrastination.

If you really want to do something, do it right now—whether it’s May or October. It’s that simple. And if you’re not willing to do it right now, then, to be honest, you probably don’t want it that bad. And if you wait until the New Year, you’ll almost certainly fail.

But I will say that I do enjoy and believe in goal setting. I keep lots of lists (using apps like Clear and Evernote). In particular, I like to actively manage two sets of goals. I call them “My Progressive Goals” and “My Disciplines.”

Progressive goals are things, like the name suggests, that grow and evolve over time. For example, completing my MBA, ahead of schedule, was one of my progressive goals for 2013. Check.

My Disciplines, on the other hand, are activities that in and of themselves don’t change. They’re just things I’ve committed to doing and I use the list as both a reminder and as a way of ensuring I don’t take on too much (which I have a tendency of doing).

These are things like blogging here everyday, going to the gym regularly, and doing one big snowboard trip with the guys from Penn every year. I’ll still set progressive goals within each discipline, but the disciplines themselves stay the same. They are, after all, disciplines.

So as much as I scoff at New Year’s resolutions, I have been tuning up my goals and disciplines for 2014. Blogging became a big part of my life in 2013 and I look forward to getting better at it in the New Year. Thanks for reading Architect This City. Don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter.

Onwards my friends!

I just stumbled upon an interesting piece in the Boston Globe (from last December) talking about how the bicycle is “emerging as a new conservative front in the culture wars.”

It starts by talking about Toronto mayor Rob Ford and asks: Who elected this guy? Their response comes down to mode of transport.

The answer, in large part, comes down to transit. Ford is famously pro-car, and his strongest support came from suburbs outside downtown Toronto, where voters drive into the city during the day and return by car in the evening. One political scientist found that the strongest predictor of whether someone voted for Ford in the 2010 mayoral election was the person’s method of commuting: Car commuters were Ford voters; everyone else wasn’t. Ford repaid their loyalty by declaring on his first day as mayor that the “war on cars” was over; he abolished the vehicle registration tax and announced a plan to kill light rail in the city simply because, he said, streetcars “are just a pain in the rear end.”

The article then goes on to argue that Ford is at the forefront of a growing conservative movement using bikes as a new political lightning rod. Conservative politicians view cyclists as urbanites (statistically this is true) and therefore not part of their core voter base (statistically this is also true). And so hating on bikes has become a convenient way for them to galvanize their support base.

But beyond bikes, we’re really talking about a bigger city building issue: How do you unify a city with such divergent priorities? How do we stop this downtown versus the suburbs mentality? These are important questions and I don’t think the answer is to de-amalgamate Toronto. That’s the easy way out.

Whether we like it or not, the Toronto region functions as one contiguous economic unit and, if we want to be able to effectively compete on the global stage, we’re going to need cohesion. We need to get our house in order. It’s still early days for Toronto’s 2014 mayoral election, but I really hope the next 4 years turn out to be better than the last. I think they will.

It’s nearly 2014. And I suspect many of you are about to begin pursuing your New Year’s resolutions (or are at least contemplating the idea). Unfortunately, I’m here to deliver some bad news: they don’t work. Statistically, the odds are against you. In fact, a 2007 survey done in the UK found that 88% of all resolutions end in failure!

So why do we keep making them? Well, old habits die hard.

But to be perfectly honest with you, I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions. They strike me as silly. If I smoked (which I don’t), why would I wait until the New Year to “quit”? Because I don’t really want to quit and this prolongs it. It’s a form of procrastination.

If you really want to do something, do it right now—whether it’s May or October. It’s that simple. And if you’re not willing to do it right now, then, to be honest, you probably don’t want it that bad. And if you wait until the New Year, you’ll almost certainly fail.

But I will say that I do enjoy and believe in goal setting. I keep lots of lists (using apps like Clear and Evernote). In particular, I like to actively manage two sets of goals. I call them “My Progressive Goals” and “My Disciplines.”

Progressive goals are things, like the name suggests, that grow and evolve over time. For example, completing my MBA, ahead of schedule, was one of my progressive goals for 2013. Check.

My Disciplines, on the other hand, are activities that in and of themselves don’t change. They’re just things I’ve committed to doing and I use the list as both a reminder and as a way of ensuring I don’t take on too much (which I have a tendency of doing).

These are things like blogging here everyday, going to the gym regularly, and doing one big snowboard trip with the guys from Penn every year. I’ll still set progressive goals within each discipline, but the disciplines themselves stay the same. They are, after all, disciplines.

So as much as I scoff at New Year’s resolutions, I have been tuning up my goals and disciplines for 2014. Blogging became a big part of my life in 2013 and I look forward to getting better at it in the New Year. Thanks for reading Architect This City. Don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter.

Onwards my friends!