Last year I wrote a post called Province of Toronto, where I briefly talked about the outdated nature of how cities are organized and governed in Canada. I was effectively arguing that, in today’s global economy, our dominate economic unit needs to be the city–not the province. 

This isn’t something that gets talked about a lot, but I feel strongly that we should be looking at it. We’re unnecessarily crippling the economic, social, and cultural potential of our cities because we, to put it bluntly, haven’t gotten around to reorganizing our governance structure.

Well, this evening, I happened to stumble upon a great post by The Urbanophile called, Are States an Anachronism? In it, he cites a book by Richard Longworth called Caught in the Middle (that is now on my Clear reading list), which argues that states, as an economic unit in the US, are not only outdated, but hugely detrimental to the economy.

More specifically, he outlines the following concerns (taken directly from The Urbanophile blog):

1. States do not represent communities of interest.

2. Arbitrary state lines encourage senseless border wars.

3. Many state capitals are small, isolated, and cut off from knowledge about the global 21st century economy.

4. Metro areas are the engines of the modern economy, but the rules for municipal and regional governance are set by states, and often in a manner that is directly contrary to urban interests.

5. States can’t to much to help, but they can do a lot to hurt.

For a complete explanation of each of the above points, I would encourage you to check out the full blog post, here. As I said before, this isn’t a topic that’s top of mind for most people. But it’s an important one. Our global competitiveness is at stake.

Earlier this week I talked about the huge importance of cities and how our governance structures are entirely ill-suited to the realities of our new urban focused economy. It was in relation to a talk that Richard Florida gave at the Rotman School.

Well this morning, I stumbled upon an old blog post by Alan Broadbent, who is the author of a book called Urban Nation. In it, he echoes a similar belief: Our governance structures, particularly as they relate to cities, are completely outdated. Toronto would be better off as its own, separate province.

Here’s an excerpt from his blog post:

"In my book Urban Nation (2008), I wrote that Canada’s cities were the orphans of Confederation, creatures of the provinces locked in constitutional arrangements that are almost a century and a half out of date. Our large urban regions are now the economic, social, and cultural engines of the country. They compete with other large urban regions around the world to create prosperity and well-being.

In Canada, these regions create the wealth that gets shared with the rest of the country through our redistribution and transfer arrangements. It is in our cities that the capital pools are assembled to take the oil, gas, and minerals out of the ground, where the factories and laboratories are built, and where much of our modern industries of information and design are based.

But our cities are not in control of their own destiny. Like Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire, they are very much reliant on the kindness of strangers. They have few residual powers and limited revenue tools, being overly reliant on property taxes and barred from levying income or sales taxes, the big revenue generators. They are closely controlled by provincial governments and generally ignored by Ottawa. Their role in Confederation is to send money and keep quiet.”

This is a big deal and a big problem. We’re stymying the full economic, social and cultural potential of our cities. We’re underutilizing our greatest assets. It’s time for a new, urban focused, governance structure.

Last year I wrote a post called Province of Toronto, where I briefly talked about the outdated nature of how cities are organized and governed in Canada. I was effectively arguing that, in today’s global economy, our dominate economic unit needs to be the city–not the province. 

This isn’t something that gets talked about a lot, but I feel strongly that we should be looking at it. We’re unnecessarily crippling the economic, social, and cultural potential of our cities because we, to put it bluntly, haven’t gotten around to reorganizing our governance structure.

Well, this evening, I happened to stumble upon a great post by The Urbanophile called, Are States an Anachronism? In it, he cites a book by Richard Longworth called Caught in the Middle (that is now on my Clear reading list), which argues that states, as an economic unit in the US, are not only outdated, but hugely detrimental to the economy.

More specifically, he outlines the following concerns (taken directly from The Urbanophile blog):

1. States do not represent communities of interest.

2. Arbitrary state lines encourage senseless border wars.

3. Many state capitals are small, isolated, and cut off from knowledge about the global 21st century economy.

4. Metro areas are the engines of the modern economy, but the rules for municipal and regional governance are set by states, and often in a manner that is directly contrary to urban interests.

5. States can’t to much to help, but they can do a lot to hurt.

For a complete explanation of each of the above points, I would encourage you to check out the full blog post, here. As I said before, this isn’t a topic that’s top of mind for most people. But it’s an important one. Our global competitiveness is at stake.

Earlier this week I talked about the huge importance of cities and how our governance structures are entirely ill-suited to the realities of our new urban focused economy. It was in relation to a talk that Richard Florida gave at the Rotman School.

Well this morning, I stumbled upon an old blog post by Alan Broadbent, who is the author of a book called Urban Nation. In it, he echoes a similar belief: Our governance structures, particularly as they relate to cities, are completely outdated. Toronto would be better off as its own, separate province.

Here’s an excerpt from his blog post:

"In my book Urban Nation (2008), I wrote that Canada’s cities were the orphans of Confederation, creatures of the provinces locked in constitutional arrangements that are almost a century and a half out of date. Our large urban regions are now the economic, social, and cultural engines of the country. They compete with other large urban regions around the world to create prosperity and well-being.

In Canada, these regions create the wealth that gets shared with the rest of the country through our redistribution and transfer arrangements. It is in our cities that the capital pools are assembled to take the oil, gas, and minerals out of the ground, where the factories and laboratories are built, and where much of our modern industries of information and design are based.

But our cities are not in control of their own destiny. Like Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire, they are very much reliant on the kindness of strangers. They have few residual powers and limited revenue tools, being overly reliant on property taxes and barred from levying income or sales taxes, the big revenue generators. They are closely controlled by provincial governments and generally ignored by Ottawa. Their role in Confederation is to send money and keep quiet.”

This is a big deal and a big problem. We’re stymying the full economic, social and cultural potential of our cities. We’re underutilizing our greatest assets. It’s time for a new, urban focused, governance structure.