Jane Jacobs / Systems of Survival A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics chapter one

"My personal favourite is Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics. Although written in the dialogue format, which some readers find irksome, this is a demanding, profound book that raises for me so many important questions about the values that underpin the different functions necessary to contemporary life." From: Mary Rowe on cities, nature, and chaotic systems — Mary Rowe Dir, Urban Resilience and Livability, Municipal Art Society NYC 

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... the old oracle said,

"All things have two handles:

beware of the wrong one."

—RALPH WALDO EMERSON

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I was sure Systems of Survival would be a difficult read. In fact it’s in the form of an engaging dialogue, the form she also used for her 2000 book The Nature of Economies.

Retired publisher Armbruster invites 5 friends and colleagues to discuss something troubling him: that “the web of trust [and honesty] upon which so much depends, is in a deplorable state.” He opens with an anecdote about taking a consulting fee he’d been paid in Hanover Germany to a local bank for transfer to his home bank in New York City. He realized later he’d turned over to a stranger a sum of money in return for a piece of paper written in a language he couldn’t understand and that he no concern that the funds wouldn’t be in his home account when he needed them. From this observation of unquestioned trust he also notes widespread and well known examples of “chicanery and avarice” and examples of every day folks “conspiring with dishonesty when it seems to benefit them.”

When he returned to NYC he researches examples of “embezzlement… fraud… collusion… kickbacks… cheating... bill padding… insider trading and stock manpulation… patent infringement… lies and coverups… With the exception of some of the embezzlers… these were all crimes committed by business owners or managers, bent on victimizing other enterprises, or else their own workers, their own customers, their own suppliers, or the public at large.”

Armbruster “dangles the bait” and they all agree with more and less enthusiasm to continue the discussion in four weeks time when academic, animal behaviour researcher Kate will present the first report to the group, a report to “identify our systems or systems of moral behaviour concerned with work. [For instance] What sort of rules safeguard the security of moving money around? We know honest accounting is one, but we also know it’s fragile…. Just some thinking about the commonplace norms we purport to depend on."

Hello Nanaimo? San Bernardino on the Line ― With Your Wake Up Call

From Price Tags: http://pricetags.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/suburban-notes-from-all-over/ San Bernadino, CA

A wave of bankruptcies
The bankruptcy of San Bernardino, population over 200,000, should not surprise anyone. In fact, as we look at it more closely, we can see that a city that has fully embraced the post-WW II development model, riding its boom to the inevitable bust. … San Bernardino is interesting, however, because it really is the first major city that seems to be imploding under its own weight. …

From all outside appearances, it seems that the business of San Bernardino — the apparent reason for it existing — was to build San Bernardino. A full 13 percent of the work force is still in construction, with much of the other employment coming in secondary, service industries (education, health care, etc…). The city was #11 on the list of Top 101 cities with the largest percentage of males in the construction and extraction occupations (#16 for females). City budgets still show huge revenue projections for permit fees, plan review fees and development impact fees.

Read more: http://bettercities.net/news-opinion/blogs/charles-marohn/18606/wave-bankruptcies

Charlie Rose — A Mayors Roundtable With the Mayors of Chicago, Louisville, Baltimore and Jacksonville

From Monday, April 16, 2012. A Mayors Roundtable with: Rahm Emanuel, Mayor of Chicago; Greg Fischer, Mayor of Louisville; Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Mayor of Baltimore; and Alvin Brown, Mayor of Jacksonville.

From Think City —Local Government Financing: Chapter 1

Most local governments in British Columbia are governed under the Community Charter and the Local Government Act. There are some exceptions, such as the City of Vancouver, the Islands Trust, and various resort municipalities governed under separate legislation.

However, whether it’s BC’s largest municipality, the new Sun Peaks Mountain Resort or the Village of Hazelton, municipal legislation regulating the financial scope of a local government is virtually the same across BC – and that scope is quite limited.

Read more: Chapter 1: Local Government Financing | Think City

From The Globe and Mail —Modern City, Modern Partnerships

If you’re one of the 80 per cent of Canadians who lives in a city, chances are you’re fiercely proud of it. Our cities can match any in the world for vibrancy, quality of life, entrepreneurial spirit and creative and civic culture.

But there’s no guarantee this will last. Canada’s cities face big challenges in the next few decades: managing growth, improving livability, becoming more sustainable and making city living far more affordable.

Just to avoid slipping backward, the infrastructure requirements are sobering: a $5-billion annual drag on our economy from traffic gridlock; a $123-billion deficit for fixing worn-out infrastructure. Read more: Modern city, modern partnerships - The Globe and Mail

From Michael Geller's Blog: Priority Number One: Housing Affordability

On Monday, the new Vancouver City Council was sworn in, and in his inaugural address, the Mayor focussed on his goal to create affordable housing for all. He proposed a 'blue ribbon Task Force" to examine various solutions, including 'leveraging' city owned lands....

Michael Geller's Blog: Priority Number One: Housing Affordability

Michael Geller on housing affordability with links to stories in the Sun and Strait and Frances Bula's blog.

Creative Financing | canadianarchitect.com

As they stroll along the grand boulevards of Paris, few visitors understand the creative financial mechanisms that underwrote the city's reconstruction in the 1850s. Between 1851 and 1869, the Prefect of the Seine, Baron Georges-Eugènes Haussmann, oversaw the expenditure of some 2.5 billion francs and took the view that "expenditures on public works were not expenditures at all but investments readily recoverable in rising tax revenues from the growing population and from increased property values that the expenditures themselves created," according to historian David H. Pinkney. In 1918, New York City adopted its own form of "creative financing" to preserve its landmark buildings, by allowing owners to transfer their rights to develop to other sites. Since then, Transferable Density Rights (TDRs) have preserved many historic buildings in New York, with over one hundred municipalities in the United States having adopted similar legislation. Such policy mechanisms are less common in Canada.


Read more: Creative Financing | canadianarchitect.com

Vancouver Sun, Nov 14, 2011
Municipal spending grows four times faster than population

  

Operating spending by B.C. municipalities has nearly quadrupled in the past decade compared to the rate of population growth and inflation, says a new report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

Photograph by: Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Sun