Enlisting architects, animators and more importantly residents, an NFB film titled One Millionth Tower, provides ideas for revitalizing Toronto's aging highrises. Some of the ideas include eliminating first floor apartments to make room for cafes and businesses, creating a marketspace, and networks and paths linking to the towers to parks and community gardens.
The belief that adding more traditional playgrounds will encourage activity amongst children has proven to be a false assumption. A study that used GPS (Global Positioning System) to examine the link between environment and activity levels amongst children has shown that traditional playgrounds do little to promote activity. The large metal structures are often intimidating for children and unusable in winter or rainy months.
Literary icon Margaret Atwood has accepted an invitation from Hamilton Mayor Bob Bratina to tour the city's newly renovated library. Bratina sent the invite to counter the negative remarks by Toronto councillor Doug Ford who stated he wouldn't recognize Atwood should she pass him on the street.
In response Bratina stated:
Mark Lakeman of Portland's City Repair seems to think so. He explains that when examining a new project most city staff, consider liability first, rather than the merits of the project. Cities are more focused on risk aversion than innovation and it is holding back creativity and community building. Read more in the Tyee.
Ontario's Local Food Champions report recognizes Markham Ontario as being the first municipality in Ontario to develop a local food policy. Highlights of the policy include:• Cutting edge food service model bringing more Ontario food into a municipally run cafeteria• In 2008 Markham committed to procuring no less than 10 per cent Local Food Plus (LFP) certified Ontario food in the municipal cafeteria, with a target of five per cent yearly increases• By 2010 over 30 per cent of food procurement was LFP certified, Canada's only local sustainable food certification
