Worth Reading - April 2, 2015

The team at Samara has put out a fantastic report on the state of Canadian democracy. Given the current situation I'm sure you can imagine that it isn't exactly positive.

While I was in university I was sometimes asked why I studied history. My reply was normally something along the lines of the fact that there is no better way to understand our contemporary world than the study of the past. The New York Times has an interesting piece on how the Reconstruction period after the American Civil War continues to shape contemporary America. 

I'm not sure of Steve Paikin knows something I don't but he penned this piece asking if Mayor John Tory is ready to abandon the Scarborough Subway, which is becoming increasingly untenable. 

Last week the CBC hosted a debate asking a simple question: Is politics broken? Check it out. 

From Chuck Marohn and the Strong Towns blog, what is the right level of density? Density for the sake of density is not enough, but that's not clear to all urban advocates. Chuck got a lot of feedback and posted a follow-up post here. 

Back home in Ontario leaders from across the GTHA got together in quiet meeting. The cities of the GTA have a great need to work together and (perhaps sadly) the province is the best posed to host any discussion and cooperation.

More black-eyes for the trustees as two are removed from office for not disclosing their expenses. 

I highly recommend following Justin Ling on Twitter his live-tweeting of events in Ottawa, if you can't check out what he's writing. His coverage of Bill C-51 is fantastic. In this article outlines the government's work to stymie amendments. 

When leader of the Wildrose Party abandoned her own party and joined the government it grabbed a lot of excitement and attention. Therefore it is with some schadenfreude that Danielle Smith failed to win the nomination for re-election. 

Wired has an interesting article on the 'company town' Facebook is building in California. 

I'll be blunt, big box urbanism sucks and it baffles me that our cities still practice this ludicrous design philosophy. It is an insane process of forced obsolescence that leeches wealth out of communities.