EQ Journal

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Want Higher Density Communities?

Then First Build Out not Up (This is an article I wrote in 2003 concerning the policy direction of then Kanata Councillor, Peggy Feltmate who continued in a long line of municipal politicians to oppose building the City outwards in the mistaken belief that this would prevent building upwards. Her goal and mine were the [...]

Russian Dachnik Movement

Introduction The Russian Dacha and the Dachnik movement have been around for more than 100 years and the home garden for more than 1,000. The Dacha is typically a one-room cottage perched on one hectare of land—large enough to grow fruits and vegetables to support a single family via intense, mostly manual labour. One-room Russian [...]

Livable Cities Versus Mono Cultured Suburbs

This article was originally written for the Conference on Social Harmony, Ottawa Public Library, December 4, 2001 It wasn’t long after my wife and I and our five kids moved to a western suburb of Ottawa in the late 1980s before a group of our neighbors circulated a petition in the neighborhood. They were concerned [...]

Highest and Best Use

A Guiding Philosophy for Neo-Urbanist Designers Why Nimby’ites are Wrong to Oppose Higher Densities and Mixed Use Negative Property Taxes Urban Catalysts/Anti-Catalysts Highest and Best Use “Highest and best use for a property is achieved when the value created by its development for a specific set of physically possible, permitted uses (its functional program) and [...]

Concept Planning, Functional Programming & Critical Path Methodology

For Product Managers The Basics Steve Jobs at Apple is a minimalist: he believes that the most important things you do are the things you decide not to do. He is a great believer in design and in perfecting the user experience. His lodestone is to start a product design from the users’ POV and [...]

Democratic Abuse

The Growing Imbalance between City Planners, Developers and Community Activists— Democratic Abuse and Re-Engineering Approvals Introduction Once upon a time, town government or city-state government was based on the Athenian model of participatory democracy. Citizens and land owners met with town elders to plan the development of their communities—who lives where, what type of activities [...]

Why Landowners Won’t Sell

I have been puzzled for awhile as to why certain landowners, those with well-located, vacant property, often won’t sell, almost at any price. Many of them have to pay significant property taxes and insurance costs. They also have to maintain their properties. (For example, if they allow litter to collect or the grass to remain [...]

Broken Windows

Neighborhood Safety and Land Values Much of neo-urbanist thinking depends for its success on neighborhood safety. Neo-urbanists want to see increases in both density (more of the same built form) and intensity (more mixing together of different uses such as office, retail and residential) in North American cities. This will help make them more walkable, [...]

Should Ottawa Allow Chickens in Residential Areas?

To find out the answer to that question, I asked someone who has experience in the matter—my son, Andrew, who lives in Canberra (Australia). I asked him how his neighbours reacted to his hen house in their quiet suburban neighbourhood. Were they opposed? Here’s his answer: “Quite the opposite the neighbours delighted in it. One [...]

NIMBY Venn Diagram

After 28 years of trying to: a) understand the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) mindset and b) trying to cope with the effects of this on urban design and development, I have summarized a lifetime of research and experience in this Venn Diagram: Prof Bruce

Natural Gardens

There are reasons why the ‘little cabin in the woods’ (i.e., a suburban home) has cut grass around it: 1. To keep the bugs and rodents away; 2. To prevent trees from falling on the home in windstorms, ice storms or heavy snow falls. 3. To give the kids a place to play. 4. To [...]

Density Increases Property Values

(All Else Being Equal) I recently wrote a letter of support for a Dharma project (not the Dharma that is in the hit TV series LOST but an Ottawa-based developer) that wants to bring more people to live and work in or close to Stittsville Main Street. Here is what I wrote to the Secretary-Treasurer [...]