On Youtube, some "urbanists" looked at oily Calgary and Edmonton and were shocked by the transit and density they actually have: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpBVEfO5IwI
David, I've been de-Americanizing my purchasing, including dropping all my substacks...except this one. If any American is worth supporting right now, it's Volts.
While this development didn't get the benefit, Alberta is very prominent right now in geothermal R&D, and may, ironically, be key to Saving the World (tm).
Such an exciting development! It's time to Build Baby Build (instead of Drill Baby Drill). I was pumped to see Tom mention some of the military base redevelopments happening across North America. Reminded me of the recent discussion between Ezra Klein and Jake Auchincloss (but also very cool to see Blatchford going FURTHER than those others). Let's do this everywhere we can!
always love to see good urbanism stories and good Canadian content, but IMO largest sustainable community in Canada is a bit of a stretch. I think being in an oil dominant province means Edmonton gets graded on a curve. I would argue that even an average new project in Vancouver or Montreal checks all the boxes and more that Blatchford does.
Just to name a few examples in Vancouver: Senakw, Iyalmexw/Jericho Lands, Heather Lands, Lower Lonsdale, etc. Features like district energy/geothermal, mixed use high density*, rapid transit, affordable housing, etc. are routine. New major projects are typically co-owned/co-developed with First Nations as 99-year leaseholds so they lands stays with them for future generations. At the risk of too much Canadian urbanism on Volts, an episode on Senakw or Iyalmexw projects might be worthwhile.
*high density in Vancouver is often 8-20 floors, which would make Blatchford look positively suburban…
Over the next three decades, Europe needs to find a way to connect a half-billion legacy non-electric devices to the grid. The current generation of ”Zoomer” kids will need a bunch of engineers to figure out how to make this happen, and other global markets have similar opportunity/challenge.
So I'll try to get my heard around this ambient loop system, geothermal, and ground source heat pumps.
Further to equity. What does "supportive" mean relative to "market"? Winnipeg lost nearly 300 "social housing" units for seniors when Lions Clubs sold a building to an investment firm (from Alberta), so people realized that this organization was necessary https://righttohousing.ca (to advocate for keeping not-for-profit housing out of the speculative market and then to increase its availability)
On Youtube, some "urbanists" looked at oily Calgary and Edmonton and were shocked by the transit and density they actually have: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpBVEfO5IwI
David, I've been de-Americanizing my purchasing, including dropping all my substacks...except this one. If any American is worth supporting right now, it's Volts.
While this development didn't get the benefit, Alberta is very prominent right now in geothermal R&D, and may, ironically, be key to Saving the World (tm).
Such an exciting development! It's time to Build Baby Build (instead of Drill Baby Drill). I was pumped to see Tom mention some of the military base redevelopments happening across North America. Reminded me of the recent discussion between Ezra Klein and Jake Auchincloss (but also very cool to see Blatchford going FURTHER than those others). Let's do this everywhere we can!
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-jake-auchincloss.html
Fascinated
always love to see good urbanism stories and good Canadian content, but IMO largest sustainable community in Canada is a bit of a stretch. I think being in an oil dominant province means Edmonton gets graded on a curve. I would argue that even an average new project in Vancouver or Montreal checks all the boxes and more that Blatchford does.
Just to name a few examples in Vancouver: Senakw, Iyalmexw/Jericho Lands, Heather Lands, Lower Lonsdale, etc. Features like district energy/geothermal, mixed use high density*, rapid transit, affordable housing, etc. are routine. New major projects are typically co-owned/co-developed with First Nations as 99-year leaseholds so they lands stays with them for future generations. At the risk of too much Canadian urbanism on Volts, an episode on Senakw or Iyalmexw projects might be worthwhile.
*high density in Vancouver is often 8-20 floors, which would make Blatchford look positively suburban…
Over the next three decades, Europe needs to find a way to connect a half-billion legacy non-electric devices to the grid. The current generation of ”Zoomer” kids will need a bunch of engineers to figure out how to make this happen, and other global markets have similar opportunity/challenge.
So I'll try to get my heard around this ambient loop system, geothermal, and ground source heat pumps.
Further to equity. What does "supportive" mean relative to "market"? Winnipeg lost nearly 300 "social housing" units for seniors when Lions Clubs sold a building to an investment firm (from Alberta), so people realized that this organization was necessary https://righttohousing.ca (to advocate for keeping not-for-profit housing out of the speculative market and then to increase its availability)
In a city, there’s also individual homeowners/landlords who want to reap profits when they sell.