“It used to be that jobs and economic opportunities drew migrants.  No longer.  Today’s populations are more mobile than ever.  Armed with information and freed by technology, today’s migrants choose their communities much more carefully than ever before.  Therefore, communities must be savvy in the retention and attraction of people.  In fact, if communities don’t inspire their citizens, they run the risk of becoming failed communities.”
- From “Beyond Economic Survival” by Centre for Innovative & Entrepreneurial Leadership.  Taken from the Rurban Fringe.

I’ve talked about the importance of making a community desirable.  Studies have found a strong link between residents’ attachment and economic growth.  The first step is to watch out for behaviour that kill organizations and municipalities.  Second, figure out a proper Urban Plan that aims to transform a community into one people would pay a premium to be a part of (read Mississauga’s Mayor McCallion’s regret).  Third, identify businesses that would be loss leaders for the community.

Then just sit back and enjoy stable property values, higher quality of life and strong economic growth. 

Full report here.

Walmart, Superstore and other retailers sell hardcover books for less than the cost.  Why?  It gets people to the store.  Specifically, it is better than selling toasters or socks at a discount because it gets the right customer in the store. Customers who buy hardcover books (which is arguably a luxury item) buy other items too. 

Does your municipality have a loss leader?  Something it offers in a discount to attract desirable businesses or residents?

The Region should do this for high quality employers.  A one million square foot office building employs about 25 times as many people as an industrial compound of the same size.  Is it anything less than insanity that both pay same development charges? Should we not look at the benefits office buildings bring to the community, in the form of employment and property taxes, and subsidize their development charges?

For comparison, DC on such a building in Guelph is only $3 million while in Halton they pay around $17 million.  

Walmart is smart enough to know that some customers are more valuable than others.  It willingly loses money on hardcover books to attract these customers.  Is Halton smart enough to recognize that some businesses are better than others?  Is Halton smart enough to lose money on DC up front for these businesses, knowing that it will more than make up for the loss later in extra property taxes and economic growth?

A city or a town is nothing less than a brand name.  Some brands matter while others do not. 

Why should Milton (or any town for that matter) care about its brand?  First, property values (of course). Second, strong brands create strong attachments and municipalities with stronger attachment experience better economic growth.  A recent study confirmed it.

Will Milton be a vibrant, growing brand in GTA or an irrelevant one?

I have been debating for several weeks whether to do this or not. I have been unsure about the format as well (should we collect signatures and take them to the Council, or have individuals e-mail them?)

Here is the issue :-

There are already thousands of homes west of the CN Rail track on Derry Road. The only practical way to get to the town is to go east on Derry, which requires crossing the tracks. Many trains take that track every day, causing a lot of traffic delay. Once traffic backs up, it takes a long time to clear, especially during rush hours. The situation is getting worse every day as more and more people move. We need an underpass on Derry NOW!

After a lot of thinking I have decided this :-

• Halton’s Regional Chair, Gary Carr (sort of the “boss” of the Council) himself admitted that the underpass “should have been done years ago” and was “an example of poor planning”. He also admitted that the development west of the rail tracks “should never have happened without a grade separation”. This tells me that the Regional Council agrees that we need the underpass NOW.
• In 2007 the Town of Milton passed a motion calling the Regional Council to finish the underpass. This tells me that the Milton Council agrees about the urgency.
• The project is still not expected to start until 2016, with an end date of 2017 (and many recent projects have been delayed, some by over a year). By then who knows what the population will be. This points to a disconnect between the first two bullets and this one.
• Our Councillors already know about the issue. However, Regional Councillors are mostly from Oakville and Burlington (2/3rd of the Council) and may not completely grasp the situation
• We tax-payers, as employers of Councillors, have the right to contact them.
• I debated whether I should just encourage people to contact our councillors (Barry Lee, Colin Best and the Mayor, Godon Krantz [who also sits on the Regional Council]). However, after I lot of thinking I concluded that these individuals already understand the situation and need the support of other Councillors in the Halton Council.
• If Councillors mind getting an e-mail from residents who pay their salaries then they do not deserve to be in the Council (my opinion of course, you may disagree)
• I thought about contacting the staff instead. I have found Milton staff to be very approachable and helpful. However, the Halton website has a department e-mail (MiltonRoads@Halton.ca), but not a point of contact (an individual with a name). Your e-mail (should you decide to use the form linked below) will go to the engineering department as well.
• Finally, it is the Council that will approve or disapprove this project. I feel that getting one e-mail from the tax-payer who suffers from this everyday is not too much to ask. Sure, an individual Councillor may get 100 e-mails, but that is still 1/100th of 10,000 residents impacted by this

Based on this, I reached the conclusion that I should ask residents to contact all Regional Councillors, asking them to move up the project date for the underpass.

To help residents, I set up an online form that will send the e-mail for you. In fact, I even put some sample messages so you dont even have to type a message, if you don’t want to. Honestly, if Mattamy can bombard them for its interest, I think we have the right to do the same for ours.

If you disagree then please do tell me why, because I may have missed something. This is a case where I feel it’s better to ask for forgiveness later, if they mind getting e-mails from residents. Otherwise please follow this link to the petition page . It has link to the online form, as well as individual contact information.

I appreciate your help :).
ps. I am willing to take the e-mail form down if most people find it inappropriate. Please leave a comment telling me if you disagree. Thanks.

For various reasons, details of which are not critical at this point, Halton is studying how to increase the population density in the region (in existing urban areas).

I’ve seen regions handle it really well and really poorly (and everything in between). For instance, Redmond severely restricts building heights (to 3 floors), and I hope Milton adopts a similar restriction. Bellevue has an amazingly well planned downtown core (not completely implemented yet). The residential areas are very walk-able, walking distance from movie theatres, restaurants, shopping, hotels etc. etc. etc. Not only that, but you get breathtaking views of the Cascades mountain ranges, as well as those of Seattle across Lake Washington. One place I don’t like is Mississauga. Specifically, I don’t like how Mississauga sometime gets tall residential buildings in the middle of otherwise low-density population areas.

Here is what I would like Milton to do :-

1. Restrict building heights outside of really high density areas (more on that later). I hate seeing stuff like this (notice some random buildings in otherwise low-density areas) :-

To my eyes they just look ugly. They are an eye sore. How can the town do it better? I offer you two places I liked like crazy :-

Medina: Every building there was exact same height (more or less) and sat at a same distance from the street. In fact, the frontage of each building was more or less same too :-

Notice how the ground level has a consistent design? Higher up each building had its own character. But due to the bottom floor design, you get something like this :-

These buildings all had stores at the ground floor, which gives walk-able shopping. Consistent layout gives a very aesthetically pleasing look. The pattern does break when it’s necessary to unblock views :-

The other place where I really enjoyed the layout was Munich, Germany. They also had walk-able streets with shopping at the ground floor :-

Notice they dont have gaps between buildings like in Medina, but buildings still have consistent heights.

If Milton does go with higher density areas, then this is what I’d like to see condos / apartments look like. I do not like single tall buildings that do not flow well with the area. Milton has an opportunity here to really define the character of its high density areas.