Category: Writing

BY ZACK TAYLOR AND JACK LUCAS After all the ballots were counted in the recent Canadian federal election, was anyone surprised that Gudie Hutchings, incumbent Liberal MP in the district of Long Range Mountains, Newfoundland and Labrador, had been re-elected?  After all, western Newfoundland has been a Liberal stronghold since the days of Joey Smallwood. Nevertheless, Hutchings … Continue reading New article: Canada’s worrisome urban-rural political divide has never been greater

Taylor, Zack and Shanaya Vanhooren. 2021. “Local election campaign finance regimes in Canada: Toward a research agenda.” Canadian Public Administration 64: 99–121. The regulation of election campaign donation, fundraising, expenditure, and advertising is an enduring object of study and reform. Compared to the federal and provincial levels, virtually no attention has been paid to Canadian … Continue reading New article: Municipal election campaign finance regimes in Canada

By Jan Doering, Dan Silver, and Zack Taylor in Urban Affairs Review. Sociologists and geographers have long placed space and place at the center of their analyses. They have shown that people’s identities and attitudes are inflected by their social and physical contexts—who their neighbors are and what kind of place they live in—although they … Continue reading New article: The Spatial Articulation of Urban Political Cleavages

In early January I was invited to contribute a memo to an initiative convened by the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance on Problems and Solutions in the Federation. The memos, which covered a wide range of topics, were given to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. This happened before COVID-19 changed everything, … Continue reading A new model to fund Canadian cities

Zack Taylor, Joanne Fitzgibbons, & Carrie L. Mitchell. 2020. “Finding the future in policy discourse: an analysis of city resilience plans.” Regional Studies. Managing future uncertainty is the essence of planning. How planners conceptualize the future therefore has important practical and normative implications as contemporary decisions have long-term impacts that may be irreversible and distribute costs and benefits … Continue reading New article: How do planners think about the future?

Far from being static, Canadian municipal law is in a period of transition. The legal scope of municipal authority has expanded over the past 25 years as most provinces have revised their general municipal acts and adopted special legal arrangements for major cities. However, while the trend has been toward greater autonomy, there are still … Continue reading New report: Comparing the legal powers of cities across Canada

Canada’s largest city is having an important debate about local autonomy. As one of North America’s largest and fastest growing cities, many argue that Toronto needs more money, more legal authority, and more discretion to respond to a multitude of pressures and crises. One solution, proposed by Charter City Toronto, is to enact a constitutionally … Continue reading A charter flight to … where?

I recently joined host Jeremy Warson to discuss Toronto governance and politics on the Urban Land Institute’s Electric Cities podcast. Drawing on my new book, Shaping the Metropolis, I explored the potential for greater municipal autonomy, arguing that Canadian advocates of big-city charters should be careful what they wish for and be clearer about what problem they … Continue reading Featured on ULI Electric Cities podcast

In tandem with the launch of my new book, Shaping the Metropolis, I will be giving a talk hosted by the Toronto Public Library entitled “Who Runs Toronto? Provincial Control or More Autonomy for Toronto?” Come one, come all! Thursday, May 23, 20196:30–7:30 p.m. Runnymede branch Here’s the description: Toronto and other Canadian cities seem caught … Continue reading May 23: Public talk about municipal autonomy in Toronto