Sprawl in Toronto just got its biggest boost in 50 years, thanks to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's decision this week to stimulate the economy through a $9-billion spending spree on transportation infrastructure. Look for Toronto to bust out all over - North, East and West - in line with the major routes he promises to fund. And look for low-density sprawl to spread to Toronto's detriment, just as occurred with the uneconomic transportation infrastructure built in the past.  Full story »

Energy Probe's Lawrence Solomon has been recognized by the Annual Heritage Toronto Awards with a nomination for his 2007 book, Toronto Sprawls  Full story »

A devastating new report from Canada's Senate – Beyond Freefall: Halting Rural Poverty – shows how hopelessly dependant, dysfunctional and uneconomic rural Canada has become.  Full story »

Canadians are becoming more and more dependent on the automobile, Stats-Can told us last week, citing figures showing that 74% of Canadians are full-time drivers, up from 70% in 1998 and 68% in 1992.

This trend, a natural consequence of suburban sprawl, is only to be expected. Our governments spend billions to promote the use of suburbs.  Full story »

Urban elites and the left have for decades savaged the suburb, arguing that the suburb is environmentally unsustainable, an aesthetic blight on the landscape, homogeneously white bread and morally defective.  Full story »

The church may have never before been host to three hours of almost uninterrupted jeers, sneers, and self-righteous invective, much of it directed at people unwelcome in the neighbourhood. This was not a Christian fundamentalist gathering of homophobes and racists. This was not Alabama or some northern Canadian backwater from some pre-enlightened era.  Full story »

If you buy into the rhetoric that globalization is all there is, countryside does not matter much. If the technology treadmill to ever lower production costs is all there is, the countryside's historical resources: food, lumber, energy and minerals do not matter much. If global capitalism is all there is, the countryside may be waiting a long time for some benefits to trickle down. If life – human beings included – is just so much DNA caught in a vast and remorseless evolution beyond our control, there is not much the countryside can do about its fate.  Full story »

The Group of Eight leaders joined hands Wednesday in helping lower remittance charges for migrant workers as part of their efforts to eradicate poverty, reports Kyodo (Japan). Remittances can play an increasing role in the economic development of poor countries because income earned by migrant workers enables their families back home to receive needed capital for education, housing and business start-ups, the G8 leaders said in an action plan on eradicating poverty issued after their second-day meeting on Sea Island, Georgia.  Full story »