Ray Tomalty

Letters to the Editor: 38.1

17 January, 2012 | Ray Tomalty and Pamela Blais

It’s About My Perverse City Book

Re: Ray Tomalty’s review of Perverse Cities: Hidden Subsidies, Wonky Policy and Urban Sprawl, Alternatives, 37:6.

Ray Tomalty claims that I’m too negative on planning. First, I don’t claim that planning is a failure, rather that the results with respect to curtailing sprawl have not been in proportion with the inputs. My point is that under the current situation, financial misincentives conflict with planning objectives. They encourage sprawl, and disincentivise the more sustainable forms of development sought through planning policy.

Urban Tipping Point

18 August, 2009 | Ray Tomalty

At the turn of the 20th century, cities were at a tipping point. Many people believed that broad social problems, such as poor public health, poverty, widening class divisions and social unrest, were closely linked to the design and (non-)functioning of cities.

The Ecology of Cities

18 June, 2009 | Ray Tomalty

Ray Tomalty brings us all inside the ecosystem. The emerging “ecology of cities” considers urban centres as ecosystems in themselves. His is an approach that will involve not just ecologists, but hydrologists, engineers, landscape architects, sociologists – you get the picture.

"URBAN SUSTAINABILITY" is one of those phrases that many people use but no one can concretely define. It may, however, be this plasticity that has allowed the concept to morph over the 20 years or so that we’ve been struggling to implement it. ...

An Enduring Legacy

27 May, 2009 | Ray Tomalty

It has been 20 years since the World Commission on Environment and Development issued its ground-breaking report on sustainable development. Convened by the United Nations in 1983 and chaired by the former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, this independent commission was born of the international community’s frustration with the world’s inability to deal effectively with the vital global issues of the day.

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