Featured Guest
You’ll find this guest among our growing roll of Urban Champions.
Tim Jones
Former CEO, Artscape
Natalie Voland
President and Chief Vision Officer, GI Quo Vadis Inc.
Graham Singh
Executive Director, Trinity Centres Foundation
Carol Coletta
President and CEO, Memphis River Parks Partnership
5 Key
Takeaways
A roundup of the most compelling ideas, themes and quotes from this candid conversation
1. Civic spaces are more important now than ever before
According to Carole Coletta, during COVID-19, there has been an intensification of new uses for civic spaces—transitioning indoor activities to outdoor spaces, and from private to public uses. People are experiencing the importance of the civic commons for experiencing life’s simplest pleasures and fulfilling the need to be among other people.
2. Many civic spaces need to be ‘triaged’ to survive the pandemic
Many civic spaces are at risk of closing permanently—music venues, co-working spaces, arts and culture facilities, and more. Tim Jones makes the point that we need strategies to salvage these venues and help them survive into the future.
3. Municipal finance tools can be leveraged for change
Municipal finance is an important tool for change. Graham Singh discusses the planning and policy tools that can incentivize more investments in the civic commons: zoning and property taxation, adjustments and development benefits for meanwhile and transient uses, and more.
4. Make it profitable to do good for the community
Natalie Voland proposes that we need to change the business model—to make it profitable to do good for the community. Real estate tends to be worth more when it is developed near civic spaces such as the parks and schools. We need to get better at showing the return on investment for caring about the future of our shared commons.
5. We need to make the case for the place
Carole proposes that moving forward, we need to get better at making the political case for funding our civic assets: at all three levels of government, and across the country. No one profession can lead this—we’re all in it together.
Full Panel
Transcript
Note to readers: This video session was transcribed using auto-transcribing software. Manual editing was undertaken in an effort to improve readability and clarity. Questions or concerns with the transcription can be directed to events@canurb.org with “transcription” in the subject line.
Full Audience
Chatroom Transcript
Note to reader: Chat comments have been edited for ease of readability. The text has not been edited for spelling or grammar. For questions or concerns, please contact events@canurb.org with “Chat Comments” in the subject lin
From Canadian Urban Institute: You can find transcripts and recordings of today’s and all our webinars at https://canurb.org/citytalk
12:01:14 From Canadian Urban Institute : Welcome! Folks, please change your chat settings to “all panelists and attendees” so everyone can see your comments.
12:03:27 From Graham Singh to Jean-Marc Mangin and all panelists : Good to see you J-M!
12:03:35 From Graham Singh to Tim Schaner and all panelists : Good to see you Tim!
12:03:40 From Canadian Urban Institute : You can find transcripts and recordings of today’s and all our sessions at https://www.canurb.org/citytalk
12:04:13 From Canadian Urban Institute :
Graham Singh @revgrahamsingh https://www.linkedin.com/in/revgrahamsingh
Carol Coletta @ccoletta https://www.linkedin.com/in/carol-coletta-1184/
Natalie Voland @GIQuoVadis https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalievoland
Tim Jones @timjones0001 https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-jones-8ba9b11a0
12:11:42 From Mary W Rowe : hi folks – where are you ll listening in from?
12:12:03 From Jessi-anne Reeves : Victoria, BC!
12:12:04 From Michael Diplock : Toronto!
12:12:09 From Kevin Cooper to All panelists : Halifax, Nova Scotia!
12:12:09 From Katherine Pigott to All panelists : Kitchener Ontario
12:12:15 From Christina Sisson to All panelists : City of Kawartha Lakes
12:12:18 From David Zambrano : Toronto as well
12:12:19 From Celeste Kitsemetry to All panelists : Barrie, ON 🙂
12:12:20 From Eunan Quinn : Donegal, Ireland
12:12:21 From Stacey Gray-McQuat to All panelists : Oshawa, Ontario
12:12:38 From Canadian Urban Institute : We love your comments and questions in the chat! Share them with everyone by changing your chat settings to “all panelists and attendees”. Thanks!
12:12:38 From Toby Greenbaum : Ottawa
12:12:54 From Jolene Holland to All panelists : Austin, Texas 🙂
12:12:55 From Katherine Cash to All panelists : Toronto
12:13:00 From Giulio Bruno to All panelists : toronto
12:13:20 From Maureen Luoma : Hi from Downtown Sudbury, Ontario
12:13:31 From Robert Pajot : Hi from Ottawa.
12:15:58 From Tim Schaner : Kitchener, Ontario
12:20:05 From Andrew Martschenko : Toronto.
12:20:57 From Mark Guslits : Tim has made Artscape the amazing place that it’s become. An extremely important asset both within the Arts community and the broader working “poor” community in the GTA. Community outreach and involvement has become a key to Artscape’s mandate
12:21:18 From Natalie Voland : Agee Tim and ArtScape are amazing!!!!!!!!!!!
12:22:01 From Carol Coletta to All panelists : Agree. What a treasure he is and model he has created.
12:22:24 From Chris Fraser to All panelists : Right from his days building Artscape in Liberty Village, Tim Jones has always been an incredibly compassionate leader – who really has helped Toronto’s creative sector succeed and maintain sustainability. Amazing contribution.
12:23:39 From Ralph Cipolla : Ralph cipolla
12:23:41 From Canadian Urban Institute to Chris Fraser and all panelists : Hi Chris. We love your comments and questions in the chat. Please share them with everyone by changing your chat settings to “all panelists and attendees”. Thanks!
12:23:47 From Mark Guslits : I was there for the Jane/Richard battle of the minds. Awesome and scary all at the same time.
12:24:16 From Carol Coletta to All panelists : I dpm
12:24:34 From Toby Greenbaum : where does artscape get its funding?
12:24:38 From Ralph Cipolla : Ralph cipolla Orillia ontario
12:25:24 From Mary W Rowe to Mark Guslits and all panelists : 🙂
12:27:29 From Mark Guslits : Artscape gets some money under various government programs, but largely depends on fund raising programs which have been generally successful over the years. Unfortunately, Covid has hit revenues very hard and funding will be an ongoing issue from this point onward. All organizations such as this will be hurting these days. It ain’t easy … this pandemic shit.
12:39:31 From Canadian Urban Institute : Keep the conversation going #citytalk @canurb
12:40:09 From Jean-Marc Mangin : Carol @ « philanthropy won’t save us all » . Philanthropy has a role to play but can not replace governments and the private sector to support the public goods, especially a dynamic supportive policy friendly ecosystem. Philanthropy can help in opening doors, connecting and supporting pilot initiatives through programs and investments..
12:40:27 From Christina Sisson : We need purposeful buildings and development that take into account all of our human needs – housing, food, water, environment, and recreation/escape.
12:42:10 From Carol Coletta : Jean-Marc, agree with you on the role of Philanthropy. Can be pivotal, particularly in early stages.
12:44:16 From Carol Coletta : Plus assembling impact capital can take forever.
12:45:49 From Graham Singh : I made exactly the point Mary just mentioned, in Municipal World last year: https://www.cardus.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Updating-the-Social-Contract_Municipal_World_2019.pdf
12:49:38 From Oriana Nanoa to All panelists : Is there a link for the initiative that Tim just mentioned?
12:53:55 From Chris Fraser : Great point about coalitions coming together to supplement government’s success. I believe that with binary political systems in both Canada and the US – we need these citizen coalitions/innovators/entrepreneurs right now to build the visions and success of these civic commons. Politics involves too much talk and not a lot of action
12:54:39 From Canadian Urban Institute to Oriana Nanoa and all panelists : Hi Oriana. We will be sharing transcripts along with resources from today’s discussion on our website https://www.canurb.org/citytalk
12:56:07 From Canadian Urban Institute : You can find transcripts and recordings of today’s and all our sessions at https://www.canurb.org/citytalk
12:57:04 From Tim Jones to Canadian Urban Institute(Privately) : worldcitiescultureforum.com
12:58:12 From Canadian Urban Institute : To support CityTalk and the Canadian Urban Institute’s other city building initiatives, please donate at www.canurb.org/donate. What did you think of today’s conversation? Help us improve our programming with a short post-webinar survey – https://bit.ly/2UdftiO
12:59:27 From Tim Jones : worldcitiescultureforum.com
12:59:37 From Oriana Nanoa to All panelists : Thank you!
13:00:18 From Andrew Martschenko : Politicians have to be convinced to raise the bar – to ask more of developers, and to teach them that “it is profitable to be good to the community”. It is at the approvals to hold that bar to move this forward.
13:00:23 From Toby Greenbaum : great session. thank you!
13:00:26 From Eunan Quinn : Many thanks for a great discussion.
13:00:40 From Katherine Cash : Fantastic talk! Thanks so much!
