Beyond the New Deal for Cities Confronting the Challenges of Uneven Urban Growth

The continuing debate on a new urban agenda in Canada has largely focused on the striking imbalance between the revenue sources and service responsibilities of cities and other local municipalities. Newspaper stories and images abound of decaying infrastructure, under-funded transit, housing shortages, rising deficits, and concentrated poverty. The recent Speech from the Throne of the new federal Liberal government promises a “New Deal” for cities that will address part of the underlying fiscal imbalance, using GST exemptions and possibly assigning a proportion of the federal gasoline tax to local municipalities.