Urban Nation: Why We Need to Give Power Back to the Cities to Make Canada Strong

Canada’s cities are crippled by a lack of financial and governing clout. Their infrastructures are crumbling and their citizens are disaffected by the inability of municipal government―or any government, for that matter―to act on the issues that influence their constituents’ lives. Cities generate a disproportionate amount of Canada’s wealth and are home to the majority of the population, yet they have no means to control their own destinies.
 

Alan Broadbent suggests that the problem is a slavish devotion to a constitutional structure and a federal government that is ignorant of how crucial large cities are to our national prosperity and heritage. Canada’s landscape has been changed by the forces of urbanization and immigration. If the country is to prosper, Broadbent argues, cities must be given the same amount of power as their federal and provincial counterparts. Thoughtful and provocative,Urban Nation ignites controversy among politicians and passion among citizens and action groups eager for practical urban reform solutions.

ALAN BROADBENT is chairman and CEO of Avana Capital Corporation, a private investment holding company that also initiates and funds various civic engagement projects to strengthen public discourse on sustaining civil society, including the Jane Jacobs Prize and Ideas That Matter. He is also chairman of the Maytree Foundation, which is committed to reducing poverty and inequality in Canada, and its offshoot, the Caledon Institute of Social Policy. Alan Broadbent sits on a number of other boards, including the Tides Foundation (Canada), The Literary Review of Canada and the Agora Foundation. He lives in Toronto.