CityTalk Canada

We interrupt CUI's post-State of Canada's Cities Summit programming for some timely conversation about economic resilience. There's nothing like the wake-up call of a looming Canada-US trade war to focus the attention of communities everywhere on innovative strategies to generate local strength and reduce impacts of cross-border disruptions. Dan Kelly is the CEO and Chair of the Boa...

Mention infrastructure, and it's hard not to picture things like public buildings, transit systems and water/power distribution. However, other vital elements of urban society are, or should be, integrated into those things and need to be part of their design. This episode's two featured panels, recorded at CUI's State of Canada's Summit in December 2024, explore those elements...

The dozen panel discussions recorded in December 2024 on Day One of CUI's State of Canada's Cities Summit revolved around urban infrastructure in all its modern permutations, and how we need to build it better, faster and more sustainably. However, that doesn't preclude its ability to also add beauty and contribute to our collective well-being. The first featured panel in this episo...

The Canadian Urban Institute's mobile podcast studio at the State of Canada's Cities Summit in Ottawa last December offered CUI staff the opportunity to chat with some of the leading voices attending the event.  In this episode, media and communications advisor Anne-Marie Aikins speaks with Carol Bélanger, City Architect for the City of Edmonton... the first such position in Canada.  In...

More forward-thinking discussions on infrastructure from CUI's State of Canada's Cities Summit, these the first of several recorded by our mobile podcast studio.  Featured upfront, host Mary Rowe shares a pre-lunch chat with Leila Ghaffari, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Planning & Environment at Montreal's Concordia University, and Sarah Rosen Wartell,  president...

As host Mary Rowe stated early in this series, once you understand what infrastructure is, you can't help but see it everywhere around you. This episode features two discussions recorded at the State of Canada's Cities Summit in Ottawa last December, both dealing with bricks-and-mortar aspects of infrastructure; a session on securing real estate and lands needed to address the housing ga...

Where do you start two days of conversation about the issues around infrastructure in all its modern urban permutations? For host Mary Rowe and her team at the Canadian Urban Institute, the answer was obvious - talk first about the mental health crisis affecting most every community.  This episode recorded in December 2024 at the State of Canada's Cities Summit in Ottawa features a panel disc...

More highlights from the morning plenary session of the State of Canada's Cities Summit, presented in Ottawa last December 2024 by the Canadian Urban Institute. CUI CEO and event host Mary Rowe presents two featured panel discussions: fhe first is titled Infrastructure for Growth and is focused on innovative solutions for local economies of every size; and the second looks at AI and whether i...

As the past few episodes of CityTalk:The Podcast have previewed, hundreds of city builders and place makers met in Ottawa on Dec.5th/6th for the 2024 State of Canada's Cities Summit, presented by the Canadian Urban Institute... and where the core topic explored was infrastructure in all its iterations.  Host Mary Rowe introduces highlights from the plenary sessions and other special events in...

Infrastructure - hardly a stimulating concept, but one that's mission-critical on multiple levels to our daily lives, and to the communities we share.  For this third and final preview of CUI's State of Canada's Cities Summit, host Mary Rowe speaks with Don Iveson, whose civic and public sector career touches on the many components of urban infrastructure requiring healthy measures...

As the clock counts down to doors opening at the Canadian Urban Institute's second annual State of Canada's Cities Summit, the CityTalk Podcast offers another preview to the topics topping the agenda in Ottawa on December 5th and 6th. This episode features host Mary Rowe in conversation with Fanny Tremblay-Racicot,  professor at l'École nationale d'administration publique (ENAP...

The CityTalk Podcast is back...and ready to recruit your attendance at the Canadian Urban Institute's State of Canada's Cities Summit on December 5-6 ,2024. In its second year, this gathering will again take place in Ottawa and convene city builders and placemakers from across Canada and beyond.  To set the stage, host and CUI president/CEO Mary Rowe has invited some thought-leaders appe...

Bringing The Ottawa Sessions to a close is another kind of big-picture' perspective, albeit from street level.  In developing 'A Living Capitol,' the downtown revitalization action plan CUI co-developed with many of Ottawa's civic and governmental leaders, some of the most informative views came courtesy of the directors of its Business Improvement Areas (BIAs).  You'll he...

In episode 3 of The Ottawa Sessions, host Mary Rowe brings you to her new, favourite café to meet Jessie Duffy, owner/operator of Arlington 5 in Centretown. It's located just a steps off Bank Street, one of Ottawa's north-south Main Streets connecting many of the city's best known neighbourhoods.  Mary and Jessie discuss the future of local, independent business in the capitol, and...

The second episode of The Ottawa Sessions explores the scope of design and, often, redesign, needed to help revitalize the downtown core of our nation's capitol. From soon-to-be vacant federal buildings to iconic public spaces like the Byward Market, the city has tremendous assets, along with its share of modern urban challenges, to influence a new action plan, 'A Living Capitol,' w...

Season Two begins with a four-part series we've dubbed The Ottawa Sessions, featuring conversations with many of the civic, business and governmental leaders CUI collaborated with in the development of 'A Living Capitol,' a downtown revitalization action plan. To set the stage from a 'big picture' perspective, CUI president and CEO Mary Rowe speaks to Tobi Nussbaum, CEO of...

The power of community, with its ability to open minds and hearts, reminds us why most of us choose (despite the deepening issues) to live together in cities.  In this final of four CityTalk episodes recorded at CUI's State of Canada's Cities Summit in Ottawa on November 30th, host Mary Rowe presents highlights from afternoon conversations around innovative, uplifting solutions that buil...

Whatever the scale and scope of the tough issues being discussed in a single day, solutions often seem to be within reach after lunch. In the third of four CityTalk episodes recorded at CUI's State of Canada's Cities Summit in Ottawa on November 30th, host Mary Rowe presents highlights from afternoon sessions featuring local and national experts offering practical, street-tested solution...

When wanting to find solutions to urban issues, it's always best to talk to those professionals directly involved. Better yet, invite them to talk to each other.  In the second of four City Talk episodes recorded at CUI's State of Canada's Cities Summit in Ottawa on November 30th, host Mary Rowe presents more highlights from morning sessions focussed on the key challenges and opport...

Sometimes great things happen when you bring the right people together to talk. In this first of four CityTalk episodes recorded at CUI's State of Canada's Cities Summit in Ottawa on November 30th, host Mary Rowe presents highlights from morning panel conversations exploring both the global context for Canadian urban issues, and challenges shared with American cities. See, hear and read...

For a final preview of the leading voices and topics on the agenda at the upcoming State of Canada's Cities Summit on November 30th,  host Mary Rowe chats with Patti Pon, president and CEO of Calgary Arts Development about how arts & culture are increasingly vital tools for city building. Read more about Patti's work here.      

An urban neighbourhood can be many things to its residents beyond a shared place to live. It can be where to find and/or offer support to community members; join others in working for better public services and resources; and where residents can lead flourishing lives. However, it can also be a fragile place. For this episode, host Mary Rowe welcomes noted academic and author Seth Kaplan (Johns Ho...

In the first in a special series leading up to the Canadian Urban Institute's upcoming ' At the Crossroads ' conference, CityTalk host Mary Rowe resumes her ongoing conversation with Zita Cobb, co-founder of Shorefast (Fogo Island, Nfld&Lab) on the growing importance and value of nurturing local economies to serve and sustain everyone in the community, urban or rural.   

Ours is a rapidly urbanizing world, with the latest UN projections at 70 percent of 9 billion people living in cities by 2050. Underlying that challenging future, neck-and-neck with the climate crisis, is the perpetual issue of accessible and affordable housing for every citizen. In Canada, top-level conversation about housing starts at the desk of Romy Bowers, president and CEO of the Canada Mort...

CityTalk: The Podcast is where the conversation is always focused on what's working, what's not and what's next for Canada's cities. It's brought to you by the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI). On this episode, the topics of conversation sits at the intersection of mental healthcare and homelessness, with that crossroads now found in the downtown core of communities across C...