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New commentary in Rocky View County News: Rural-urban rivalry impacting region

The contradiction between the Growth Management Strategy (GMS) which calls for a large increase in urban-style residential development in nodes across the county and Councillor Solberg’s call for a larger industrial tax base has been forcefully pointed out by others so I will focus my comments on three specific concepts. The first is the connection between municipal finances and tax revenues, the second on an underlying anti-city bias that has shaped Rocky View policy since the end of regional planning and the third is the lack of a long-term vision for the fiscal, social and environmental sustainability.

In his 1995 book “Building Cities that Work” York University political scientist Edmund Fowler asks “Why did we do it?” that is, why have we built urban places that are, in the long run, unsustainable?  One reason Fowler points to is a universal desire for municipal politicians to increase tax revenue.  Local government policy encourages intensive use of land in hopes that new uses will bring in more taxes.  But intensification requires more urban services, which in turn require more tax revenue.

Read the full commentary by Geoff Ghitter…