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Identify the variables that pose the greatest risk of failure for the project and develop contingency plans for them.
Sometimes the best option is to remove the variable altogether, (make it an external issue – outsource it, so it is someone else’s problem to manage), other times the risk can be managed by internal policies and [...]
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Where I grew up, water meters were a fact of life.
I remember sitting under the Liquidambar tree in the front yard playing in the dirt listening to the tick-tick-tick of the water meter down by the front fence. My parents had paid for water in this way since before I was born. Despite this fact, [...]
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Public spaces should be respected and kept clean for the enjoyment of all; and around here, there is a group of people who are not all pulling their weight – Dog Owners.
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Image by urbanworkbench via Flickr
As the snow falls outside and most of the leaves have fallen, I’m reminded of all the things that were not accomplished on the to-do list. Despite this, we have a cold room full of apples, pumpkins and squash, preserved fruit and vegetables in canning jars, dried goods in the kitchen [...]
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Many municipalities have small engineering or public works departments that are not staffed by engineers or other professionals who might be able to write up a construction consultancy contract. Even those municipalities that do have professional staff will find this agreement and the associated guide published by the Association of Consulting Engineers of Canada a [...]
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Will someone please sort out the facts from the BS. If climate change is occurring – whether warming or cooling, it is not an issues reserved for international politicians to discuss, the media to sensationalize, scientists to hypothesize about, or business to find a solution to. All of these are good and useful things if the effort is pointing in a common direction at a known goal. Until that is adequately and definitively defined there will always be cross purposes in every decision made and newspaper article published on the matter.
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It is really convenient as a society to assume that no action is required on the part of individuals to change their habits outside of market driven forces, but the economy (and associated markets) as we know it is a recent invention that has been fuelled by the very energy it seeks to control the sale of. Relying on consumer preferences in the markets to change energy consumption behaviour is like trying to steer an oil tanker by sticking your iPod into the wake as a rudder – the impetus is slow to react, and driven by selfish assumptions that believe that someone else is working to solve the problems. Is anyone actually working to solve problems, or are the agendas of each group getting in the way?
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The Smart Growth Manual
by Mike Thomas on November 4, 2009
in Design, Development, Housing, Regulation, Subdivision Design, Sustainability, Urban Planning
Smart Growth is slowly being recognized as having benefits outside of the usual talk of walkable neighbourhoods and streetscapes. This book, The Smart Growth Manual runs through the principles from the Regional context, the Neighbourhood, the Street, down to the Building design. If you are interested in New Urbanism, this is a book worth checking [...]
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