The Innovation City: Simon O'Byrne Presentation: Ignite Your City's Brand: Mess up Your Neighbourhoods and Achieve Vibrancy, the Ultimate Civic Currency

1. Mess up Your Neighbourhoods and Achieve
Vibrancy, the Ultimate Civic Currency
@Simon_OByrne
City Age Waterloo

2. Agenda
1 Get Them Young
2 Release the Entrepreneurs
3 Design Excellence
4 Opportunities
5

3. 1
Get Them Young
By the 2030s, ¼
Canadians will be a senior
citizen
In 2010 the Gen
surpassed the Baby
Boomers to become the
largest cohort

4. Target Tribe:
Gen Y

5. Gen Y / Millennial
General Characteristics
Age 17 to 35
Lower Car Ownership
High Debt
Most educated cohort
ever!
Major Impacts to Real Estate
Delaying marriage
Interconnectivity
Environmental stewardship

6. Women, the new white collar work force

7. Female Oriented Development

8. 2
Release the Entrepreneurs
Market Urbanism
Form Based Code
Messy Vibrancy

9. Problem: NIMBYs

10. The Solution:
Market Urbanism

11. 70%
The Result: Messy Vibrancy

12. Unlock Local Entrepreneurs
"That creative tension, which
is the result of an
entrepreneurial spirit
combined with restless talent
wanting the city to be more
remarkable or provide better
outlets for ideas and energy
is essential to unlocking
LLC

13. 3
Design Excellence
Pedestrian Oriented
Development
Reward innovation
Create small spaces
Never settle for good
enough

14. Interesting,
Fun, Beauty,
Delightful,
Lovable
Welcoming, Social
Interaction
Comfortable
Safe
Functional, Utilitarian, Potholes

15. Dogs: the new children
Prioritize dog parks over
playgrounds
Dog walkers create safe
streets
Dogs are the vehicle for
increasing
interconnectivity, which
is the corner stone of
community building

16. Pedestrian Oriented Development
Happy kids = happy
parents: play
infrastructure
Inclusionary design =
complete streets
Add public art that is
worthy of a nickname

17. Pedestrian Oriented Development
Parklets
Patio streets (e.g. Argyle
Street, Halifax)
Hanging baskets = safe
and cared for spaces
Create outdoor living
rooms

19. 4
Opportunities
Multi-­Generational
Housing
Rental market
Winter City Design

20. Urban Vibrancy: It is all about people!!!
Goal is 30-­50,000 people
in the core
Remove barriers to
growth
Subsidize and
incentivize new housing
Performance parking
Georgian Taxation

21. 70%
population
growth comes
from immigrants

22. Most of the world
lives in multi-­
generational
housing

23. 55% of housing in
the GTA is rental

26. Improve Winter Life
Increase the capacity of
winter festivals
opportunities
Develop a four-­seasons patio
culture
Celebrate the season and
embrace daily living in a cold
climate
Improve winter transportation
for pedestrians, cyclists and
public transit users

27. 5
Dependency ratio of 3:1
by 2030
Flatter World = Lower
Wages
Shrinking Middle Class

28. Weaker GDP
Youngsters and retirees do not work, which
harms growth directly. And because these
income without adding to it, they also
depress savings, thereby slowing the
accumulation of capital and the growth of
productivity

29. Questions?
Vice President, Planning
780 917 7367
@Simon_OByrne