(See also the accompanying letter to Mayor Naheed Nenshi, and the Calgary City Council.)
Cardus is pleased to present Phase Two of its Calgary City Soul project. Undertaken in cooperation with the Arlington Group, the Calgary City Soul project was conceived following a one-day Cardus seminar in September 2008. At that time, it was noticed that the City of Calgary's Centre City Plan—a comprehensive and visionary planning document designed to attract an additional 40,000 to 70,000 residents into the civic core—had overlooked the city-building role that institutions of faith play.
Beliefs may be private or personal matters, but the institutions that nurture them have long been and remain public and part of, not apart from, the secular society represented by governments. Faith institutions have long played a critical role in the social fabric of vital cities.
Phase Two, supported in part by a grant from the Calgary Foundation, was assigned to the Arlington Group, an established urban planning consultancy. This study's comprehensive conclusions are available at length in the report, but in summary, indicate:
Accompanying the report is a direct letter to Mayor Naheed Nenshi, and the Calgary City Council, with specific amendments proposed for Calgary's Centre City Plan. Read the Centre City Plan amendments proposal here.
The City of Calgary's Centre City Plan may create an unintended disincentive to diversity, to the distribution of vital social services, and to continuing widely accepted social virtues, according to a preliminary study released October 20, 2010 by Cardus.
This is Calgary City Soul Phase 1: Inventory of Physical Worship Space in Calgary's City Centre, an audit report conducted over the summer of 2010. Cardus analyzed the physical infrastructure that supports the work of faith communities in the area defined by the Centre City plan—25 spaces devoted to worship, mostly Christian churches and one Buddhist Temple. There are no synagogues, mosques, Latter Day Saints, Sikh or Hindu temples currently within the civic core.
Calgary's Centre City Plan is designed to provide room and services for 40,000 additional residents in the civic core in the years ahead. If the plan makes no reference to the need for continued growth of the faith institutions in the Centre City, what will flourishing in the future be like?
This report is the first phase of a multi-phase undertaking titled Calgary City Soul. Watch www.cardus.ca for more.
Including:
- Introduction by Michael Van Pelt, President of Cardus
- Bev Sandalack, Director Urban Lab (University of Calgary)
- Cheri DiNovo, MPP Parkdale-High Park
- Chris Cuthill, Art Chair Redeemer University
- Dani Shaw, Lawyer - former advisor to Stephen Harper
- David Smith, C.E.O. and Executive Director of Scott Mission
- Fr. Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, Poet Laureate City of Toronto
- Eric Jacobsen, Author Sidewalks in the Kingdom
- Faye Sonier, Legal Counsel Evangelical Fellowship of Canada
- Geoff Ryan, 614 Salvation Army, Cardus
- Gideon Strauss, President of Center for Public Justice
- Glenn Miller, Vice-President Education Canadian Urban Institute
- Glenn Smith, Executive Director Christian Direction
- Greg Paul, Sanctuary Toronto
- Heikki Walden, Real-Estate Agent
- Karen Hamilton, General Secretary Canadian Council of Churches
- Ray Pennings, Director of Research Cardus
- Russ Kuykendall, Director of Policy, Minister of Natural Resources
- Mark Peterson, Executive Director Bridgeway Foundation
- Joe Mihevc, Councillor City of Toronto
- Paul MacLean, Executive Director Potentials
- Paul Rowe, Associate Prof of Political Studies (Trinity Western)
- Peter Menzies, Commissioner CRTC
- Tim Sheridan, Pastor First Hamilton Christian Reformed Church
- Timothy Epp, Associate Prof of Sociology (Redeemer)
- James Watson, Salvation Army
- Conclusion by Robert Joustra, Cardus
Introducing the new marquee study for the WRF’s Stained Glass Urbanism Project, Toronto the Good. This investigative report brings urban centres and their religious institutions back into the dialogue of city building. Inside Toronto the Good you will find substantial, qualitative and original investigations with bearing on the problems and potentials in the city of Toronto, and its communities of faith and hope.
Toronto the Good is designed to connect hundreds of municipal, business, social service and municipal leaders with an interactive research initiative meant to change their understanding of city building, and the place of the church in the city.
Times in Hamilton are changing. Theories of secularization have been discredited in many circles as unable to account for the true complexity of human life. People are taking a renewed interest in the role played by religion, both in theoretical perspective and in personal commitment.
Living on the Streets suggests that established religious communities—churches, synagogues, mosques, and the like—are institutions with a critical role to play in the urban life of Hamilton. In this study researchers Michael Van Pelt and Richard Greydanus work through several case studies of churches in the city of Hamilton, and examine in what ways they contribute to urban life. Working from within New Urbanist models this study presents the idea that churches transcend social boundaries, sustain immanent community engagement and services, draw membership back into urban downtowns, cultivate private investment and protect sacred spaces. The ideas from Living on the Streets can inform many different urban contexts, and were used as the basis for our presentations at the World Urban Forum, 2006.
There is a certain spiritual posture that lies behind a peace-filled experience.