Past Events

On June 14, 2022, IMFG Post-Doctoral Fellow Hsi-Chuan Wang presented his ongoing research on informal settlement policies in two capital cities in the global south: Accra, Ghana, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Both countries experienced significant financial system reform, economic liberation, and far-reaching public sector restructuring in the 1990s. Since that time, Accra and Buenos Aires have taken different approaches to housing and infrastructure provision in informal settlements. The findings suggest that the perceptions and approaches toward low-income residents changed in both places at the national and local levels between the 1980s and 2000s. Moreover, compared with Accra, Buenos Aires has undertaken a wider range of policies and strategies to improve settlements, especially after the economic depression in the early 21st century. This difference in approach can be partly attributed to different governance structures in the two cities.

On May 25, 2022, IMFG Visiting Scholar Gerard Turley presented on the story of Ireland’s new residential property tax, covering the background and country context, design features, implementation, and reform lessons.

On May 10, 2022, IMFG Graduate Fellow Fernando Calderón Figueroa explored the relationship between trust and the built environment of neighbourhoods across Canadian municipalities. First, he used data from Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey to show that trust is spatially concentrated — in other words, that people with similar levels of trust towards others tend to be in proximity to one another. Second, he argued that the spatial composition of cities — measured through people’s proximity to amenities like libraries, parks, and schools — is positively correlated with trust, and that a having a lot of amenities in close proximity to each other promotes the kind of recurrent casual encounters that lead to higher levels of trust.

On April 26, IMFG Graduate Fellow Shervin Ghaem-Maghami examined how selected municipalities in the GTA are engaging immigrants in planning decisions, and how such public participation activities can be improved to most meaningfully draw upon the strengths and adapt to the needs of newcomer communities.