On March 30, Joe Berridge, a partner at Urban Strategies, presented the webinar “Managing the Modern City – Challenges for Toronto” and addressed how the city is managed today and what we can learn from cities around the world.

Click here to access Joe Berridge’s webinar “Managing the Modern City“.

Drawing on his extensive experience in working on some of the world’s largest urban regeneration projects, including projects in Manchester, New York, and Detroit, he started out with describing the basic services that city governments deliver as well as the broader goals of competitiveness, opportunity and innovation.

The question for Toronto, as for any modern city, is how well we are doing; how Toronto can be one of the “best managed city in the world” (and Joe insists that this is a possibility); and what a “best managed” city looks like. Further, we need to answer what role citizens and profit and non-profit sectors should play in managing Toronto, and, most importantly, where the money is going to come from (because, in the end, it all comes back to financing).

Toronto can learn important lessons from other global cities and how they have met some of the big challenges. He mentions how Singapore has focused on education and describes itself as the “world capital of talent;” how Stockholm has managed to dramatically reduce energy consumption; and how London has been able to raise revenue from the congestion charge.

What stands out most from these lessons is the fact that well-managed global cities focus on the future, do what’s important, and excel in key areas.

• Access Joe Berridge’s webinar “Managing the Modern City“.
• Watch and download the PowerPoint presentation on SlideShare.