Latest news with #citybuilding
CTV News
4 days ago
- Business
- CTV News
New city-building institute at University of Alberta names its first executive director
Murtaza Haider, the executive director of the newly established Cities Institute and its first Radhe Krishna Gupta Executive Chair, speaks at the Edmonton Convention Centre on June 5, 2025. The University of Alberta's School of Business has named the first executive chair for a city-building institute. Murtaza Haider is the executive director of the newly established Cities Institute and its first Radhe Krishna Gupta Executive Chair. Haider, who comes to the position from Toronto Metropolitan University, has spent 30-plus years 'studying cities, building bridges, working with industry, and being an engineer who researches real estate markets, bringing together disciplines, engineers, planners, computer scientists, people who specialize in machine learning,' he said Thursday at the Edmonton Convention Centre. The institute was established by a $5-million gift from Rohit Gupta, president of the Rohit Group, and his parents, real estate developers Radhe and Krishna Gupta. Its purpose is to 'allow for partnerships to exist between academia, public policy and industry, so industry, municipalities or different governments can fund research that gives them better knowledge,' Rohit Gupta told CTV News Edmonton. 'Effectively, the University of Alberta becomes a think tank to get better solutions out there ... We're all in here to build better communities and better neighbourhoods.' Haider said his vision for the city 'is a place where Edmontonians will be proud.' 'They will be going places, telling proudly that we are from Edmonton,' he said. 'The city functions in a way that it creates lots of wealth, and then is able to share that wealth, and it's able to become a place which celebrates diversity, celebrates equality, and is able to rely (on) and exploit the resources nature has given us to the fullest to be able to create those future pathways that will lead to sustainable growth and development.' With files from CTV News Edmonton's Galen McDougall
BBC News
12-05-2025
- BBC News
230,000 piece Lego city breaks record
Spaceships, castles houses... if you love building things out of coloured bricks well how about a whole city? This incredible build, made of 230,000 Lego bricks has everything you could possibly want. From hours to roads, a beach, an airport and even a dinosaur park! And it has has earned the Guinness World Records title for largest Lego brick diorama (a model representing a scene). The structure was created in Portugal at BRICKOPOLIS Lourinhã by Parque dos Dinossauros da Lourinhã (PDL) It measures a 70.614 m² - a quarter of a tennis court - and the team used over 230,000 bricks to create the city, including creating 366 vehicles, 176 trees, 2,328 flowers and even included a Big-Ben style clock tower, and a lake that is home to a Loch Ness Monster-type creature. The creators of this Lego city have really gone to town thinking about the design. They have made sure to include little details that you might see in a real-life city. For example the Lego City Airport is equipped with tiny little lego trailers to take luggage to the plane. Wow - what an incredible creation!
CTV News
10-05-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Ward 9 Councillor Gian-Carlo Carra announces he will not run in fall election
Calgary Councillor Gian-Carlo Carra announced Friday that he's stepping out of the political spotlight but not necessarily leaving the arena. In a newsletter to his Ward 9 constituents, Carra said he made the decision not to run for re-election 'with wistfulness, but also clear conviction and fierce pride.' When he was first elected in 2010, Carra said his mission was to transform how the city grows with great neighbourhoods. 'Over the past 15 years, we have settled the question of whether growth can pay for itself,' he said. 'We've learned that the best city-building happens through collaboration between public and private investment. 'I am fiercely proud of the historic investments made in Ward 9 over the course of my tenure – from transit, active modes, Main Streets, and industrial sector mobility improvements, to parks, playgrounds, recreation facilities, cultural institutions, non-market housing and other critical infrastructure. 'I would confidently put Ward 9's record of investment during my time in office alongside that of any councillor in Calgary's history.' In 2015, the Canadian Institute of Planners held a competition to identify its annual 'great places in Canada' competition and declared Inglewood, one of the areas Carra represented, to be Canada's Greatest Neighbourhood. 'A great neighbourhood to visit,' they said, 'but also, and perhaps most importantly, a great neighourhood to live.' In the newsletter, he said he will now work with the Calgary Party, one of the city's new municipal political parties, to help get its mayoral candidate, Brian Thiessen, elected.
