When Michel Durand-Wood, a.k.a. the Elmwood Guy, started his blog Dear Winnipeg in December 2018 with the tagline “A Fun Blog About Infrastructure and Municipal Finance,” he didn’t foresee the ripple effect that his postings would have in terms of educating Winnipeg’s civic-minded readers.

“As citizens, it’s our responsibility to be actively engaged in the decisions at City Hall that have such a huge impact on our day-to-day quality of life. Cities provide so many services that touch our daily lives, like trash collection, clean drinking water, recreation options, and more,” says Durand-Wood. 

“But it’s difficult to engage without a firm grasp of how everything fits together, which is where the financial part comes in, because preferences change when prices are attached.”

To help provide that firm grasp, Durand-Wood has penned You’ll Pay for This! How We Can Afford a Great City for Everyone, Forever, written in plain language and short enough to be read in an afternoon. 

“It’s really for any person who’s curious about their city, and what it takes to overcome the most pressing challenges in present-day Winnipeg, and as readership proves, in today’s North American city.”

The blog readership had grown to the point that more than 60 per cent of readers came from somewhere other than Winnipeg. “And that’s because most cities in North America are facing the same challenges as we are, having made the same mistakes, using the same patterns,” says Durand-Wood.

“I’ve heard from so many people who said reading my stuff felt like I was exactly describing places as diverse as Steinbach, Charlottetown, Calgary, and Ottawa in Canada, to American cities located everywhere from Maryland to Florida to Texas, and even a few [cities] in Australia and New Zealand.”

When Great Plains Press came calling with the idea of publishing You’ll Pay for This! as the first in The City Project series, Durand-Wood says, “I loved the idea right away, so it didn’t take much convincing to sign on.”

The City Project is a series of books that each deals with a different aspect of building a successful, vibrant, and sustainable city. As the first book in the series, You’ll Pay for This! is meant to lay a foundation for all of the other ones. 

Durand-Wood explains that each book in the series is going to be written by a different author sharing one aspect of building a better city for all. Upcoming topics will include reconciliation, active transportation, green space, economic development, transit, housing, and more.

Durand-Wood cites legendary urban Toronto thinker Jane Jacobs who said, “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

“Cities provide such vital services, and they need to be able to do it not only today, but for generations to come,” says Durand-Wood. 

“Understanding how we can pay for it is key to that. So I hope readers will come away with a newfound understanding of, as the subtitle says, how we can afford a great city for everyone, forever.”