Oct 20, 2026 · 35 min · 9 segments
Email Alex at alexwilliamsyyc@gmail.com to inquire about being a guest! Jacob fills us in on how he got into urbanism in Toronto and brought his advocacy skills to Edmonton to create Grow Together…
Jacob DawangGuestAlex WilliamsHostlet's talk about the people who don't care though like this is most people most people do not care uh i mean we see it on the the municipal election levels like most people do not show up to vote i don't know what the voter turnout was in the municipal election last year in edmonton but in calgary 30 percent yeah see ours was 39 we're like yeah we're like you know It's crazy.
Like that is not enough people like caring at all about municipal issues, right? So the band of people who care about zoning and care about what's being built is very narrow, very narrow.
And so how do you talk to people? who don't care at all, who are like, they're like, I literally couldn't care less.
You know, they walk past, you know, the billboard that says this zoning change is coming and they like, it doesn't even exist to them.
Is there a way that you approach these people? Like, do you bother approaching them? Like, are they to be convinced? Do you want to bring them out to things? Yeah, go into that a little bit.
It's probably a good problem to have here in Alberta where we have maintained a level of housing affordability for so long that most people don't need to care about this thing.
And I thought about this a lot, about how Edmonton has succeeded until two weeks ago to construct a narrative that would build the case for the kind of change we need over years.
And it's been just continuing to hammer the message that about the benefits, like the diversity of benefits to growing in a different way.
So instead of sprawling out, we can grow inwards, have more walkable neighborhoods, save on our property taxes, have better transit.
How will this tangibly make it a better life for people living here? And then building that narrative through...
Building that narrative across time and across many years means that people, even if they still don't care, they still know that there's a trade-off to not doing infill.
let's talk about the people who don't care though like this is most people most people do not care uh i mean we see it on the the municipal election levels like most people do not show up to vote i don't know what the voter turnout was in the municipal election last year in edmonton but in calgary 30 percent yeah see ours was 39 we're like yeah we're like you know It's crazy.
Like that is not enough people like caring at all about municipal issues, right? So the band of people who care about zoning and care about what's being built is very narrow, very narrow.
And so how do you talk to people? who don't care at all, who are like, they're like, I literally couldn't care less.
You know, they walk past, you know, the billboard that says this zoning change is coming and they like, it doesn't even exist to them.
Is there a way that you approach these people? Like, do you bother approaching them? Like, are they to be convinced? Do you want to bring them out to things? Yeah, go into that a little bit.
It's probably a good problem to have here in Alberta where we have maintained a level of housing affordability for so long that most people don't need to care about this thing.
And I thought about this a lot, about how Edmonton has succeeded until two weeks ago to construct a narrative that would build the case for the kind of change we need over years.
And it's been just continuing to hammer the message that about the benefits, like the diversity of benefits to growing in a different way.
So instead of sprawling out, we can grow inwards, have more walkable neighborhoods, save on our property taxes, have better transit.
How will this tangibly make it a better life for people living here? And then building that narrative through...
Building that narrative across time and across many years means that people, even if they still don't care, they still know that there's a trade-off to not doing infill.
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