Bold Plans and Broken Systems: A Conversation with Gregg Lintern

About this episode

The episode features a conversation with Gregg Lintern about the complexities of the housing crisis and the importance of intentional urban planning.

Housing economists say we need more supply. Politicians blame city planners. YIMBYs want less regulation. But the cities we admire most — Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam — weren't built by getting out of the way. They were built by bold, intentional planning. So what's actually going on? In this conversation, we sit down with Gregg Lintern, former Chief Planner of the City of Toronto and Dean of the Curtner Urban Leadership Program with ULI Toronto, to unpack the housing crisis as a system — not a soundbite. Gregg walks us through what a Chief Planner actually controls, what he tried to change from the inside with initiatives like EHON, and why blaming any single actor misses the bigger picture. We dig into the real barriers — regulatory, economic, and political — that make it so hard to build the kinds of housing Toronto needs. And we tackle the harder questions: in an era of cautious incrementalism, have we lost the appetite for the kind of transformative planning that shaped the great cities of the world? Follow John x-twitter: https://x.com/JohnPasalis , Instagram @john.pasalis or email: askjohn@movesmartly.com Follow the show on x-twitter: @MoveSmartly , Instagram @move.smartly…

People in this episode

Host: John Pasalis

Guest: Gregg Lintern

Topics covered

• housing crisis
• urban planning
• regulatory barriers
• economic challenges
• political issues
• transformative planning

Keywords

• housing supply
• city planning
• YIMBY
• incrementalism
• urban leadership
• housing initiatives

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: City of Toronto, Curtner Urban Leadership Program, ULI Toronto

Places: Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam, Toronto

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