Are “sponge cities ” the solution to mass flooding?

The flash flood that swept over New York City last week, sending water sloshing through the subway system, is a reminder of how lousy North American cities are at dealing with storms. The water only had one place to go: the sewers, which were often blocked. Ordinary people throughout Brooklyn, which was hit particularly hard, trudged out into the water-filled street, past floating cars, to scoop fallen leaves and debris off sewer grates.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Usman T. Khan, who teaches civil engineering at York University, is obsessed with stormwater management and is an evangelist for the idea of “sponge cities,” which have permeable surfaces that can absorb huge amounts of water when the deluge comes. In Toronto, we’ve started building public parking lots with asphalt that looks just like regular asphalt, but collects rainfall underground so it seeps back into the environment. In his opinion piece for Maclean’s, he describes how materials like this, along with green roofs, rain gardens and other surfaces that can absorb rainwater, should be major city-planning priorities from now on.

—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief

Restaurants across Canada are seeing a sharp drop in dine-in customers, according to recent data from reservation platform OpenTable. In this Q&A for Maclean’s, Miheer Shete, owner and operator of Toronto’s Curryish Tavern, dishes on how interest rate hikes and inflation have affected his business.
“I just want to get through it so when interest rates go down, I can make up for it,” he says. “As long as I’m paying all my bills, my debts, my suppliers, my staff—as long as that is done, I’m happy.”

This 2,400-square-foot Edwardian home near Winnipeg is over 115 years old—and counts a former prime minister as one of its past owners. It’s now on the market for a price almost unheard of in the modern Canadian real estate market: $399,900.

The Canadian company demonstrates how technology and quick thinking have been critical to recovery.

CULTURE PICK
OF THE WEEK

The Scarborough-born R&B singer-songwriter Daniel Caesar brings his gospel-inflicted sound home on the Canadian leg of his Superpowers tour, with eight shows starting in Vancouver and ending in Toronto. Next up: Calgary’s Scotiabank Saddledome tonight.

After two independent albums—including the Grammy- and Juno-winning Freudian—Caesar became a household name while cruising the Las Vegas strip in Justin Bieber’s video “Peaches.” His new album, Never Enough, is full of self-reflection, examining his climb to fame as he acclimatizes to life on the brink of Bieber-level celebrity.

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