What do you think?
Rate this book
The City Project #1
You'll Pay For This: How we can afford a great city for everyone, forever
210 pages, Paperback
Published May 20, 2025
1 person is currently reading
44 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 7, 2025
On the one hand, it’s more of an extended blog post than an actual book. On the other hand, if you want a short, simple, introduction to why sprawl culture means the financial death of cities, go no further than this book!
September 1, 2025
You'll Pay For This: How we can afford a great city for everyone, forever, by Michel Durand-Wood is a book written to be accessible to the average Canadian citizen on how municipal accounting and finance works, at a high level. Durrand-Wood is a local politics blogger from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and uses their skills and experience in this field to write this book. The book itself is interesting, written from a very accessible place, and highly readable. Durrand-Woods argues that infrastructure spending at the local level is akin to raising the debt level, which is a simple and largely correct argument, but would lead the reader to the conclusion that infrastructure investment is bad, because debt is bad, which is a simplistic argument that falls apart under scrutiny, and is probably not a great message to advocate for. What the author might be getting at here, and which isn't explicitly stated, is that some infrastructure development has less overt or direct impact on the community than others. A new library or park might bring great enjoyment to the community, but would have far less impact than the water pipes failing in a section of a city, for example. The water pipe upgrades are not the most appealing infrastructure upgrade - they are not going to promote the arts and cultures scene, or make it easier to get around the city. They might not really do anything at all, if they keep the water running for 50 more years. However, the pipes not failing is way more important than most of the above, and the debt taken to keep water flowing would probably be folks first bet if they better understood the impacts.
Aging infrastructure, the author argues, comes from building too much infrastructure, as when you build, you it has a lifespan. Better to not build it in the first place. Again, I would argue that this is a bit reductive. Durrand-Wood points out that inefficient investment is the key here, ie. building urban sprawl as opposed to selectively upgrading buildings. I largely agree with this point, as development is more efficient in small bursts, as opposed to great chunks - building an apartment in a downtown zone, over building a new semi-detached suburb on the outskirts of the city. The selective development option is always more efficient, and infrastructure upgrades can be tailored to those specific development needs, and phased in as one or two buildings in a neighbourhood get upgraded. When building a suburb, all the infrastructure is placed in at the same time, and therefore ages at the sane time, requiring a large repair or upgrade that is both immediately disruptive, and expensive due to its geographic reach. While I agree, the development of the past can't really be reversed. If the suburb is built, and people live there, the work needs to be done. Those folks deserve good services like anyone else, regardless of the efficiencies or issues of the planning technique that built their neighbourhood.
All this to say, Durrand-Wood does what is typical in municipal advocacy in Canada. They complain about the existing nature of things, or the "gardener's that no longer work in the parks" - all issues that arose during the New Public Finance/Management era of local government in Canada, where it was theorized that running the government like a business would be the best way to run it. This was an era of cut services, privatization, and general infrastructure decline. Now, as Durrand-Wood argues, the future generations pay for these failures, which is true. What Durrand-Wood doesn't get at, is how land ownership works in Canada, or city planning in general. Land is developed by private land owners in Canada, and save larger infrastructure projects, the houses, business parks, industrial areas, and so forth, are planned and built by private developers, with the city ensuring the area meets local planning regulations and zoning requirements, building codes, and so forth. Local councils will be able to address some of these issues, as rezonings, or approvals, may be required. But the city does not build it, and in some cases (like in Ontario) can't really say no if the province wants it to be built. It will be refused by local council, and approved by the appeal body, and then proceed. Durrand-Wood doesn't really offer any solutions in their book - slower growth, maybe, but that is not something the municipality generally controls. Growth is private, and based on market forces. If municipalities were able to build on their own (which may be a solution!) that taxpayer would still foot the bill. As it stands, the private developer builds, and the tax payer foots the bill for the infrastructure, with some support from development charges for the initial construction, but the full weight of the repair and upgrade costs falling on the citizen, through their property taxes.
The book is interesting as an introduction to municipal accounting, but a little disappointing for its simplistic and un-original take on the situation. Durrand-Woods isn't really advocating for change, more yelling at the clouds. I also didn't really enjoy the tone of the book, which is made to be silly and engaging for those who might not read this kind of stuff to the same frequency I do. That one is my own preference, so take it with a grain of salt. All in all, an interesting conversation when reading this one, and certainly an accessible book to learn about infrastructure backlog, municipal financing, and some of the basics. I am sure the author's blog is also worth a follow, for the interesting nature of their rhetoric, and especially if you live in Winnipeg.
Aging infrastructure, the author argues, comes from building too much infrastructure, as when you build, you it has a lifespan. Better to not build it in the first place. Again, I would argue that this is a bit reductive. Durrand-Wood points out that inefficient investment is the key here, ie. building urban sprawl as opposed to selectively upgrading buildings. I largely agree with this point, as development is more efficient in small bursts, as opposed to great chunks - building an apartment in a downtown zone, over building a new semi-detached suburb on the outskirts of the city. The selective development option is always more efficient, and infrastructure upgrades can be tailored to those specific development needs, and phased in as one or two buildings in a neighbourhood get upgraded. When building a suburb, all the infrastructure is placed in at the same time, and therefore ages at the sane time, requiring a large repair or upgrade that is both immediately disruptive, and expensive due to its geographic reach. While I agree, the development of the past can't really be reversed. If the suburb is built, and people live there, the work needs to be done. Those folks deserve good services like anyone else, regardless of the efficiencies or issues of the planning technique that built their neighbourhood.
All this to say, Durrand-Wood does what is typical in municipal advocacy in Canada. They complain about the existing nature of things, or the "gardener's that no longer work in the parks" - all issues that arose during the New Public Finance/Management era of local government in Canada, where it was theorized that running the government like a business would be the best way to run it. This was an era of cut services, privatization, and general infrastructure decline. Now, as Durrand-Wood argues, the future generations pay for these failures, which is true. What Durrand-Wood doesn't get at, is how land ownership works in Canada, or city planning in general. Land is developed by private land owners in Canada, and save larger infrastructure projects, the houses, business parks, industrial areas, and so forth, are planned and built by private developers, with the city ensuring the area meets local planning regulations and zoning requirements, building codes, and so forth. Local councils will be able to address some of these issues, as rezonings, or approvals, may be required. But the city does not build it, and in some cases (like in Ontario) can't really say no if the province wants it to be built. It will be refused by local council, and approved by the appeal body, and then proceed. Durrand-Wood doesn't really offer any solutions in their book - slower growth, maybe, but that is not something the municipality generally controls. Growth is private, and based on market forces. If municipalities were able to build on their own (which may be a solution!) that taxpayer would still foot the bill. As it stands, the private developer builds, and the tax payer foots the bill for the infrastructure, with some support from development charges for the initial construction, but the full weight of the repair and upgrade costs falling on the citizen, through their property taxes.
The book is interesting as an introduction to municipal accounting, but a little disappointing for its simplistic and un-original take on the situation. Durrand-Woods isn't really advocating for change, more yelling at the clouds. I also didn't really enjoy the tone of the book, which is made to be silly and engaging for those who might not read this kind of stuff to the same frequency I do. That one is my own preference, so take it with a grain of salt. All in all, an interesting conversation when reading this one, and certainly an accessible book to learn about infrastructure backlog, municipal financing, and some of the basics. I am sure the author's blog is also worth a follow, for the interesting nature of their rhetoric, and especially if you live in Winnipeg.
July 23, 2025
A cheeky and quite short way to learn why Winnipeg could be in trouble. At 150 small sized pages with gratuitous spacing, it's an easy way to understand how cities (in the case, Winnipeg) get there funding, how they use it, how they take on debt and how it affects the tax payers long term. Next steps also included
May 7, 2025
A super easy fun read on accounting!?
Yes that’s right.
If you’ve ever wondered why your city is in such a big mess this book will give you the basic understanding of the way cities spend your money.
I’m looking forward to more books from this series!
Yes that’s right.
If you’ve ever wondered why your city is in such a big mess this book will give you the basic understanding of the way cities spend your money.
I’m looking forward to more books from this series!
June 20, 2025
A surprisingly easy, accessible and fun read about municipal finance!
Seriously, everyone who lives in a city of any size and votes should read this. The book lays out the few very basic concepts you need to know in order to understand why we struggle to pay for and deliver city services and functional infrastructure.
Seriously, everyone who lives in a city of any size and votes should read this. The book lays out the few very basic concepts you need to know in order to understand why we struggle to pay for and deliver city services and functional infrastructure.
October 10, 2025
This book has a long wait time to get it from the library - there are a lot of people wanting to read it.
This speaks to the desire of Winnipeggers to want better for ourselves - that we know that a more abundant life is possible for all its citizens.
However, this book is not going to give people much by way to ponder after you read it.
There is a very breezy style to this, and I actually think it would be a great book for high school students to learn about muncipal budgets.
Durand-Wood never addresses anything except to say that urban sprawl is hurting the city (true) but then sort of throws his hands up about any other causes or solutions. He says nothing about the massive, ever-ballooning budget dumped into a muncipal army. Nothing about creating a social saftey net that would reduce crime and violence. Nothing about initiatives to drive more money towards Transit as a way to reduce wear and tear on the roads. There is no creativity or solution-based thinking in here.
So if you want to learn about muncipal budgets (which is a valid thing to want to learn), this is a fine book. I read it in one sitting - it's quite petite. If you're curious about it, there isn't much to lose.
This speaks to the desire of Winnipeggers to want better for ourselves - that we know that a more abundant life is possible for all its citizens.
However, this book is not going to give people much by way to ponder after you read it.
There is a very breezy style to this, and I actually think it would be a great book for high school students to learn about muncipal budgets.
Durand-Wood never addresses anything except to say that urban sprawl is hurting the city (true) but then sort of throws his hands up about any other causes or solutions. He says nothing about the massive, ever-ballooning budget dumped into a muncipal army. Nothing about creating a social saftey net that would reduce crime and violence. Nothing about initiatives to drive more money towards Transit as a way to reduce wear and tear on the roads. There is no creativity or solution-based thinking in here.
So if you want to learn about muncipal budgets (which is a valid thing to want to learn), this is a fine book. I read it in one sitting - it's quite petite. If you're curious about it, there isn't much to lose.
April 22, 2025
Very good intro to understanding why cities seem to be falling apart at the seams, while taxes go up; services are going down.
Very easy to read, comprehend and share with others. Could grasp entire concepts after an afternoon with this book.
Very easy to read, comprehend and share with others. Could grasp entire concepts after an afternoon with this book.
July 28, 2025
Great book, Michel has added an important work into the mix of community-focused books. This book compliments and provides context for anyone doing a Strong Towns Finance Decoder project for their community. The book assists in doing the work and then assisting with answering the question “what does this mean?”
July 5, 2025
An easy to follow walk through why your city always seems to be cutting services and letting infrastructure fall into disrepair despite growth and tax increases - and how we can change that. A fun book about infrastructure and municipal finance - who would have thought!
June 8, 2025
Book Review: You’ll Pay For This: How We Can Afford a Great City for Everyone, Forever by Michel Durand-Wood - A Public Health Practitioner’s Perspective
Michel Durand-Wood’s You’ll Pay For This is a provocative and visionary manifesto that reframes urban economics as a public health imperative. As a practitioner working at the intersection of equity and community well-being, I found myself oscillating between exhilaration and frustration—exhilaration at Durand-Wood’s bold reimagining of fiscal policy as a tool for collective health, and frustration at how rarely public health engages with these levers of systemic change.
Emotional Impact: From Fiscal Despair to Radical Possibility
Reading this book felt like uncovering a hidden blueprint for health justice. Durand-Wood’s analysis of how cities prioritize highways over hospitals, or tax breaks over trauma centers, triggered visceral memories of battling budget cuts to maternal health programs in underserved neighborhoods. The chapter on “subsidizing sickness” (how austerity budgets fuel chronic disease disparities) left me both enraged and validated—here was someone naming the fiscal violence I’d witnessed but struggled to articulate. Yet the book’s radical hope—its case studies of communities reallocating funds toward preventive care, green spaces, and housing—ignited a professional fire: Why aren’t we training public health teams to audit municipal budgets as rigorously as we study disease clusters?
Key Public Health Insights
-Budgets as Social Determinants: Durand-Wood masterfully demonstrates how line items in city budgets—from policing allocations to transit investments—directly dictate life expectancy, mental health outcomes, and birth equity.
-The Myth of “Neutral” Austerity: The book dismantles the fallacy that fiscal conservatism is apolitical, showing how “balanced budget” rhetoric often masks racialized disinvestment in health-supporting infrastructure.
-Participatory Budgeting as Prevention: The most transformative sections detail grassroots models where communities directly allocate funds—a practice with profound implications for trauma-informed urban planning and harm reduction.
Constructive Criticism
-From Theory to Practice: While Durand-Wood’s systemic critique is brilliant, public health practitioners need more concrete tools for operationalizing budget justice (e.g., how to build cross-sector coalitions with accountants and city planners).
-Global Health Lens: The focus on North American cities misses opportunities to highlight transnational fiscal activism (e.g., Brazil’s participatory budgeting movements) that could enrich the framework.
Final Thoughts
You’ll Pay For This is a seismic wake-up call for public health. It left me convinced that until we treat budgets as diagnostic tools—revealing who our systems value and who they discard—we’re merely applying bandages to structural wounds. Durand-Wood hands us the scalpel.
Rating: ★��★★☆ (4.5/5) – A visionary, if occasionally abstract, game-changer.
Gratitude: Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for the review copy. In a field obsessed with “upstream interventions,” this book finally maps the river’s source.
Michel Durand-Wood’s You’ll Pay For This is a provocative and visionary manifesto that reframes urban economics as a public health imperative. As a practitioner working at the intersection of equity and community well-being, I found myself oscillating between exhilaration and frustration—exhilaration at Durand-Wood’s bold reimagining of fiscal policy as a tool for collective health, and frustration at how rarely public health engages with these levers of systemic change.
Emotional Impact: From Fiscal Despair to Radical Possibility
Reading this book felt like uncovering a hidden blueprint for health justice. Durand-Wood’s analysis of how cities prioritize highways over hospitals, or tax breaks over trauma centers, triggered visceral memories of battling budget cuts to maternal health programs in underserved neighborhoods. The chapter on “subsidizing sickness” (how austerity budgets fuel chronic disease disparities) left me both enraged and validated—here was someone naming the fiscal violence I’d witnessed but struggled to articulate. Yet the book’s radical hope—its case studies of communities reallocating funds toward preventive care, green spaces, and housing—ignited a professional fire: Why aren’t we training public health teams to audit municipal budgets as rigorously as we study disease clusters?
Key Public Health Insights
-Budgets as Social Determinants: Durand-Wood masterfully demonstrates how line items in city budgets—from policing allocations to transit investments—directly dictate life expectancy, mental health outcomes, and birth equity.
-The Myth of “Neutral” Austerity: The book dismantles the fallacy that fiscal conservatism is apolitical, showing how “balanced budget” rhetoric often masks racialized disinvestment in health-supporting infrastructure.
-Participatory Budgeting as Prevention: The most transformative sections detail grassroots models where communities directly allocate funds—a practice with profound implications for trauma-informed urban planning and harm reduction.
Constructive Criticism
-From Theory to Practice: While Durand-Wood’s systemic critique is brilliant, public health practitioners need more concrete tools for operationalizing budget justice (e.g., how to build cross-sector coalitions with accountants and city planners).
-Global Health Lens: The focus on North American cities misses opportunities to highlight transnational fiscal activism (e.g., Brazil’s participatory budgeting movements) that could enrich the framework.
Final Thoughts
You’ll Pay For This is a seismic wake-up call for public health. It left me convinced that until we treat budgets as diagnostic tools—revealing who our systems value and who they discard—we’re merely applying bandages to structural wounds. Durand-Wood hands us the scalpel.
Rating: ★��★★☆ (4.5/5) – A visionary, if occasionally abstract, game-changer.
Gratitude: Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for the review copy. In a field obsessed with “upstream interventions,” this book finally maps the river’s source.
October 31, 2025
4.5* rounded down.
Listen, run don't walk to get a copy of this book. Literally everybody who lives in a city or town needs to understand these concepts on city finance and Michel explains it so clearly. This should be required reading to graduate highschool - it's basic civics.
I'm docking a half a star because he needed to spend more time on density. I have a LOT of questions about densification: how do we accommodate large families? How do we calculate the tipping point, since enough densification is also going to mean intensification of stormwater management (higher coverage = more runoff = more flooding etc); necessary redundancies in energy supply; higher heat island effects with the concomitant illnesses, deaths, and increase energy use. How do we densify while ensuring reasonable access to high quality green spaces and ensuring those spaces are safe for all to use (because it isn't really safe for my kids to play in broken glass and encampments, which tend to intensify in very dense areas).
Don't get me wrong, I think we need to densify! But there's a LOT of social, environmental, and even financial questions that didn't get answered...Densification isn't a pat answer to a difficult problem. If the goal is to convince skeptics that it's necessary, we're going to need part two!
Looking forward to Patty Wein's volume two in the series!
Listen, run don't walk to get a copy of this book. Literally everybody who lives in a city or town needs to understand these concepts on city finance and Michel explains it so clearly. This should be required reading to graduate highschool - it's basic civics.
I'm docking a half a star because he needed to spend more time on density. I have a LOT of questions about densification: how do we accommodate large families? How do we calculate the tipping point, since enough densification is also going to mean intensification of stormwater management (higher coverage = more runoff = more flooding etc); necessary redundancies in energy supply; higher heat island effects with the concomitant illnesses, deaths, and increase energy use. How do we densify while ensuring reasonable access to high quality green spaces and ensuring those spaces are safe for all to use (because it isn't really safe for my kids to play in broken glass and encampments, which tend to intensify in very dense areas).
Don't get me wrong, I think we need to densify! But there's a LOT of social, environmental, and even financial questions that didn't get answered...Densification isn't a pat answer to a difficult problem. If the goal is to convince skeptics that it's necessary, we're going to need part two!
Looking forward to Patty Wein's volume two in the series!
August 3, 2025
4.5 stars, rounded up.
A (relatively) short and breezy read that explains, clearly and concisely, why public "investments" in car-centric infrastructure always result in more financial liabilities, more debt, and less money for everything else that makes a city livable.
The tone, seemingly flippant at times, may not appeal to all readers, but it is necessary and judiciously applied to keep the exposition from becoming too dry or difficult.
The idea that more and wider roadways and byways are a path to municipal growth and success has grown from economic misunderstanding to dangerous misinformation on the part of self-appointed empire builders and construction industry lobbyists, threatening the fiscal sustainability of the very communities that these players purport to represent or support or service.
Simply put, we need more voices in the room when cities discuss and decide on policy issues, and more voices like this author in particular.
A (relatively) short and breezy read that explains, clearly and concisely, why public "investments" in car-centric infrastructure always result in more financial liabilities, more debt, and less money for everything else that makes a city livable.
The tone, seemingly flippant at times, may not appeal to all readers, but it is necessary and judiciously applied to keep the exposition from becoming too dry or difficult.
The idea that more and wider roadways and byways are a path to municipal growth and success has grown from economic misunderstanding to dangerous misinformation on the part of self-appointed empire builders and construction industry lobbyists, threatening the fiscal sustainability of the very communities that these players purport to represent or support or service.
Simply put, we need more voices in the room when cities discuss and decide on policy issues, and more voices like this author in particular.
October 28, 2025
Perfect follow-up book to Strong Towns with bits of actual math. I like the conversational style and the unexpected recipe chapter. I like how it talks about the balance sheet equation. Although it could definitely use a bit more exposition around that. As a math person, I feel like there is a bit more simplification than I would have liked. For example, the book talks about loan as using money from the future and surplus as being money earned from the past. This is nice and all, but it would be even better if this is also discussed with respect to the balance sheet equation (which really is indexed by t, time). Alas, math is off-putting, unpopular.
July 21, 2025
Enjoyed this book and the light tone explaining a complicated matter. Felt myself wishing for a bit more substance though and perhaps the book could have been better organized. Definitely learned a few things though.
November 4, 2025
3.5 stars rounded up.
I do like the Dear Winnipeg blog and this book was just as fun and informative. I didn't really care for the joking around, I found it hit or miss.
I do like the Dear Winnipeg blog and this book was just as fun and informative. I didn't really care for the joking around, I found it hit or miss.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews