Dr. Earl Aaron Levin
An Inventory of His Papers at the Institute of Urban Studies
Table of Contents
Collection Summary
Biography of Earl Aaron Levin
Scope and Contents of the Collection
Restrictions on Access
Custodial History
Detailed Description of the Collection
Podcast Interviews
Annotated List of Speeches and Papers
Collection Summary
Repository: The Institute of Urban Studies Library, University of Winnipeg
Creator: Earl Aaron Levin
Title: Earl A. Levin Archive
Dates: 1960 – 2007
Quantity: 1.10 m of textual records
Biography of Dr. Earl Aaron Levin
Earl Levin was born in Winnipeg in 1919. He worked in the field of planning for over forty years – about half of that time in the public sector and an equivalent length of time in the private sector. He has served as a planner at the municipal, metropolitan, provincial and federal levels of government as well as in private consulting practice and as an academic. He was on the staff of the first Planning Department established in the City of Vancouver; a planner with Central (now Canada) Mortgage and Housing Corporation in Ottawa; the Director of Planning for the province of Saskatchewan and Secretary of Provincial Planning Appeals Board; Vice-President of Murray V. Jones and Associates, Urban and Regional Planners in Toronto; Director of the Planning Division of the Metropolitan Corporation of Greater Winnipeg; Director of the Winnipeg office of Damas and Smith Ltd., Engineers and Planners and Director of Corporate Development of that firm; and President of his own consulting firm of Earl Levin Consultants Inc., Urban and Regional Planners. He also worked for a brief period for the London County Council in London, England and for the Basildon New Town Corporation in Basildon, Essex, England. Mr. Levin has been a faculty member of the University of British Columbia.
Education
Mr. Levin’s first post-secondary enrollment was in the University of Manitoba, Faculty of Arts and Science. He switched to architecture before completing the final year in that program. After the first year in architecture he enlisted in the Canadian Forces and served overseas in the north-west Europe theatre of war with the rank of captain. After the war he returned to the University of Manitoba and obtained the degree of Bachelor of Architecture. He went to London, England in 1950, to do post-graduate studies at the School of Planning and Research for Regional Development. He completed the course successfully and was awarded the Diploma of the School of Planning (S.P. Diploma – it did not grant degrees). He then returned to Canada in 1952 to take his M.Sc. degree at the School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia. In 1993 he was awarded the degree of Ph.D. by the University of Manitoba. The title of his doctoral thesis was “City History and City Planning: The Local Historical Roots of the City Planning Function in Three Cities of the Canadian Prairies”.
Awards and Distinctions
Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation Graduate Fellowship, 1952-1953;
Transportation and Customs Bureau of Vancouver Board of Trade Prize, 1953;
Social Services and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship, 1987-88, 1988-89, 1989-1990.
Awards and Distinctions (cont’d)
President of the Town Planning Institute of Canada, 1964-1965 (the TPI is now the Canadian Institute of Planners);
Founder and initial chairman of the Association of Professional Planners of Saskatchewan, 1965, and
Recognition of Services Award of the Manitoba Association, Canadian Institute of Planners for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Planning, 1990.
Projects and Activities
Because of the variety of his appointments and roles Mr. Levin has been involved in a wide rage of planning projects and activities. Among these are the preparation of official and general development plans, downtown plans, land-use and housing studies, amalgamation studies, annexation studies, studies for residential and industrial development, research park feasibility studies, design for a new town based on potash mining in Saskatchewan, drafting zoning bylaws and land-use regulations and numerous other planning and development projects. Places for which these projects and activities were carried out include cities such as Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary and smaller centers such as Pembroke, Owen Sound, Brandon, Estevan, Weyburn, Melville and remote centers in northern Canada including Churchill, Fort Smith, Great Whale River, and Inuvik. He also prepared studies and reports for Aboriginal communities including the Sabaskong School study for the band at Nestor Falls, a development plan and commercial site study for the band at The Pas, the Neeginan proposal for the Aboriginal community in downtown Winnipeg and the Ta-Mi-No-Sah study of job-creation and social development programs for native people in Manitoba.
Mr. Levin has been involved in strategy and policy planning for municipal, provincial, and federal government departments and agencies. He was a member of the Task Force on City Government to advise the City of Edmonton on reorganizing its system of governance; a member of the Special Cabinet Committee on Reorganization of Local Government in Greater Winnipeg (i.e. amalgamation of the twelve local governments); a member of Manitoba’s Commission on Targets for Economic Development. He prepared a report on residential Conversion in Canada for Central (now Canada) Mortgage and Housing Corporation. He was a member of the Board of the Manitoba Theatre Centre, of the Winnipeg Art Gallery and of the Manitoba Opera Association. He also served for a term on the Board of the Canadian Council on Urban and Regional Research.
Dr. Levin was Professor and Head of the Department of City Planning at the University of Manitoba and Senior Fellow of the Institute of Urban Studies at the University of Winnipeg. He also held a term appointment on the faculty of the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia.
Retirement
Dr. Levin moved to Victoria, B.C. in 1993. During his stay in that city he was, for about nine years a member of the Board of Directors of the Fairfield Community Association. He served for the full allowed term of six years as a member of the City of Victoria’s Advisory Planning Commission. He was also a member of the city’s special Planning Advisory Committee on the redevelopment of the Fairfield Centre/Mount St. Mary Hospital site- a major redevelopment project in that sector of Victoria. In 2006 Dr. Levin’s wife died in Victoria and he moved back to Winnipeg to live in retirement with his son David and his son’s family.
Scope and Contents of the Collection
The collection is divided into 8 file boxes:
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Speeches and papers (3)
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Correspondence (2)
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Project & Institutional files (1)
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Newspaper clippings (1)
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Magazines containing articles authored by the donor (1)
Significance:
During his long and influential career in city planning, Dr. Levin was the Director of Planning for the Province of Saskatchewan; Director of city planning for Metropolitan Winnipeg; the head of the City Planning program at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Manitoba; a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Urban Studies at the University of Winnipeg; and the President of the Town Planning Institute of Canada (now the Canadian Institute of Planners). As both a consultant and a public sector planner Earl Levin was involved in some of Winnipeg’s most important planning processes, including Neeginan and the Core Area Initiative.
Collection contains extensive commentary by the donor concerning planning practice.
Restrictions on Access
None.
Custodial History
The archive was donated by Earl A. Levin to the Institute of Urban Studies in the summer of 2007 and ownership was officially transferred effective January 1st 2008.
Detailed Description of the Collection
|
BOX |
FOLDER |
DESCRIPTION |
|
1 |
1 |
Upper Peace: “The Upper Peace Region”(2 Copies) Speeches 1960: “A Provincial Master Plan” “Zoning and the Small Community” “The Planner, The Council and The Citizen’s Organization” “Address to Melfort-Tisdale Health Region Conference” “Some Thoughts on the Planner as Generalist” “The observation that we live in a rapidly changing world…” “The development of potash mines in Saskatchewan has been….” “Professor Oberlander has very kindly…” “Some Thoughts on the ARDA Program in Saskatchewan” “Memorandum on the Concept of a Provincial Plan of Physical Development” |
|
1 |
2 |
Speeches 1962: “Comments on the Continuing Committee’s Proposals as they affect Community Planning” “Address to Conference of Regional Health Officers” |
|
1 |
3 |
Speeches 1963: “Resort Subdivision-Local Responsibilities” “The Possible Effect of Rural Development on Urban Centres in Saskatchewan” |
|
1 |
4 |
Speeches 1964: “Address to Symposium on Parks” “Leadership for and Co-ordination of the Planning Team” “Address to Chamber of Commerce” “Some Planning Problems in Saskatchewan” “Technical and Economic Changes: Confronting Small Communities” “Rural-Urban Municipal Cooperation” (2 copies) |
|
1 |
5 |
Speeches 1965: “Presidential Address to the Annual Conference of the Town Planning Institute of Canada” “Local Government and Development Matrix” “Urban Renewal” “Business, Balkanism and Blindness” “Agriculture and Urban Culture – The Planning Challenge in Saskatchewan” “Address to Chamber of Commerce” “The Restructuring of Local Government: in Urban Rural Areas” “Chairman’s Opening Remarks - Panel on “Focus on Crocus” |
|
1 |
6 |
Speeches 1968: “Address to The Winnipeg Real Estate Board: I. C. I. Division” “The Planner, the Lawyer, and the Downtown” “Housing Problems and Housing Policy” “American Marketing Association: The Image of the City, the Downtown Plan and the Commercial Markets” (2 copies) |
|
1 |
7 |
Speeches 1968: “Winnipeg – Downtown or Downhill?” (2 copies) “The City, the Campus and the Wrong Revolution” “Citizen Participation in the Planning Process” “The Next Ten Years of Multi – Family Development in Metro” (2 copies) “A Planner Looks Outdoors” “The Urban Community: Its Collective Problems” “Amalgamation and the Downtown”(2 copies) “City Planning”(2 copies) |
|
1 |
8 |
Speeches 1968: “A Planner Looks Outdoors” “Outdoor Advertising Association” “Townscape for Tomorrow” “Talk given to Manitoba Regional Group, First Canadian Transportation Conference”(2 copies) “Governing and Financing Urban Areas” “The Urban Community: Its Collective Problems” “Manitoba Department of Education Workshop: B. Present Living Patterns in Canada” “Manitoba Department of Education Workshop: C. paragraph Canadian Urban Environment” “Some Thoughts on Planning and Planning Education” “Problems of Planning in the Metropolitan Framework” |
|
1 |
9 |
Speeches 1969: “Public Expropriation for Private Development”(2 copies) “Humanities Association of Canada” “Address to the Society for Crippled Children and Adults”(2 copies) “Trends in the Downtown” “Apartments in Metro Winnipeg” “City Planning, the Master Plan and Zoning”(2 copies) “Some Reasons for Urban Decline”(2 copies) |
|
2 |
1 |
Speeches 1970: “Urbanization and the Structure of Local Government” “Text of Presentation to Investors and Developers Meetings in Toronto and Montreal” “Downtown Winnipeg Plan” “Planning for Posters: A Planner Looks at Outdoor Advertising”(3 copies)
|
|
2 |
2 |
Speeches 1971: “The Engineer as Citizen” “Durham College of Applied Arts and Technology”(2 copies) “Material for Editorials on Amalgamation” “Discussion of the Report of the Boundaries Commission and the Government Policy Paper” “Address to the Housing Panel: N.D.P. Municipal Policy Convention” “The Place of Greater Winnipeg in the Economy of Manitoba”(3 copies) |
|
2 |
3 |
Speeches 1972: “Transportation as an Element in City Planning”(2 copies) “Community Planning and Industrial Development” |
|
2 |
4 |
Speeches 1973: “Metro Winnipeg: A Study in the Dilemma of Metropolitan Area Government in Canada”(3 copies) |
|
2 |
5 |
Speeches 1974: “The Future of the Central Area”(2 copies) “The Future of the Central Area: Winnipeg Centennial Forum” Transcript |
|
2 |
6 |
Speeches 1977: “Lessons from Regional Government”(2 copies) “The Urban Communities of Quebec at the Crossroads |
|
2 |
7 |
Speeches 1978: “Planning in the Context of Alternative Forms of Government” “The Function of a Downtown Task Force” |
|
2 |
8 |
ICEC Seminar, Challenge of the 80’s: “Presentation Political Panel: ICEC Seminar Challenge of the 80’s”(6 copies) “The Political System: The Unicity Legislation and the ICEC’s Performance in Policy Formulation” “Presentation Political Panel: ICEC Seminar, Challenge of the 80’s” |
|
2 |
9 |
Speech to Arch. Faculty, 1980 “Speech to Architecture Faculty-1980”(2 copies) |
|
2 |
10 |
Speeches 1981: “Urban Planning in Winnipeg: Directions for the 1980’s” “Keynote Address - C.I.P. Annual Conference” “Creative Land – Innovative Land Use Planning: A Summery of the 1981 CIP Conference” “Address to the Transcona Rotary Club: The Core Area Initiative”(2 copies) |
|
2 |
11 |
Speeches 1982: “Address – Urban Design Seminar” “Discussion on Planning Theory and Practice” |
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2 |
12 |
Speeches 1983: “The Planning Function in the Future City”(2 copies) “Opening Remarks – Conference on ‘The Planning Gap: Theory VS Reality’ ” |
|
3 |
1 |
Speeches 1984: “Beyond The Core Area Initiative” “Beyond The Core Area Initiative”(1st draft) “City Planning as Utopian Ideology and City Government Function”(2 copies) “Comments on the occasion of my Departure from the Department” |
|
3 |
2 |
Speeches 1986: “Lecture to Artibise’s Class on Winnipeg” “Presentation to GFOA paragraph Canadian Conference” |
|
3 |
3 |
Speeches 1986: “Studies in Social History: Canadian Urban Historiography” |
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3 |
4 |
Speeches 1987: “Planning: A Paper prepared as part of Political Studies Course 19.723” |
|
3 |
5 |
Speeches 1997: “Municipal Democracy and Citizen Participation” |
|
4 |
1 |
Correspondence, Personal, 1960-1965 |
|
4 |
2 |
Correspondence, 1965-1966 |
|
4 |
3 |
Correspondence, 1966-1967 |
|
4 |
4 |
Correspondence, Speeches- Requests and Acknowledgements- 1968 |
|
4 |
5 |
Correspondence, General, 1968-1969 |
|
4 |
6 |
Correspondence, Personal, 1968-1969 |
|
4 |
7 |
Correspondence, Speeches- Requests and Acknowledgements- 1969 |
|
5 |
1 |
Correspondence, Speaking Engagements- Requests and Acknowledgements, 1970 |
|
5 |
2 |
Correspondence, Trip to Northern Europe, Sept.18 - Oct.13, 1970 |
|
5 |
3 |
Correspondence, 1971 |
|
5 |
4 |
Correspondence, General, 1969-1971 |
|
5 |
5 |
Correspondence, Speaking Engagements- Requests and Acknowledgements, 1970-1972 |
|
5 |
6 |
Correspondence, Trips and Conferences - General, 1970-1972 |
|
5 |
7 |
Correspondence, Personal, 1970-1972 |
|
5 |
8 |
Correspondence, General, 1972 |
|
5 |
9 |
Correspondence, Roads and Transportation Association, Annual Convention, Oct. 2 – 5, 1972 |
|
6 |
1 |
University of Manitoba – Head, Department of City Planning |
|
6 |
2 |
Victoria Planning Commission |
|
6 |
3 |
Plan Canada Article – July 1996 |
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6 |
4 |
Winnipeg Core Area Initiative |
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6 |
5 |
Saskatchewan Urban Renewal Studies |
|
6 |
6 |
Neeginan |
|
6 |
7 |
3rd World Outdoor Advertising Congress, London, England – June, 1972 |
|
6 |
8 |
Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery |
|
6 |
9 |
Institute of Urban Studies |
|
6 |
10 |
University of Manitoba – Doctoral Studies |
|
6 |
11 |
Curriculum Vitae |
|
6 |
12 |
Metropolitan Corporation of Winnipeg History |
|
7 |
1 |
Newspaper Clippings – Earl Levin |
|
7 |
2 |
Newspaper Clippings – Winnipeg (general) |
|
7 |
3 |
Newspaper Clippings – Metropolitan Corporation of Winnipeg |
|
7 |
4 |
Newspaper Clippings – Reference Articles |
|
7 |
5 |
Reference Articles (misc. materials of interest to Dr. Levin) |
"Planners and Planning: The Saskatchewan Experience: 1917 to 2005" Association of Professional Community Planners of Saskatchewan - Celebrating 40 Years 1965 - 2005.
This history of planning in Saskatchewan includes the period Dr. Levin was the Director of Planning for the Province and contains numerous references to his roles as both Director and in the founding of the Association of Professional Community Planners of Saskatchewan.
Planners and Planning: The Saskatchewan Experience [0.6 MB]
CITY HISTORY AND CITY PLANNING: The Local Historical Roots of The City Planning Function in Three Cities of the Canadian Prairies.
BY EARL A. LEVIN
Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Faculty of Graduate Studies University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba
(c) June 1993
ABSTRACT (Excerpt) "This study examines the salient features of the physiography and history of the prairie region, the nature of the city planning function, the notion of a prairie regional personality, and the histories of the three subject cities: Winnipeg, Regina and Calgary. It finds that because of constitutional, statutory and historic factors, the common role of city government is administrative rather than policy-making; that the planning function is, in effect, an administrative instrument which simply expresses the city council's politico-economic orientation; and that the "master plan" is an ineffectual planning device."
(NOTE: This file contains text only, and does not include tables, figures or appendices included in the print version, which is available in five volumes in the Institute's library. This version also does not correspond to the original pagination of the printed disseration and should therefore not be quoted. It is made available in this version for information only).
Levin Dissertation [2.9 MB]
Interviews
In progress - TBA