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Dear Toronto: We need to talk about city charters
Is the answer to Toronto’s problems a city charter? According to the aptly named Charter City Toronto, it is. From my perspective, the group’s proposal, released in early November, raises more...
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The Ward Cabaret is Toronto’s original musical
When immigrants arrived in Toronto in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they disembarked either at Union Station or one of the commercial wharves directly to the south, along what is now Queen’s...
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LORINC: What exactly does ‘affordable housing’ mean in Toronto?
With the unveiling yesterday of the City’s ten-year “Housing Opportunities Toronto” (HOT) action plan, Mayor John Tory and city council’s housing czar Ana Bailao launched what could be described as...
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The Beautiful Mess of Toronto Laneways, my newest book for Spacing
There is no public space that holds my heart quite like a laneway. When I moved downtown in the mid-1990s I began to wander the city’s alleys to marvel at the graffiti and ancient-seeming garages. I...
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The Future Fix Podcast: Food security and circular economies
Spacing and Evergreen proudly present The Future Fix: Solutions for Communities Across Canada, a special podcast series. THIS EPISODE: Food Security and circular economies Many people across Canada...
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LORINC: John Tory’s tax hike and the myth of the electoral mandate
In his column on the weekend, the Globe and Mail’s Marcus Gee took Mayor John Tory to task for committing an electoral bait-and-switch, promising during the 2018 election to hold taxes to the rate of...
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Toronto’s missing middle should be built along collector roads
Much of the conversation about missing middle development in Toronto has been focused on how to smuggle additional housing units into residential areas without running afoul of NIMBY neighbours. This...
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The secret small-town urbanism of TV Christmas movies
At first glance, the made-for-TV Christmas movies that have come to dominate the holiday season on certain channels – and recently, Netflix – are profoundly anti-urban. They usually feature a woman –...
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Book Review – An Architect’s Guide to Construction: Enduring Ways in the Age...
Author: Brian Palmquist (self-published, 2nd ed., 2019) Much has changed in design and construction since the first edition of an Architect’s Guide to Construction was published in 2015. The computer...
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A comparative look at Toronto’s CLRVs
At the end of December 2019, Toronto’s iconic CLRV streetcars will depart from city streets after more than 40 years serving the city. While these streetcars are not wheelchair accessible and suffered...
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In defense of Toronto becoming a charter city
This column is in response to Professor Zack Taylor’s analysis of Toronto becoming a Charter City on Spacing In an opinion column here on Spacing two weeks ago, Zack Taylor raised a couple of good...
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National Housing Innovation event tackles Toronto’s housing affordability crisis
Toronto’s housing affordability crisis has long dominated headlines and political discourse, but measures introduced by our governments have so far been unable to appease it. Our housing market...
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PODCAST: Spacing Radio 042, The revitalizing power of heritage
This episode was a live panel discussion, moderated by our host in London, Ontario. The “Heritage Matters in Conversation” event was put on by the Ontario Heritage Trust, to explore how to rethink,...
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When do we admit that Toronto’s housing crisis is an emergency?
Should the City of Toronto declare a housing and homelessness emergency? Reports on deaths of homeless people, increasing levels of housing unaffordability and rising homelessness indicate that the...
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The delicate dance of governing Sidewalk Lab’s Quayside project
Three-and-a-half months after The Great Re-Set trimmed the sails of everyone’s favorite smart city villain, Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff and Waterfront Toronto chair Stephen Diamond appeared on a...
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The Future Fix Podcast: The secret life of sensors
Spacing and Evergreen proudly present The Future Fix: Solutions for Communities Across Canada, a special podcast series. THIS EPISODE: The secret life of sensors A major component of “smart” cities is...
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Embodied carbon and the problem of concrete Toronto
Whatever else you might think about Sidewalk Labs (SWL), the controversial smart city proposal has made one undeniably positive contribution to Toronto’s civic discourse: it forced a discussion about...
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Remembering the city-building poet laureate
In 2004, I was introduced to Pier Giorgio DiCicco, then recently unveiled at the City of Toronto’s poet laureate. Little did I know that I’d spark up a great friendship with a Catholic priest despite...
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Book Review: Soft City
Author: David Sim (Island Press, 2019) Bringing the soft back to cities Cities are often caricatured as hard and harsh. Concrete, steel, loud noises, crowds and congestion, bright lights, fast speeds,...
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We have a housing crisis— why aren’t we talking about rent control?
In the mad-dash scramble to call out the culprits and cheer on the saviours in Toronto’s ever-accelerating housing crisis, there’s been an outpouring of emergent thinking about what a solution could...
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