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Opening conversations about active transportation in racialized suburbs
This guest post is by members of Transportation Equity Toronto, the organizers of the Mini Conference on Racial Equity and Active Transportation (bios at the end). Over 50% of Toronto’s population is...
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Embedding municipal government in the constitution
Premier Doug Ford’s sudden and arbitrary interference in the 2018 Toronto municipal election – and the preliminary court decision that allowed him to proceed with it – was a startling reminder of just...
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LORINC: Welcome to the post-civic engagement era
With the landslide of hostile omnibus legislation spewing out of Queen’s Park this spring, I found myself wondering whether Doug Ford, General Secretary of the People’s Republic of Ontario and...
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City politics in the wake of Ontario’s Bill 5 and lessons for Canadian cities
Last week, two things happened that are useful markers for where Toronto sits in the struggle to manage the impact from Bill 5: a court appeal and a committee meeting. There are insights and questions...
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LORINC: Celebration and Toronto’s Public Space Moment
The hundreds of thousands of soccer fans spilling onto St. Clair West after Italy’s 1982 World Cup victory marked a turning point for the city: evidence, after decades of caricatures and racist...
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Our new issue launches at Laneway Block Party
WHAT: Issue 50 release party / Laneway Block Party WHEN: Saturday, June 22 4pm-10pm WHERE: Foxley Place, at Ossington Ave. and Foxley St. COST: Free! New issue $5 The cover feature of Spacing’s 50th...
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Indigenous Innovation
I am one of an estimated 70,000 Indigenous people living in Toronto. And while there is a variety of social services spaces like the Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto, Miziwe Biik Aboriginal...
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Analysis: the permanent King Street transit way is a model for all Toronto
The Toronto Streetcar, older or newer type, is an ever-present symbol of the city. The red, black and white TTC colours trundle along century old tracks, east and west, north and south and are a...
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LORINC: The myth of the city charter
Midtown city councillor Josh Matlow’s packed public meeting this week, convened to whip up support for charter status for Toronto, may have been good politics, but I’m not convinced the notion of...
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LORINC: Sidewalk Labs and the problem of smart city governance
On page 222 of the least jazzy of Sidewalk Lab’s four-volume magnum opus outlining its plan for Quayside-plus is the first of a series of supplemental tables that offer a clue about what the...
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ROBINSON: How does government fit into smart city plans?
In the 48 hours since Sidewalk Labs’ Master Innovation and Development Plan dropped, we have all been working our way through its 1524 pages, watching as the pile of important questions continues to...
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Introducing the Spacing School of Urbanism’s first workshop: Laneways
The Spacing School of Urbanism provides unique continuing education and professional development to Greater Toronto-area architects, planners, urban designers, developers, real estate agents, and...
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We need surface transit innovations while Toronto waits for subways
Whether or not you like Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s transit plan for the GTA, none of it is going to help us anytime soon. Its nearly $29 billion in new capital projects, which are mostly underground,...
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PODCAST: Spacing Radio 036, Canadian City Parks
This episode, we partnered with Park People to bring you highlights from their national Heart of the City conference: the first of it’s kind in Canada. We speak to Rena Soutar, the first Reconciliation...
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Notes from Charlottetown
As the new BC/Yukon regional director of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, I recently had the privilege of meeting in June with my fellow board members in Charlottetown, PEI. With the RAIC...
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GORD PERKS: The risks of the financialization of housing
Premier Doug Ford says weakening planning law will get more housing built and that will solve our affordable housing crisis. This appeals to people who believe that housing costs are primarily a...
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When is efficient too efficient? Tech lessons from the port city of Hamburg
Cities can have ports, and many do. Moreover, successful ports make for thriving cities. But ports are not cities. They are not models for cities and they are not allegories for cities. Today, they are...
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Curb Your Enthusiasm
On July 4, a group of Toronto community leaders shared their “Dear Toronto” open letter as a plea to embrace the Sidewalk Lab’s Master Innovation and Development Plan (MIDP) for Toronto’s waterfront....
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LORINC: New residential density plans a small step in right direction
Toronto council today took one small step towards a more rational and potentially more equitable residential land use planning policy with a motion, moved by Mayor John Tory and supported by housing...
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#GetAjaxMoving: Ongoing meaningful engagement to encourage sustainable...
Armi de Francia is the Active Transportation Coordinator at the Town of Ajax who is continuing the implementation of the #GetAjaxMoving campaign. How can suburban municipalities meaningfully engage...
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