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PODCAST: Spacing Radio 034, Provincial Creatures
This month we look at how major swings in provincial politics are affecting cities across Canada. We talk to journalist and Walkcast host Tim Querengesser about the recent Alberta election, and how it...
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Book Review: The Language of Cities
Author: Deyan Sudjic (Penguin Press, 2016) The early moderns did all they could to find ways of controlling the uncontrollable city. We do not belong to a generation that has the shared faith enjoyed...
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LORINC: Want affordable housing? Then Ford shouldn’t sell publicly-owned land
To my eye, the Ford government’s housing “action plan” — which was released late last week in a conspicuously over-stuffed news cycle that also included the subway upload legislation and ministerial...
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Safe Travels: Muslim Women on the move
In December 2015, I was scheduled to speak at the Toronto Dawah Centre in the Bloor Dufferin neighbourhood. Various faith communities were gathering there in solidarity to respond to a recent spate of...
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Book Review – Code and Clay, Data and Dirt: Five Thousand Years of Urban Media
Author: Shannon Mattern (University of Minnesota Press, 2017) There is little doubt that the influx of digital technologies is altering our understanding of cities. Sensors and networks of all types...
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Bark is worth the fight: after decades of conflict, dog parks have found a...
As a kid in the 1970s, the superintendent in Ricky Farrell’s North York apartment complex paid boys a nickel a turd to collect the mess of dog feces that littered the small parkette beside his...
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REID: On Public Etiquette
It’s not a coincidence that words for people who understand good etiquette – polite, urbane – are derived from classical words for cities (Greek polis, Latin urbs). Where once etiquette was thought of...
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OP-ED: Toronto’s planning needs less politics, not more
Brad Bradford is a Toronto city councillor and former urban planner When I saw Doug Ford’s new planning legislation my first thought was “wow, I can’t believe we’re up to Bill 108 already.” We all know...
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Green space invaders: a look at Toronto’s unwelcome plant guests
For over 200 years, invasive plant species have wreaked havoc on Toronto’s green spaces. While the City continues to combat them, these unwelcome guests crop up time and again, damaging native plant...
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Women’s urban citizenship: the history of purpose-built apartments for women
From turn of the century boarding houses to today’s condo boom, housing has long been both the gateway and the barrier to the city for single working women in Toronto. Toronto in 1900 was a young city...
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Vanishing venues: new funding models favour festivals over small music clubs
Since January 2017, Toronto has lost more than one live music venue per month, with 76A, The Central, The Comfort Zone, Hard Rock Café, Harlem (East), Holy Oak, The Hoxton, Ratio, Seven 44, The Silver...
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Cricket keep-up: changing demographics mean adapting facilities to reflect...
Multiple World Cup appearances. Team Canada captaincy. Blistering statistics as a batsman. As far as Canadian cricketing is concerned, Zubin Surkari has done everything you could imagine. But it’s...
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LORINC: The time to plan for the driverless revolution is now
During a week when the city was buzzing with thousands of tech types here for the ritual in-gathering that is the Collision conference, it seems appropriate that Anthony Townsend, a smart city...
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The disassembly of a city: Windsor’s Mega-hospital debate should be on every...
ED: This op-ed by Shane Mitchell regarding Windsor’s “Mega-hospital” debate is a microcosm of the poor land use planning many Canadian cities and towns suffer from. Do we want to use infrastructure...
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Fascist neighbours: Thanks to Mussolini’s rise, Toronto’s Italian fascists...
During the 1920s and 1930s, Italian Torontonians witnessed the establishment and expansion of a sizeable fascist element within their community. Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy from...
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Understanding Ron Arad’s new public art at Yonge and Bloor
Outside of One Bloor East, two towering cylindrical figures slink around one another. The sculpture’s reflective steel encasement is contrasted with hints of red and orange that emerge at rupture...
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Book Review – Inventing Future Cities
Author: Michael Batty (MIT Press, 2018) Given the state of the world, it is fair to say that the future of cities is intimately intertwined with the future of the planet. The distinctions between the...
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Game day transit planning
When the Leafs or Blue Jays play a home game, Doug Tuira doesn’t watch to see if Auston Matthews will score an overtime winner or Roberto Osuna will close out the ninth inning. The Metrolinx Control...
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PODCAST: Spacing Radio 035, Activate
In this episode, we join Thomas McKechnie, playwright and organizer with Foodsters United — a new union working for a fair deal for food delivery workers in precarious employment. We speak to Urban...
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Book Review – Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design
Author: Kat Holmes (The MIT Press, 2017) The idea of universal design is powerful and (hopefully) prevalent in everything designers do. As I read Kat Holmes’ Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design,...
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