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The world moves in a mysterious way, its cities reform, and though there are any number of ultimately undecipherable forces at work in the way any city evolves, there are almost always people who act as conduits. Sometimes it’s through direct influence, like Gian Naaz opening the Naaz Theatre at Gerrard and Coxwell in 1971, or City Councillor Kyle Rae expelling the financial underperformers from Yonge and Dundas and replacing them with a public square. Other times, it’s more circumspect, like the way Jane Jacobs glamourized the Annex through her writing and her presence, or the way Geoff Polci and Alana ...

Originally from Mumbai, Jasmine Jasavala is one of the Toronto Emergency Medical Services' (EMS) most senior and well-respected members, and has been a paramedic since 1980. Jasavala picks me up at Kipling subway station and takes me to EMS station #39 in south Etobicoke, where she has worked for much of her career. We have a few minutes until her morning shift starts so she invites me to join her for a cup of saffron tea. As she hands me a mug the dispatch telephone rings and she turns to me, "we have to go!" Before I put the cup ...

The threat of rain notwithstanding, Nayla Rahman is all aglow — and not just because she is dressed in lavender from her headscarf to her toes. Her warm cherubic face beams as she waves hello to people who have come to enjoy the second annual Scarborough Village summer festival, which will draw nearly 3,000 people over the course of the day. As a member of the newly formed Scarborough Village Neighbourhood Association (SVNA), Rahman was one of many volunteers who helped plan the day's events, which included a barbeque, musical performances, children's activities, and, perhaps most importantly, the opportunity for ...

The heavy rains in the summer of 2008 made it easy to forget that 2007 was Toronto's driest summer ever recorded. While people can seek shade and water indoors, streetside trees — the maples, ashes, and oaks confined to a tiny square of soil within a sea of concrete sidewalk — cannot. These trees, which would naturally grow within the protection of a lush forest canopy, are left to bake on our streets. Many simply dry out and die, and then are replaced, only to have their stand-ins die as well. With the holler of his cheeky Tarzan cell-phone ring, in ...