Archives /// Suburbs

The neighbourhood of Lawrence Heights is scheduled for revitalization. “Revitalization” means, literally, to bring back to life, but there’s a lot of life in Lawrence Heights already. On a Jane’s Walk there in the spring, half a dozen high school students, all of them male and black, gave a group of largely white, middle-class downtowners a tour of their neighbourhood. They talked with enthusiasm about its vibrant life — about the strong sense of community, how everyone knows each other, how kids always have someone looking out for them. They described how ...

Toronto's inner suburbs are often bemoaned as unconsidered sprawl. But these areas were planned with clean direction, representing a series of experiments in modern planning unique to North America. Most distinctly characterized by the development of nearly 1,000 high-rise apartments, the development of Toronto's inner suburbs can be understood as an attempt to create a series of equitable, self-sufficient, and model communities for the postwar world. High-density "hot spots" and the planned communities that surround them offer an understanding of the intent behind the management of Toronto's postwar growth. Toronto represents a hybrid suburban form, drawing inspiration from both experiments in ...

When pondering Oakville, Toronto's wealthy western suburb, the phrase "global village" is not a term that commonly comes to mind. Nevertheless, during this year's Places to Grow Youth Engagement Project, a team of seven Oakville youth used this exact slogan as a founding philosophy behind the vision they developed for their downtown. Places to Grow is a five-year pilot project initiated by the Ontario Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure. Now in its third year, it aims to develop young people's understanding of planning principles and challenge them to examine issues facing their communities — including one of the biggest challenges that ...

I'm a commuter farmer. I live in downtown Toronto and drive 30 minutes north to Highway 7 in Bramalea three days a week to tend a quarter-acre plot of vegetables. There are 13 other new farmers like me leasing similar plots on this 50-acre property bounded on all four sides by new suburban housing developments. The land is owned by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and managed by FarmStart, a program that encourages new Ontario farmers. It was worked by the McVean family descendants and then gifted to the City of Brampton in 1971, in part to conserve this part ...

Scarborough has a powerhouse working to promote the arts, and its name is Karin Eaton. After eleven years as executive director of Scarborough Arts Council, Eaton, whose initial art interests lay in writing and theatre, found her passions leading her to become perhaps the foremost Canadian spokesperson for mural art. She now serves as mural curator and executive director of Mural Routes, an internationally respected institution she helped found. It began at Scarborough Arts Council in 1990, when Eaton heard about a public mural project in Chemainus, BC, and decided to celebrate Scarborough with 12 murals along Kingston Road, called Heritage ...