Urban Design
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LORINC: Why Toronto’s urban design needs a lesson on climate and equity
Many Torontonians, including critics, have long bemoaned the absence, at least in recent decades, of a unique architectural character for the city. Beyond...
By John Lorinc -
PODCAST: Spacing Radio 056, Rail Deck Park and best laid (official) plans
This episode is all about plans: big and small, successful and dashed. First, Toronto Star city hall reporter Jennifer Pagliaro takes us through the story...
By Spacing Radio -
LORINC: The cautionary tale of Rail Deck Park
If Toronto’s Rail Deck Park plan ended up dying in a dense thicket of legalistic land-use planning arguments, it would be fair to say that the idea...
By John Lorinc -
LORINC: Which green standard will reduce Toronto’s carbon?
Few would argue that the City of Toronto’s goal of reducing building-related carbon emissions to zero by around 2030 is a worthy, though challenging...
By John Lorinc -
LORINC: The vital need to renew Tower Renewal
Almost exactly a year ago, a team of American affordable housing experts from the Urban Land Institute came to Toronto to offer up ideas for breaking the...
By John Lorinc -
LORINC: Raising the stakes in the MZO wars
The judge who handed down a temporary injunction last week, halting the demolition of the historic Dominion Foundry in the West Donlands, was withering in...
By John Lorinc -
OP-ED: YongeTOmorrow is an opportunity not to be missed
This is an op-ed by from YongeTOmorrow and co-signers Richard Florida, Rana Florida, Ken Greenberg, Dr. Robin Mazumder, Brent Toderian, Yvonne Bambrick...
By Yonge TOmorrow -
When it comes to parking minimums, less is more
Is parking policy in Toronto finally going to be meaningfully reformed? On January 5th, the City of Toronto released a “Report for Action” signalling it...
By Lyndsey Rolheiser -
LORINC: The never-ending war between Queen’s Park and City Hall
There could have scarcely been a more succinct visual metaphor for the chronically dysfunctional relationship between City Hall and Queen’s Park than the...
By John Lorinc -
LORINC: Yonge Street’s new mission
It sometimes seems as if the ‘whither-Yonge Street’ question has been loitering on the edges of our civic debates ever since the City iced the...
By John Lorinc -
PODCAST: Spacing Radio 052, Public Realm Resolutions
We began 2020 with a bit of optimism — how could we know? We had an episode about the public realm and its importance, and spoke to urban...
By Spacing Radio -
LORINC: 2020, a year of urban resilience
The answer to the “whither-cities” question that’s buzzed around the edges of pandemic punditry was never seriously in doubt. Cities are...
By John Lorinc