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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

Toronto’s current urban planning conflicts rooted in the past

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The seeds of Toronto’s modern-day political discord, as it pertains to urban development, were planted in the 1950s.

According to Stephen Bocking, one thing that’s become prevalent here over the last 20 years is the notion that urban planning has become an intensely political activity. That belief would be false in his view.

Bocking, professor & chair of environmental & resource studies, Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., made a Nov. 7 presentation, “Building Postwar Toronto: When Planning And Politics Collide”, at the Toronto Public Library’s Annette Street branch in the Junction neighbourhood. His talk was part of the library’s “History Matters” lecture series.

With respect to the origins of the challenges Toronto faces presently in terms of planning, many trace it back to the Conservative Mike Harris provincial government’s so-called Common Sense Revolution in the mid-1990s. That horrific scheme imposed amalgamation and the downloading of all kinds of costs on T.O.

Others may go further back to the 1980s when basic investments in transit expansion, after the initial development of the subway system, was essentially abandoned. But Bocking suggested the need to rewind even further.

“Go back to the 1950s when much of the shape of Toronto as we see it today was just emerging. It was an intriguing time in the history of Toronto. The city was expanding rapidly via the postwar era and it was a time when enormous investment was being made in the city,” he said. “It was also a time when the seeds were being planted that would lead to a breakdown in Toronto city planning.”

Consider the city’s 1943 master plan. Though it was never implemented, it shows an interest in government circles of the comprehensive planning of cities.

“This plan’s key features are reflected in contemporary Toronto like the importance of expressways for example,” he explained. “There are others as well such as the notion of a green belt encompassing the ravines of the Don and Humber Rivers and especially the overarching idea of expanding on the outskirts of the city. That might seem obvious now but in the 1940s, this was a fairly revolutionary idea in urban planning circles.”

The creation of the Metro Toronto government in 1953 aimed to solve the fundamental challenges of developing this city, namely the financial variety.

“The Metro Toronto government itself was largely an instrument to make possible those engineering investments that were way beyond the capability of the existing city governments in the area,” he added.

Bocking named what he called three key aspects of investment made during that era: The activities of the Metro government to extend urban services; the process involving the development of new communities especially by private developers; and the task of managing nature.

“The state of the sewer system in Toronto in 1949 was in a word, terrible,” he said. “The fundamental idea behind (improving) the sewer system was to enable private investment in housing development throughout the Toronto area.”

He then highlighted Don Mills as a classic postwar suburban development in the region, likening it to America’s first suburb in Levittown, Pa.

“The structure of suburban development at this time was seen as corresponding to the preferred structure of the heterosexual family,” he said. “Urban architecture and planning had to be supportive of that preferred family structure . . . the notion of large-scale homebuilders, which was very much encouraged by the Canadian Mortgage & Housing Corporation, was considered quite radical.”

And then came Hurricane Hazel in 1954, a storm that dumped 285 millimetres of rain in 48 hours, killed 81 people, and left an estimated 1,868 families in T.O. homeless. Hazel mobilized the need for managing watersheds on a regional basis.

“It was an event from which lessons were readily drawn including obvious ones such as not to build houses on flood plains,” Bocking said. “From now on, conservation authorities would help ensure that private investment would not be put in danger by disruptive nature.”

Still, urban planning at this time was not considered a political argument. It was considered a technical issue to be sorted out by the experts.

“The essential function of city planning was to enable private development and to serve individual choice,” he continued. “For example, instead of determining what transportation options would be available, the preference was given to cars and highways because that was seen as the purest expression of individual autonomy.”

So when did urban planning become a highly politicized affair in Toronto? Bocking suggested political discord began to emerge following the establishment of the Gardiner Expressway that irrevocably altered the neighbourhood in south Parkdale. But he cited the influence of folks like Jane Jacobs for ratcheting it up to another level by railing against the extension of the Spadina Expressway.

“She helped galvanize significant debates in Toronto about the shape and future of the city,” he said. “There was also an increasing sense of discomfort about what was happening to certain neighbourhoods. For instance, people were beginning to respond in a visceral way about what was happening in St. James Town.”

By the late 1960s, urban planning and politics began to collide with regularity.

“Developing Metro Toronto in the 1950s and 1960s represented a particular idea about how we build cities,” he added. “The debates framed in the 60s and 70s have been with us ever since. There hasn’t been any clear resolution as to what Toronto should be in the future.”

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4 comments

  1. One problem that came out of the 1950’s is that most new homes built were only for one family, and the by-laws reflect that. They still do that. Developers have to build for single families, but after the family moves in they illegally put in basement apartments, usually to help pay off the mortgage and utility costs.

  2. Liam quotes:
    “… the preference was given to cars and highways because that was seen as the purest expression of individual autonomy.”

    If that’s not inherently political (consider the timeframe: individualism versus collectivism in the post-world-war eral), I don’t know what is.

  3. Urban planning also became popular because of the growing need to get factory workers into healthier housing, rather than stuffing them into firetrap tenements. With the advent of unions, workers had advocates to help lobby for better housing. Hence, “mill villages” and “steel villages” sprang up in larger cities.

  4. Thanks for sharing this great information regarding urban planning. City planner plan the present and future of city and town. Urban planning is the profession that concerns itself with the health and quality of life in urban places-cities and their suburbs, small towns and rural villages. Just as veterinarians care for animals as different as dogs are from iguanas, urban planners care for cities as different as New York City is from Boscobel, Wisconsin. And just as a veterinarian needs to be able to work with the circulation, digestion.