By Dylan Reid
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REID: The Jenga school of civic management
For some years, I worked for an organization that practiced what I came to think of as the Jenga school of management. The organization loved to hire...
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REID: Election signs of the times
Yesterday was sign day in Toronto’s municipal election. Campaign workers spread out over the city to hammer signs onto lawns and leave signs for posting...
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NEW ISSUE: 2022 City Election Issue(s)
Once upon a time, Toronto had ambition. While it was much mocked for wanting to be a “world-class city,” at least it had a goal. Now, with more cranes...
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REID: The Toronto vote in the 2022 Ontario provincial election
Municipal issues in the City of Toronto are deeply affected by the results of the provincial election. Planning regulations, Ministerial Zoning Orders...
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REID: Sixty-two pages of overdue staff reports
Asking overburdened staff for reports is one of the favourite pastimes of Toronto city council. But what happens to those report requests? It turns out a...
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REID: Shadows and light – a longstanding debate
It’s an argument, it turns out, that has been going on for centuries. When new tall or mid-rise buildings are discussed, one of the issues that always...
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NEW ISSUE: City Growing
Sometimes we get a series of pitches that don’t fit well into a particular issue, but relate to each other as they accumulate in our pitch pile over time...
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REID: Sidewalks — snow-free at last!
I have been writing and advocating about the need to expand sidewalk snow clearing to every sidewalk in the city for what seems like forever. Usually I...
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REID: Is ActiveTO on life support?
On a Sunday in the middle of May, I went for a bike ride along the south end of Bayview Ave., which was open to pedestrians and cyclists / closed to motor...
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REID: Yes exit
It’s the kind of thing that has always hung out at the edge of our urban consciousness, that we used to occasionally notice and find irritating, but not...
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Reading List: John Sewell, “The Shape of the Suburbs”
When John Sewell’s book The Shape of the Suburbs: Understanding Toronto’s Sprawl came out in 2009, I read it soon after publication, flagging passages...
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REID: Piketty and the decline of “dirty mansions”
Toronto’s affordable housing crisis has many facets. One of these many facets is the conversion – or rather, re-conversion – of big old houses in the...