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LORINC: Burning down the (laneway) house
In recent months, I’ve found myself wondering whether Toronto City Council’s much-touted laneway suites policy, circa 2018, was nothing more than an...
By John Lorinc -
MUKHERJEE: Why Toronto police are worse off under Chief Mark Saunders
In Act I, Scene IV of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Marcellus, a guard, renders this famous verdict on his country’s politics: “Something is rotten in the kingdom...
By Alok Mukherjee -
LORINC: Just who is the face of the TTC these days?
With apologies to the famously elusive picture book figure, where’s Rick? Increasingly, as the TTC finds itself in a public relations nightmare, I have...
By John Lorinc -
LORINC: Council ponders $600 million affordable housing incentive
It is Toronto’s ur-question, the riddle of riddles, the fodder for a thousand earnest studies. What combination of public policy, political will and pixie...
By John Lorinc -
PODCAST: Spacing Radio 043, We are the public realm
In this episode, we talk about public space issues of the past, present, and future. Spacing Publisher Matthew Blackett tells us how the magazine itself...
By Spacing Radio -
When Poverty Mattered: The 1970 uprising at the Social Planning Council
Editor’s note: Excerpted from the book When Poverty Mattered, Then and Now, by Paul Weinberg (Fernwood Publishing, 2019). There is something both...
By Paul Weinberg -
We have a housing crisis— why aren’t we talking about rent control?
In the mad-dash scramble to call out the culprits and cheer on the saviours in Toronto’s ever-accelerating housing crisis, there’s been an outpouring of...
By John Lorinc -
Remembering the city-building poet laureate
In 2004, I was introduced to Pier Giorgio DiCicco, then recently unveiled at the City of Toronto’s poet laureate. Little did I know that I’d...
By Spacing -
Embodied carbon and the problem of concrete Toronto
Whatever else you might think about Sidewalk Labs (SWL), the controversial smart city proposal has made one undeniably positive contribution to Toronto’s...
By John Lorinc -
The delicate dance of governing Sidewalk Lab’s Quayside project
Three-and-a-half months after The Great Re-Set trimmed the sails of everyone’s favorite smart city villain, Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff and Waterfront...
By John Lorinc -
When do we admit that Toronto’s housing crisis is an emergency?
Should the City of Toronto declare a housing and homelessness emergency? Reports on deaths of homeless people, increasing levels of housing...
By John Clapp -
PODCAST: Spacing Radio 042, The revitalizing power of heritage
This episode was a live panel discussion, moderated by our host in London, Ontario. The “Heritage Matters in Conversation” event was put on by...
By Spacing Radio
Canadian Urbanism Uncovered