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Since the election of Mayor David Miller in November 2003, Toronto has experienced a wave of civic pride and enthusiasm not felt in decades. At long last, Torontonians see their city as a place of possibility and potential. Visions of a truly workable, liveable and world-class city are once again dancing in citizens’ heads. In the past two years, this spirit has, directly or indirectly, manifested itself in multifarious forms: in writer Sheila Heti’s sui generis lecture series, Trampoline Hall; in the transformation of derelict hotels such as the Drake and the Gladstone into cultural hotspots; in renewed interest in waterfront revitalization and public transportation; in exciting, contro...
More trees. Hydrogen-fuelled cabs. Urbiology. A new model of taxation. Solar panels on big-box stores. The art of salvage. Composters for dog poo in city parks. Retrofitting our urban slabs. Gardening the Gardiner. Ravine City. What would make Toronto a greener place? In the third volume of the uTOpia series, dozens of imaginative Torontonians think big and small about sustainability. From suggestions for changes to our transit system and more mixed-use neighbourhoods to a tongue-in-cheek proposal for a painted line aroudn the city and a short comic book about Toronto in the year 2057, GreenTOpia challenges the city and its residents to rethink what it means to be green in a metropolis, and how to take their love of the city one green step further. Other pieces include an interview with Mayor David Miller and a breakdown of the ecological impact of our morning coffee. GreenTOpia features photos, maps and a 56 page green directory of resources, organizations, incentives and programs promoting sustainability in the GTA.
WINNER OF THE 2022 WRITERS' TRUST BALSILLIE PRIZE FOR PUBLIC POLICY WINNER OF FOR THE PATTIS FAMILY FOUNDATION GLOBAL CITIES BOOK AWARD Is the ‘smart city’ the utopia we’ve been waiting for? The promise of the so-called smart city has been at the forefront of urban planning and development since the early 2010s, and the tech industry that supplies smart city software and hardware is now worth hundreds of billions a year. But the ideas and approaches underpinning smart city tech raise tough and important questions about the future of urban communities, surveillance, automation, and public participation. The smart city era, moreover, belongs firmly in a longer historical narrative about ...
WINNER OF THE 2020/2021 ALCUIN SOCIETY BOOK DESIGN AWARD FOR POETRY WINNER OF THE ROBERT KROETSCH CITY OF EDMONTON BOOK PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2023 STEPHAN G. STEPHANSSON AWARD FOR POETRY WINNER OF THE GERALD LAMPERT MEMORIAL AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE DAYNE OGILVIE PRIZE FOR LGBTQ2S+ EMERGING WRITERS LONGLISTED FOR THE RAYMOND SOUSTER AWARD WINNER OF THE INDIGENOUS VOICES AWARD FOR PUBLISHED POETRY IN ENGLISH An Indigenous resistance historiography, poetry that interrogates the colonial violence of the archive Whitemud Walking is about the land Matthew Weigel was born on and the institutions that occupy that land. It is about the interrelatedness of his own story with that of the colonial histo...
If a city is its people, and its people are what they eat, then shouldn’t food play a larger role in our dialogue about how and where we live? The food of a metropolis is essential to its character. Native plants, proximity to farmland, the locations of supermarkets, immigration, food-security concerns, how chefs are trained: how a city nourishes itself might say more than anything else about what kind of city it is. With a cornucopia of essays on comestibles, The Edible City considers how one city eats. It includes dishes on peaches and poverty, on processing plants and public gardens, on rats and bees and bad restaurant service, on schnitzel and school lunches. There are incisive studies of food-safety policy, of feeding the poor, and of waste, and a happy tale about a hardy fig tree. Together they form a saucy picture of how Toronto – and, by extension, every city – sustains itself, from growing basil on balconies to four-star restaurants. Dig into The Edible City and get the whole story, from field to fork.
Decisions about the things that matter most on a daily basis - our roads and schools and houses - happen at the city level. So, how do we influence these decisions? What motivates ordinary citizens to take action and improve their community? How do neighbours organize together? Does City Hall facilitate engagement, or stand in the way? Local Motion explores how we, as citizens, can make a positive change in our city.
An unflinchingly subversive, aversive, conversive poetic look at the underbelly of Canadian settler-colonial experience.
City Hall proclaimed 2006 the Year of Creativity. 'Live With Culture’ banners flap over the city. And across the city, donors are ponying up millions for the ROM and the AGO. Culture’s never had it so good. Right? The State of the Arts explores the Toronto arts scene from every angle, applauding, assailing and arguing about art in our fair burg. The essays consider the big-ticket and the ticket-free, from the Opera House and the CNE to the subconscious art of graffiti eradication and underground hip-hop. In between, you'll find considerations art in the suburbs, how business uses art to sell condos, questions of infrastructure, an examination of Toronto on film and a history of micro pre...
A woman must emerge from the virtual world she’s created to confront her flesh-and-blood past and family. Growing up with a menacing drunk for a father and a grief-stricken mother, a girl spends her 1980s childhood staring at the television to escape the tension, depression, and looming violence that fill her suburban home. After winning a modelling competition, she dedicates herself to becoming a placid image onto which anything can be projected, a blank slate with a blank stare. Earning enough in Paris to retire in her twenties, she buys a studio in Montreal and retreats from the world and its perceived threats, cultivating her existence as an image through her virtual reality avatar. Bu...
College and Lansdowne in Toronto? That's where I live. Honestly, I don't really like it. At Lansdowne you have the first evidence of suburbia; I live above a small proto-stripmall which houses a Harvey's, a Domino's Pizza and a 7-11. I buy cream and newspapers at the 7-11, the occasional veggie burger at Harvey's and the very very occasional pizza from Domino's. For some reason, pizza just doesn't hold the thrill it used to. Nothing does. Theatre doesn't have much relevance anymore. Or so acclaimed playwright Darren O'Donnell tells us. The dynamics of unplanned social interaction, he says, are far more compelling than any play he could produce. So his latest show, A Suicide-Site Guide to the...