Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. "Take that word 'homeless' out, and use the word 'Jewish.' Would we be studying whether Jewish people could come......

When trying to solve the problem of the lack of affordable housing, the thinkers and planners and innovators and design enthusiasts come up with some pretty creative ideas. Like the IKEA House, for example, or the notion of shipping container architecture. A group of Toronto activists are proposing a "use it or lose it" bylaw "that would see vacant and underutilized buildings and spaces expropriated by the City and redeveloped as badly needed affordable......

Former Torontoist contributor Ted Healey came across a great find at the Wellesley & Ontario condo and townhouse development known as "The Star of Downtown." Previously the subject of an Ugly Stick here on Torontoist, the condo's advertisements have seen plenty of scorn since they were put up. The latest addition to the front facade is thanks to someone named Defy, who has decided to give a voice to the gay urban professionals artificially......

The Tories unveiled their plan to fight climate change, which broadly speaking involves polluters paying, although not very soon or very much. Cue predictable environmentalist outrage, and Environment Minister John Baird pointing out that the Liberals didn’t even have a fake plan. Buzz Hargrove is pleased, though. An unlicensed daycare in Riverdale was closed down after a child was injured there. An anonymous parent said that the kids in the centre were “healthy, well-stimulated,......

Drake, you ho, this is all your fault. The Ontario Municipal Board has approved a high-rise residential project on Queen Street West at 48 Abell Street, just steps from the Gladstone and everything hipsters cherish about Toronto's arts scene. Developers intend to build 7 condos in total with affordable housing, and the ratio of "normal people" to "artists with cool hair" will be thrown into upheaval. Unfortunately, there's not much that we or neighbourhood-preservation......

Regent Park is 69 unattractive acres of our city’s east end, bordered by Gerard south to Shuter St and Parliament east to River St. The area was considered a slum until the 1940s and 50s when a social housing community was built to ameliorate the slumminess. Currently, the area consists of delapidated buildings overstuffed with occupants, which are surrounded by sketchiness on the streets. At a cost of $1 billion, the City of Toronto is......

First, in blog news: Mozilla releases Firefox 2.0: It's a well-known fact that the free browser is highly superior to Internet Explorer, and the new version comes with an integrated spell check designed for blogs and social networking tools. Stop using your IE, fool! St. Louis beat Detroit last night for a 2-1 game lead in the World Series, but nobody was watching it (only 12.8 million). A 39-year-old Whitby man faces 282 charges......

Let's take a look back at a week that raised this Zen koan: if Kevin Federline got into a wrestling ring with a wrestler, who would you root for? Austinist was in an entertainment state of mind as they covered the dickens out of the Austin Film Festival, depicted all the Big 12 football coaches as South Park characters, and interviewed Jose Gonzalez. Chicagoist talked about the passion as they bid adieu to Bell......

The City is receving about $980 million dollars from Toronto Hydro. There was some fierce debate about how the money will be used but in the end the City will earmark the money for waterfront redevelopment and the York U subway. Sadly fancy ketchups or green dresses were nowhere on council's radar. Pictured here are the very happy Toronto Hydro mascots. Despite the promise of a billion dollars the city still needs more money. Council......

This week, the United Nations World Urban Forum is being held in Vancouver. The conference is a place where NGOs, urban designers and planners, as well as other special interest groups discuss the growing population of major cities, and how to deal with the problems that causes. A focus at Monday's meeting was the homeless. Despite current efforts, and international treaties on adequate housing policy, as a city grows, so do the number of......

Things are getting ugly between the city and the Carribean Cultural Committee, the organizers of the huge Caribana festival. Citing the lack of a clean audit, the city is refusing to give $400,000 or so of funding and asked another group, the Toronto Mas Band Association, to take the reins of the festival. TMBA won't be able to use the name though, the CCC owns that, and CCC organizers have vowed they'll put the fest......

It's all a numbers game, right. Hospitals need $200M, Police budget gets a $5M raise, and Second Cup raises its cup cost to a ridiculous $1.35. So to preface any discussion of homelessness and housing, perhaps we need a little by-the-numbers. In this one instance alone, we'll let the Star's suggestion that Mayor Miller be a bit more Mayor Bloomberg (as in, dismally unpopular NYC Mayor Mike) slide, and do a little municipal housing compare......