Ok, so we're starting to get the message that we need to act on this whole "we're killing the planet" thing, and fast. But amongst all the noise about how much trouble we've gotten ourselves into, it's sometimes hard to hear the solutions and see the positive ideas. Enter GreenTOpia, the third installment in Coach House Books' uTOpia series, which is being released at a party this weekend into our eagerly outstretched arms. As we......

Our friends over at Spacing Magazine have officially launched their foray into a whole new blogging environment, Spacing Montréal. Covering the urban environment five hours down the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway, Spacing's new blog looks at many of the same public space issues in Montreal (in a refreshing mix of both official languages) that the newly-rebranded Spacing Toronto examines here. It may be worth noting the many parallels between Toronto and Montreal that make it a......

Development of Maple Leaf Gardens has been in limbo for several years, but it finally looks like things are about to get moving. The 75-year old building, having been vacated by the friendly neighbourhood hockey club in 1999, was purchased by Loblaws in 2004. According to a report in yesterday’s Star, the company is ready to begin a cleanup of the Gardens starting this summer, after which they will begin transforming the interior into......

When Coach House Books launched uTOpia: Towards a New Toronto last year we were absolutely, positively thrilled. The book brought together a group of people in love with the city and its potential. A year later, we're just days away from the launch of the State of the Arts, the sequel to that fine volume. With many of the same contributors as the first volume, we know that Coach House will pull off a fine......

As David Miller heads for a “well, there’s no one else to vote for” style victory for his second term as mayor of Toronto, it’s easy to forget that only three years ago he was a virtual unknown who surprised everyone by becoming mayor of Canada’s largest city. During that campaign, filmmaker Andrew Munger had unprecedented access to the candidate, his family and campaign team. Mungers' film Campaign: The Making of a Candidate is......

One more piece of bad news for Jane Pitfield's campaign: besides having one of the worst glamour shots we've ever seen on her media page (see above), whoever's writing her blog for her is cribbing Spacing Votes, Spacing Magazine's election blog. Details are a bit scarce, but what we know for sure so far is that for several days a recent entry on Jane Pitfield's blog copied one of John Lorinc's - almost word......

These 45 seats might be empty now but come November 13 we'll get to help decide who should fill them. Yes, the municipal elections are upon us. So where should those addicted to municipal politics go for their online fix? Spacing Votes is the go-to choice. Matt Blackett and the team that brings you your favourite horizontally-inclined magazine has gathered a gaggle of bloggers, students and journalists to cover the election. They link to......

For the rest of the media the municipal elections have just started but for the contributors over at the Spacing Votes blog it's already at a fever pitch. The site went live on Monday and over the last few days have already accrued posts on transit, Pitfield and Miller coming out against road tolls (booo!) and the city's recent decision to buy a dump outside London, ON. The blog also gets regular contributions from......

Murmur, the green-eared audio art project that allows Torontonians to listen to neighbourhood stories through cellphones, goes literary and teams up with the City of Toronto Book Awards. They're recording stories with the five nominees at various locations in the city. Head down to Kensington Market to listen to Howard Akler read from his hard-boiled reporter meets thief story set in the dirty '30s, head to U of T to hear Stephen Marche read from......

John Lorinc's new book, the New City comes at a very strange time. It's hard to contend with the fact that demographically Canada has become a nation of cities. Almost 80% of us live in urban areas and the robustness of Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and all of the smaller cities in this country are the real reason why the Liberal government was able to get the eight straight budget surpluses they kept rattling on......

Torontoist's favourite magazine about the city (sorry Toronto Life) is celebrating the launch of its fifth issue at the Arts and Letters Club this Thursday night (14 Elm St., 8pm, $10 includes a mag). The most exciting development over at Spacing is the fact that the new issue is in glorious colour, which fits the new issue's theme of public art. Torontoist got its hands on the new issue at Sunday's uTOpia book launch and......