Results tagged “urbandevelopment”

Between the 1950s and 1990s, the urbanized area of the GTA more than tripled from 193 square miles to 656. Yet, in the same time period, the population only doubled. Toronto became, former mayor John Sewell writes, "a city that resembled Vienna surrounded by Los Angeles." In The Shape of the Suburbs (UTP, 2009), Sewell sets out to investigate how low-density sprawl became the predominant urban form in the suburbs beyond Metro Toronto, what is now the 905 region.

Toronto poster boy John Sewell has been hard at work. Building on the research that he conducted for a 2005 lecture series, he has written a new book, The Shape of the Suburbs, that attempts to explain how Toronto's suburban communities have spread over time and how they have shaped Toronto. Because of its insight, the work has been selected for Pages Books and Magazines’ This Is Not A Reading Series, and on Tuesday night at the Gladstone Hotel, Sewell had the opportunity to not read his book.

The corner of Dundas Street West and Indian Grove used to host McBride Cycle, a 21,000 square-foot motorcycle retailer with some ninety-seven years of history behind it. As of last September, however, the store is no more, a death caused in large part by motorcycling companies cancelling agreements with dealerships like McBride's around the country. Beginning in the spring, the building was slowly demolished, and now there is little more at the corner than a bed of rubble, some metal poles, a big garbage bin, and a single line of fence running parallel with Dundas West.

Are you a fan of municipal development and urban planning? Do you read Spacing (or at least say you do)? Then you should endeavor to visit A Visual Legacy: The City of Toronto’s Use of Photography, 1856-1997, an exhibition of images from the City of Toronto Archives.