Whilst performing our pre-read ritual of tearing out Toronto Life's 8,000 annoying snot-glued ad inserts and heavy stock subscription cards, we suddenly came across Torontoist's name in the mag's "Roundup" feature. The chart compares Toronto's four major city blogs: Torontoist, Spacing Wire (now Spacing Toronto), BlogTO, and the newish Torontopedia. Torontoist's raison d'être is listed as "news, arts, culture, snark"—and we won't argue with that—while BlogTO is like "your geeky friend who's always in......

Bad Buildings recently had the unusual ambivalent fortune (that is to say, neither good nor bad; we're reserving judgment lest you get the impression we're an urbanity snob—heaven forbid) of traveling north on Hurontario Street in Mississauga, past the intersection of Burnamthorpe Road. For the urbanity snobs among you, this would be Mississauga downtown—a nifty bit of urban planning that says, hey, we CAN build a "city" out of nuthin'. (Note ambivalent tone torquing only-and-ever-so-slightly)......

Love or loathe the spindly structure on the OCAD grounds, you'll have a chance to speak to one of the minds behind the Alsop North America creation tomorrow evening courtesy of Salon Voltaire. Bringing together interesting speakers, good food and lively discussion, Salon Voltaire reprises the days of Enlightenment and encourages intellectual curiosity through a series of events. Starting off the new season is Gregory Woods, Director of SMC Alsop North America, and Adam......

Downtown corners are speckled with hot dog vendors selling wieners to hungry pedestrians. There are no salad bar carts, no roti carts, no souvlaki carts, and no Chinese bun carts. Food vendors on the street sell hot diggity dogs due to Toronto's strict public health bylaws: Food preparation must be limited to the reheating of precooked meat products in the form of wieners or similar sausage products to be served on a bun. Hazardous raw......

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. The exhibit holds appeal to planners and history geeks alike simply because all images were taken specifically for administrative purposes, meaning that these shots aren’t pretty enough......

The TTC has gotten approval to start construction on the St. Clair Right of Way. Hopefully this ends the protracted legal squabble that had more twists and turns than a John Grisham novel, including a decision overturned because one of the judges had a conflict of interest. Torontoist, has strongly supported faster, better transit and honestly doesn't feel that a ROW will destroy the neighbourhood like the folks at Save Our St. Clair claims. Inconvenience......

We were shaking our heads in disappointment when Mayor Miller announced that the city would support empowerment of the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp. (TWRC), but only if he was placed on its board- a familiar story of bureaucratic stalemate. The recent announcement of the Waterfront Design Review Panel, however, is surely a sign of hope in repairing this city's post-war urban planning faux pas. The best part? Bruce Kuwabara, an eminently talented architect's architect,......

Yesterday brought us the launch of Pugly Toronto, and with the site, open voting on the Pugly awards themselves, which honour dubious achievements in architecture and urban planning. Though the flash site is more wonk than webtastic, the idea itself is fun, and TOist steeled itself to sit through the tedious page loads. The Puglies offer an opportunity to vote on the artistic merit of a handful of city structures, and given that we have......