Extra, Extra: Floating Forests and Sustainable Cities

By Meg Campbell

Every weekday’s end, Extra, Extra collects just about everything you ought to care about or ought not miss.

Photo by shutt3r_bug from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

• Floating Forest is an “inflated forest, made entirely from recycled billboard vinyl…a memorial to lost forests.” Created by Canadian artist Max Streicher to mark Earth Day, the installation will be hanging in Brookfield Place until tomorrow.
• Toronto has a lot in common with Scandinavia’s major cities, so why are we so far behind them when it comes to sustainable urban development? That’s the question that this podcast aims to answer. It includes input from Gary Wright, Toronto’s chief planner, as well as Evergreen‘s executive director Geoff Cape and municipal representatives from Helsinki, Reykjavik, and Stockholm. [via @corporateknight]
• A warning for drivers who live in the riding of St. Paul’s: Liberal candidate Carolyn Bennett is reporting that some supporters—those with Liberal signs on their lawns, specifically—are finding that their tires have been slashed. Sadly this is not the first time St. Paul’s Liberals have had to contend with this: there were attacks of vandalism in the last election as well.
• Toronto’s Cycling Committee is one of the 21 citizen advisory committees targeted for elimination, and Anthony Humphreys, a cycling advocate, is adding his voice to the long list of those who think that’s a shame. He acknowledges that the committee has its problems, but contends it still serves an important purpose, and suggests a more gradual dissolution, wherein the committee could meet less often rather than shutting down completely.

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