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Covid-19 is a wake-up call for Toronto to act on housing and homelessness
In order to flatten the COVID-19 curve, Canadians have been advised to stay home as much as possible and, when going out, to engage in social distancing. That advice is obviously impossible for...
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5 IDEAS: Urban design challenges of spring weather in a pandemic
With recent warm days foreshadowing lovely spring weather, the public health response to the worsening COVID-19 crisis seems destined to collide with the very human desire to get outside and move...
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Space for people please
In the coming weeks and months, we will have the luxury and the obligation to worry about challenges in addition to the threat of COVID-19. Sooner rather than later Toronto must return to dealing with...
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Earth Day in the COVID19 era
Happy Earth Day! Although in these strange days of self-isolation, it may feel more like Groundhog Day than Earth Day, here we are. While our news tilts significantly to COVID19 stats and questions...
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LORINC: The pandemic is allowing residents to see our streets differently
On my long morning dog-walk the other day, a woman and her tween-age daughter jogged past me. I was walking down the middle of the road, which was also where they were running. It was rush hour and...
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PODCAST: Spacing Radio 045, What matters in a pandemic
In a time of snitch lines, and shuttered park space, we dive into what we’re prioritizing in this pandemic, and what, and especially who, is ignored. We talk to Spacing co-founder and Toronto Star...
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The unexpected potential of pandemic parking lots
From my living room window, I can see a church parking lot. Services are now streamed so it no longer fills up on Sunday mornings but, in this time of physical distancing, the parking lot has become a...
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City officials obfuscate while COVID-19 cases spike in homeless shelters
On April 8, Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto’s medical officer of health, and Mary-Anne Bedard, general manager of the City’s shelter, support and housing administration (SSHA), held a daily briefing on...
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Change and continuity in the COVID-19 city
Everything has changed and nothing has changed since the arrival of the COVID19 pandemic. Understanding the new dynamics of cities is the first step towards addressing today’s unprecedented challenges...
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Lessons on urban mobility and inequality during a pandemic
Many cities around the world have started to open up road space for non-automotive movement to give people room to get some exercise safely. As Toronto leaders continue to resist such initiatives and...
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Book Review: Canadian Modern Architecture
Edited by Elsa Lam and Graham Livesey – Princeton Architectural Press (2019) This anthology comprises the contributions of seventeen scholars representing successive generations of Canadian...
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LORINC: The need for local democracy during a pandemic (and are residents...
A guy at the park where I take my dog after dinner said the other night that he’d heard the traffic on the 401 last Friday was almost rush-hour like. I have no idea if this is true or not. But the...
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Cities and their streetcars: my top ten favourite spots
One of the best ways to get to know a city is through its public transit network. I’ve spent many years exploring cities through their streetcar, trolley or tram systems. While all public transit gives...
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LORINC: Sidewalk Labs steps away from Toronto waterfront
From the earliest days of Sidewalk Labs’ bid to establish a beachhead on Toronto’s waterfront, the cultural mismatch, for lack of a better term, was always very much in evidence but never fully...
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CRESSY: A public health prescription for Toronto’s future
Over the past two months, we all have learned to speak the language of public health. We talk about physical distancing and flattening the curve. We read about contact tracing and containing outbreaks....
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IN LIEU OF A LOO: Going out and ‘going’ during a pandemic
The weather is warming. The sun is shining. COVID-19 cases are on the downturn. And stores and cafes are blinking back to life after the Ford government announced that Ontario retail outlets with...
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LORINC: What will transit look like in a post-pandemic world?
For years, transit advocates warned Toronto politicians in all three orders of government that the city’s transit infrastructure will forcefully slam into a capacity wall sooner or later, but probably...
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Why isn’t there more proactive testing for COVID-19 in the shelter system?
As of May 14, Toronto Public Health (TPH) and the Shelter, Support and Housing Administration (SSHA) have identified over 299 cases of the COVID-19 among the roughly 7,000 people staying in the shelter...
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ANY NIGHT OF THE WEEK: The birth of Canadian reggae in Toronto — and Mississauga
Spacing is teaming up with Coach House Books and Jonny Dovercourt to bring you a few excerpts from the new book on Toronto’s music scene from 1957-2001, Any Night of the Week (2020). August 13, 1967,...
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What does shared space look like in the post COVID-19 city?
This article is co-written by Ilana Altman and Dave Carey There is something unsettling about a quiet city. The empty streets, squares, and taped-off playgrounds that were full and vibrant only a few...
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