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OP-ED: Why we have to save the first parliament site
Recent reports that the Queen’s Park may expropriate the First Parliament site, at Parliament and Front Streets, for construction of the Metrolinx Ontario Line offer another reminder of the dual...
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LORINC: Welcome to the City’s policy-by-surveillance
I enjoy the revelations of a muck-raking auditor-general’s report as much as the next red-blooded taxpayer, but I must confess a sense of unease about the way Beverly Romeo-Beehler presented her...
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The ‘bashment’ parties of my childhood are Black history
In 2002, reggae artist Sean Paul shot the video for his song ‘Get Busy/Like Glue,’ in Vaughan. Directed by Toronto’s own Director X, the video begins with Sean Paul exiting his car in the middle of...
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From the Stacks – Tom Kundig: Houses
Edited by Dung Ngo (Princeton Architectural Press, 2006) Tom Kundig: Houses is the kind of monograph that makes most architects’ hearts skip a beat. As a member of the successful architectural firm...
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EXCERPT FROM ‘UNCLE’: Aunt Jemima in Chicago
Excerpted with permission from Uncle: Race, Nostalgia and the Politics of Loyalty, published this month by Coach House Books. Thompson, a Ryerson University assistant professor in the School of...
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NEW SPACING BOOK: ‘Packaged Toronto’ and the emergence of the city’s design...
Back in 2011, I was brainstorming ideas for future projects with local historian Stephen Otto. He was intrigued by what the BBC and New York Times had both published at the time: lists of important,...
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The role of cricket in an inclusive city
Cricket has a rich cultural history in Toronto. The sport is closely tied to Black history, following the Black Diaspora throughout the colonized world – and especially in Toronto, a British colonial...
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How racism in Ontario schools today is connected to a history of segregation
Toronto’s Africentric Alternative School first opened in 2009 after years of advocacy and then months of heated public debates and criticism about the meaning and significance of the school. For some,...
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LORINC: Some borders matter more than others in pandemic
A small procedural question, perhaps for the Ford government. Should we be expecting to see check-points erected on Highway 400 south of 7, or the QEW near Oakville anytime soon? Or maybe some kind of...
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REID: Yes exit
It’s the kind of thing that has always hung out at the edge of our urban consciousness, that we used to occasionally notice and find irritating, but not often enough to actually do something about it....
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LORINC: The vital need to renew Tower Renewal
Almost exactly a year ago, a team of American affordable housing experts from the Urban Land Institute came to Toronto to offer up ideas for breaking the logjam on retrofitting our huge portfolio of...
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The Future Fix: Smart Farms for Northern Communities
Spacing and Evergreen proudly present The Future Fix: Solutions for Communities Across Canada, a special podcast series. THIS EPISODE: Smart Farms for Northern Communities Food security is a challenge...
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The duality of Amazon in Scarborough – from delivering jobs to packaging...
Amazon’s notoriety for exploitative work conditions, harmful environmental practices, corporate tax exemptions, and stripping jobs away from small community businesses have intensified calls to boycott...
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The City in Sight Podcast: Indigenous Cities
Spacing and Massey College proudly present City in Sight: Canada’s constitutional city crisis, a special podcast series. THIS EPISODE: Indigenous Cities The Indigenous population in urban areas is...
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LORINC: The case for way more electric buses
Two numbers, and a thought experiment. Exhibit A: According to the City’s latest estimates, the cost of the Eglinton East LRT (Kennedy to Malvern) has now doubled, to $4.4 billion – an eye-watering...
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PACKAGED TORONTO: The type of book for font lovers
Packaged Toronto is the newest book from Spacing — it focuses on the graphic design and packaging of products, pulled form the City of Toronto’s museum collection of over 150,000 objects — made in...
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Research Road Redux
During the Second World War, my mother, Louise MacCallum, was among the 7,500 employees of Research Enterprises Limited (REL), a top-secret government-owned manufacturing facility in Leaside that...
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LORINC: The Power of Poop
A month from now, the City, Toronto Western Hospital, and an Enwave spin-off called Noventa Energy will unveil one of those alchemy-like projects that transforms a societal cast-off into modern gold....
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The Bentway: Rethinking public art amidst COVID-19
The publication of the city’s 10-year public art strategy accompanied an announcement that 2021 would be Toronto’s Year of Public Art. Of course, when this initiative was first set forth, no one could...
View ArticleJoe Biden’s unexpected role in the future of Canadian cities
By John Lorinc Spacing Is anyone north of the 49th parallel paying attention to the minutiae of the monster stimulus bills coming out of the White House? Of course not. Despite those trillions,...
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