How We Changed Toronto

By the mid-1960s Toronto was well on its way to becoming Canada's largest and most powerful city. One real estate firm aptly labelled it Boomtown. Expressways, subways, shopping centres, high-rise apartments, and skyscraping downtown office towers were transforming the city. City officials were cheerleaders for unrestricted growth. All this "progress" had a price. Heritage buildings were disappearing. Whole neighbourhoods were being destroyed -- by city hall itself -- in the name of urban renewal and high-rise developers. Many idealistic, young Torontonians didn't like what they saw. At a time when political activism was in the air, they engaged in local politics. Recently graduated lawyer John Sewell was one of many. He joined his friends working for local residents in areas targeted for demolition by city hall. Others were fighting the Spadina expressway, planned to push its way through the city to the lakeshore. Still others were saving Toronto's Old City Hall from demolition. This was the modest start of a twelve-year transformation of Toronto, chronicled in John Sewell's new book. Bringing together a fascinating cast of characters -- from cigar-chomping developers to Jane Jacobs and David Crombie, from a host of ordinary citizens to some of the world's most innovative architects and planners -- Sewell describes the conflict-filled period when Toronto developed a whole new approach to city government, civic engagement, and planning policies. Sewell went from activist organizer, to high-profile opposition politician, to leading light of a bare reform majority at city hall, to become Toronto's mayor. Along the way he sparked the rethinking of an amazing array of old ideas -- not just about how cities should grow, but about race relations, attitudes toward the LGBT community, and the role of police. His defeat in the city's 1980 election marked the end of a decade of dramatic transformation, but the changes this reform era produced are now entrenched -- in Toronto, but in other Canadian cities, too. How We Changed Toronto is the inside story of activist idealists who set out to change the world -- and did, right in their own backyard.

Toronto has long been a financial powerhouse in North America, and this is represented by its many grand bank buildings. Canada's capital may be Ottawa, but the financial power emanates from this thriving city, the fourth most populous in North America.Sites include: Toronto Harbour, Fort York, Queen's Quay Lighthouse, Toronto Island Ferries, Queen's Quay Terminal, Canadian National Exhibition, Sunnyside Bathing Pavilion, Princes' Gates, Royal York Hotel, Union Station, City Hall, St. Lawrence Market, St. James Cathedral, Canadian Pacific Building, Bank of Montreal, Dineen Building, Elgin Theatre, Arts and Letters Club, Old Bank of Nova Scotia, Ryrie Building, Masonic Temple, Osgoode Hall, Royal Alexandra Theatre, Gurney Iron Works, Boer War Monument, CN Tower, Old Knox College, Victory Burlesque Theatre, Maple Leaf Gardens, University of Toronto and much more.

When looking at old pictures of Toronto, it is clear that the city’s urban, economic, and social geography has changed dramatically over the generations. Historic photos of Toronto’s streetcar network offer a unique opportunity to examine how the city has been transformed from a provincial, industrial city into one of North America’s largest and most diverse regions. Streetcars and the Shifting Geographies of Toronto studies the city’s urban transformations through an analysis of photographs taken by streetcar enthusiasts, beginning in the 1960s. These photographers did not intend to record the urban form, function, or social geographies of Toronto; they were "accidental archivists" whose main goal was to photograph the streetcars themselves. But today, their images render visible the ordinary, day-to-day life in the city in a way that no others did. These historic photographs show a Toronto before gentrification, globalization, and deindustrialization. Each image has been re-photographed to provide fresh insights into a city that is in a constant state of flux. With gorgeous illustrations, this unique book offers an understanding of how Toronto has changed, and the reasons behind these urban shifts. The visual exploration of historic and contemporary images from different parts of the city helps to explain how the major forces shaping the city affect its form, functions, neighbourhoods, and public spaces.

If our planet is going to survive the climate crisis, we need to act rapidly. Taking cues from progressive cities around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Oslo, Shenzhen, and Sydney, this book is a summons to every city to make small but significant changes that can drastically reduce our carbon footprint. We cannot wait for national governments to agree on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and manage the average temperature rise to within 1.5 degrees. In Solved, David Miller argues that cities are taking action on climate change because they can – and because they must. The updated paperback edition of Solved: How the World’s Great Cities Are Fixing the Climate Crisis demonstrates that the initiatives cities have taken to control the climate crisis can make a real difference in reducing global emissions if implemented worldwide. By chronicling the stories of how cities have taken action to meet and exceed emissions targets laid out in the Paris Agreement, Miller empowers readers to fix the climate crisis. As much a “how to” guide for policymakers as a work for concerned citizens, Solved aims to inspire hope through its clear and factual analysis of what can be done – now, today – to mitigate our harmful emissions and pave the way to a 1.5-degree world.

During the 2015 federal election, the Liberal Party pledged that, if elected, they would end the “first past the post” electoral system, where whichever candidate receives the most votes wins a riding even if they have not received a majority of all votes cast. In early 2017, the Liberals reneged on their campaign promise, declaring that there was a lack of public consensus about how to reform the system. Despite the broken promise – and because of the public outcry – discussions about electoral reform will continue around the country. Challenging the idea that first past the post is obsolete, Should We Change How We Vote? urges Canadians to make sure they understand their electoral system before making drastic changes to it. The contributors to this volume assert that there is perhaps no institution more misunderstood and misrepresented than the Canadian electoral system – praised by some for ensuring broad regional representation in Ottawa, but criticized by others for allowing political parties with less than half the popular vote to assume more than half the seats in Parliament. They consider not only how the system works, but also its flaws and its advantages, and whether or not electoral reform is legitimate without a referendum. An essential guide to the crucial and ongoing debate about the country’s future, Should We Change How We Vote? asks if there are alternative reforms that would be easier to implement than a complete overhaul of the electoral system.

This study of commercial change in Toronto's downtown West-Central neighbourhoods explores how commercial change contributes to wider processes of exclusion and gentrification, as well as the strategies and resources available to counter this pervasive trend.

The Coronavirus pandemic has revealed a very big secret we’ve been keeping from ourselves and each other: We can be remarkably agile in the face of change. How is it that we are able to so radically and rapidly change our daily behavior in order to follow the social distancing and stay-at-home policies during the pandemic, and yet--pandemic or not--we typically find it difficult, if not impossible, to reach smaller personal goals like dieting, getting organized or changing destructive habits? The pandemic is life-threatening, so it ignites our survival instincts, activating that part of our brains charged with speedily and efficiently getting us to safety. But cholesterol, alcohol, and physical passivity are all life-threatening, and many of us humans have done a lousy job changing in regard to these issues, even when we have reliable information that they are killing us. Why do we struggle to change what would so obviously help ourselves individually? Ross Ellenhorn’s book, How we Change (and the Ten Reasons Why We Don’t) gives a fascinating answer. A clinician and thought leader in the mental health and addiction fields, he suggests that we’re often looking in the wrong direction when we try to decipher the factors that support human change. He suggests that it’s much more fruitful to look at why we don’t change, than figure out why we do. By looking at the reasons we don’t change, we give ourselves the best chance of actually changing in meaningful ways. Ellenhorn explains how we are wired to double down on the familiar because of what he calls the "Fear of Hope" - the act of protecting ourselves from further disappointment—and identifies the “10 Reasons Not to Change” to help us see why we behave the way we do when we are faced with the challenge of hope. Among them are: · To change means raising your expectations and thus risking that you’ll disappoint yourself. · Once you change, you are more accountable to make other changes than if you stayed the same · When you change, your future become much less predictable. · Change means destroying psychological monuments you’ve built to commemorate past injuries · Every time you change, you raise the possibility of losing or disrupting your relationship with certain people By addressing this little known reality of fear of hope, and how it influences the 10 Reasons Not to Change, Ellenhorn actually gives us hope, helping us to work toward the change we seek. Ellenhorn speaks to the core of our insecurities and fears about ourselves, with a humor and kindness. By turning our judgments about self-destructive behaviors into curious questions about them, he teaches us to think about our actions to discover what we truly want - even if we’re going about getting it in the wrong way. How We Change is a brilliant approach that will forever alter our perspective - and help us achieve the transformation we truly seek.