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AlvinofDiaspar

AlvinofDiaspar

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JOHN SEWELL - Shape Of The Suburbs: Understanding Toronto's Sprawl
THIS IS NOT A READING SERIES PRESENTS JOHN SEWELL –

THE SHAPE OF THE SUBURBS
What are the social, economic and geographic factors that led to the creation and growth of Toronto’s suburbs? How did suburban development become such a pressing concern for Toronto-area governments? At the launch of The Shape Of The Suburbs: Understanding Toronto’s Spawl (University Of Toronto Press), activist and former Toronto mayor John Sewell will moderate a panel discussion about these timely issues. The panel will include Mayor Rob Burton of Oakville, Deputy Mayor Jack Heath of Markham, Mayor Steve Parish of Ajax, and Kim Story, architect and urban designer.

Marc Glassman, Executive Director of This Is Not A Reading Series and Proprietor of Pages Books & Magazines will host the evening.

– A This Is Not A Reading Series event presented by Pages Books & Magazines, University Of Toronto Press, Gladstone Hotel, NOW Magazine, and Take Five On CIUT.

Gladstone Hotel Ballroom, 1214 Queen St West, Toronto.
Tues Apr 21; 7:30pm (Doors 7pm) $5 (Free with Book Purchase)

THE SHAPE OF THE SUBURBS: UNDERSTANDING TORONTO’S SPRAWL: It is now impossible to understand major North American cities without considering the seemingly never-ending and ever-growing sprawl of their surrounding suburbs. In The Shape of the Suburbs, activist, urban affairs columnist, and former Toronto mayor John Sewell examines the relationship between the development of suburbs, water and sewage systems, highways, and the decision-making of Toronto-area governments to show how the suburbs spread, and how they have in turn shaped the city.

Using his wealth of knowledge about the city of Toronto and new information gathered from municipal archives, Sewell describes the major movements and forces that allowed for rapid development of the suburbs, while considering the options that were available to planners at the time. Discussing proposals to curb suburban sprawl from the 1960s to the recently adopted plan for the Greater Toronto area, Sewell combines insightful and accessible commentary with rigorous research on the debate between urban and suburban. Concerned not only with sprawl, The Shape of the Suburbs also demonstrates the ways in which suburban political, economic, and cultural influences have impacted the older, central city, culminating in the forced Megacity amalgamation of 1998.

Rich in detail and full of useful visual illustrations, The Shape of the Suburbs is a lively look at the construction of the suburban era.

JOHN SEWELL is a former city councillor and mayor of Toronto, has been a columnist for The Globe and Mail, NOW Magazine, and Eye Weekly, and was the founder of Citizens for Local Democracy.

ROB BURTON became Oakville’s Mayor in 1996 after a career in journalism, film and TV in which he served in the Parliament Press Gallery and founded YTV.

JACK HEATH is Deputy Mayor of Markham. During his time on Markham Council, Heath was instrumental in introducing the Green Bin recycling program through his “Mission Green” Committee.

STEVE PARISH was appointed Mayor of the Town of Ajax in December of 1995.He is a past member and Chair of the Region of the Durham Planning Committee and past Board member of the Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance.

KIM STOREY is an architect, urban designer, and partner in the firm of Brown and Storey Architects.

MEDIA CONTACTS
John Sewell: Andrea-Jo Wilson, awilson@utppress.utoronto.ca, (416) 978-2239 ext. 248
This is Not A Reading Series: Chris Reed, tinars@pagesbooks.ca, (416) 598-1447 ext 221

http://pagesbooks.ca/events.php?type=event&id=290&PHPSESSID=9o37ib9mcmba6hn1pqfad8ide0

___

This could be another seminal book on planning in the GTA, along the veins of Shape of the City - which is a must read.

AoD
 
I'm always surprised by the lack of university presence at these urbanist lectures in this city. I mean, Toronto has academics studying urbanism and sprawl out the wazoo: the CITY institute at York University, not to mention about half the environmental studies department; the architecture and urban planning schools at Ryerson, and an amazing urban geography presence at U of T.

Where are these people?
 
^ha ha. That's what's so sad about those events. Richard Florida usually does represent the token university presence, even though he's more showman than academic. It's like saying that the Harlem Globetrotters are a professional basketball team.

Anyway, there are some giants in the field of urban studies who work here in Toronto who don't have the last name Florida. These include people like Roger Keil (York), Jason Hackworth (U of T) - I'm sure there's a bigwig at Ryerson too. Anyway, I think these people might be able to offer insight into the socio-economic realities of sprawl that are a little more balanced than three mayors of 905 sprawlholes, an architect of public spaces* and a moderator who has become the biggest curmudgeon this side of James Howard Kunstler.

*(I respect Kim Story, but sprawl and public space making are two different kettles of fish within urban studies - this is like getting a statistician to teach a calculus course)
 
Hipster:

I was going to cite Jason Hackworth but you've beaten me to it :p His work is very much focused on looking at cities at a Neoliberal perspective.

Wasn't Saskia Sassin here in Toronto a few years ago?

AoD
 
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Geeky, (you don't mind if I call you that? Old habits die hard)

Hackworth is huge. He definitively mapped the trend toward increasing disinvestment in suburban areas and revalorization of the core in all major Us cities except Detroit (and this due to neoliberal urban policies!). I would have loved to see him butt heads with the three 905 mayors, especially those in Durham who face the double whammy of a devastated auto industry and inevitable inner suburban disinvestment. It would've been tremendous fun.
 
Alch:

Have you had a chance to check out Splintering Urbanism by Graham & Marvin? Great read! David Harvey has also done some noted work in the area.

GB
 
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There are always things going on at the universities. UofT's Cities Centre and the Faculty of Architecture have great mailing lists that are worth being on - there's usually at least one worthwhile event a week.

The list at UofT is endless: Margaret Kohn (polisci), Frank Cunningham (philosophy), Mark Kingwell (same), Robert Levit, Stephen Fong, Adrian Blackwell (architecture), Deb Cowen (geography) - the list goes on and on!
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Alch:

Have you had a chance to check out Splintering Urbanism by Graham & Marvin? Great read! David Harvey has also done some noted work in the area.

GB
Click to expand...

GB,

Thanks for the tip! It will help my research, at least on a conceptual level. One thing I wonder about is how dated our writing on neoliberal cities (some of which were just finished last year) are going to be in just a few years time, now that we seem to (at least from this current POV) be discrediting Neoliberalism and heading into some sort of Neo Keynesian period of city building. I could very well be premature about this, though.
 
Thread bump - got the book, read chunks of it - I thought it's well written (albeit from a single perspective). It certainly gives a very good background of regional planning in Toronto, which is not a topic covered in a lot of detail (other than Metro) by other research. Complements very well with Shape of the City.

AoD
 
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I got the book too but haven't had a chance to go through any of it. I really enjoyed Shape of the City and looking forward to reading this one. I didn't know about the book launch till after, otherwise I might have gone.
 
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