De/centering the ‘community benefit’ in Toronto’s inner-suburbs

In Toronto, Canada, core-periphery relations have shifted through re-mappings of city boundaries and districts over the past seventy years: austerity-led amalgamations resulting in new peripheralizations, with subsequent attempts at addressing disparity with an emphasis on place. Publicly disinvested, the now inner-suburbs of Toronto are driven into new competitive relationships, and therefore becoming vulnerable to private

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Jennifer Keesmaat

About Jennifer Keesmaat As Chief Planner and Executive Director of the City of Toronto, Jennifer Keesmaat (MES ’99) has changed the local dialogue on planning and urban design from frustrations and complaints about planning into an energized conversation full of hope and optimism for North America’s fifth largest city. Her dedication, energy and visionary approach

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Peripheral centralities: Lost, past, present and future

Co-Principal Investigators: Roger Keil with Nicholas Phelps (PI, University of Melbourne) and Paul Maginn (Co-PI, University of Western Australia). Funding: Urban Studies Foundation Seminar Series Award. Term: 2021-2022. The seminar series brings together a multidisciplinary mix of scholars and practitioners including urban historians, sociologists, geographers, planners, architects, urban designers and property developers to consider the

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Reshaping cities: The power of urban planning

The 15-minute city urban development is an approach which comprises compact and transit-oriented development, mixed-use, smart and strategic growth. It focuses on meeting all the requirements that a person would need within a 15- to 20-minute radius of their household. The main goal of Mariyan Boychev’s MES major paper is to appraise the adoption of

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Research shows urban sprawl can be vertical or horizontal

Usually when people think of urban sprawl, it’s rows of houses spread out horizontally from a city centre, but in a new paper, York University researchers say vertical sprawl is equally an issue. Roger Keil Sprawl is tied to the lack of accessibility, how houses are commodified and financed, and the current housing crisis, which

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Slope gradient, soil texture, and ground vegetation affecting erosion in the Lovers Creek Ravine

Lovers Creek is a notable subwatershed that is part of the Lake Simcoe watershed. It is one of several that pass through the City of Barrie’s residential areas in order to connect to Lake Simcoe. Sections of Lovers Creek are characterized by ravines that are regularly accompanied with recreational trails along the slopes or fields.

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The future of cities in the wake of the pandemic: What will change? What should change?

In late spring 2020, the premier of Ontario, alongside the mayor of Toronto, lifted the first COVID-19 lockdown in this city. Stores re-opened, restaurants re-gained some business via patio dining. The warm weather spurred Torontonians, tired of being cooped up in their homes, to venture outside. In fact, they flooded the streets. But the virus

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The future of cities in the wake of the pandemic: What will change? What should change?

In late spring 2020, the premier of Ontario, alongside the mayor of Toronto, lifted the first COVID-19 lockdown in this city. Stores re-opened, restaurants re-gained some business via patio dining. The warm weather spurred Torontonians, tired of being cooped up in their homes, to venture outside. In fact, they flooded the streets. But the virus

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Canada's condo amenity wars

Competition for affluent condo buyers has developers piling on frills—car fleets, meditation walls and even perks that assuage the social conscience By Aaron HutchinsFebruary 23, 2021 The marketing material for Vancouver House listed 20 reasons to buy a home inside the residential skyscraper overlooking False Creek. Among them: use of a fleet of BMWs; access to

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Urban life in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic

In an article in The Conversation on February 17, Professors Roger Keil, Creighton Connolly, and S. Harris Ali, stressed that “[o]utbreaks like coronavirus start in and spread from the edges of cities,” noting that merging infectious disease has much to do with how and where we live, and that the ongoing coronavirus is an example of the close

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