Precious, not expensive
Terri Chu Halloween is just around the corner and the day after the candy is safely stowed in kids’ underwear drawers, stores will turn their displays to Christmas. If you’re like me, I cringe on the...
View ArticleForage and Storage – Hello Fall
By Susan Oppenheim I am a freezer girl and a packrat gourmand. I love the “hunt and gather “ and I live with a 24 hours Sobeys up the lane at Shaw and Dupont, a Loblaws three blocks away at Christie...
View ArticleReduce, reuse, then recycle
The energy lost in the pretense of plastic recycling “Why can’t they take black plastic?” asked my partner, staring at the City of Toronto recycling poster. I didn’t have an answer. The ad, which...
View ArticleFORUM: Untapped potential
Animating our local laneways By Joe Cressy Downtown communities like ours face unique challenges and countless opportunities. Almost every day, in conversations at our local coffee shops, in public...
View ArticleDEVELOPINGS: Annual review reflects tension between community activism and OMB
Our third survey of development projects in our coverage area highlights projects that interest us, trends that appall us, and elements that enthrall us. We favour innovative projects that connect with...
View ArticleGREENINGS (MAY 2016): Cloth diapers have gone from burden of the poor to...
By Terri Chu Having a kid is expensive, anybody can tell you that. What nobody told me though was how expensive raising a child can be when you try to stay low on environmental impact. Cloth diapers...
View ArticleFORUM: Bike lanes on Bloor Street
The arrival of cycling in Toronto By Joe Cressy For too long, discussions of bike lanes have been divisive in our city. They shouldn’t be. When we do it right, cycling infrastructure can be a win-win...
View ArticleFORUM (AUGUST 2016): Curious story of Christie Pits pool liner ends in...
By Mike Layton The phone started ringing in my office almost immediately. Why is the Alex Duff Memorial Pool closed during the hottest days of summer? Why wasn’t the pool fixed earlier in the season?...
View ArticleFORUM (SEPTEMBER 2016): A new central park for Toronto
Building up will allow us to create the sizable park downtown needs By Joe Cressy A central park in downtown Toronto. It’s an old idea whose time has come. Now, all we need is a little creativity,...
View ArticleFORUM (OCTOBER 2016) We can do better:
Dangerous summer for Toronto pedestrians and cyclists By Mike Layton Recent statistics from the Toronto Police Service show a disturbing trend — collisions between vehicles and pedestrians and cyclists...
View ArticleGREENINGS (JANUARY 2017): Feeling the carbon tax crunch?
Embrace the green and lower your footprint Christmas came a little late for me this year. I woke up on New Year’s Day and looked out of the window at the gas station sign. The ever slightly higher gas...
View ArticleFORUM (FEBRUARY 2016): Tolls, taxes, and Toronto
Canadian cities receive only 10 cents for each tax dollar they pay By Mike Layton With all the talk about tolls and taxes, I feel I need to admit something: I don’t mind paying taxes. The reason I...
View ArticleGREENINGS (MARCH 2017): Kellie Leitch was right
It’s hard to borrow a cup of sugar…but the problem isn’t Toronto Kellie Leitch is reportedly getting packets upon packets of sugar in the mail as a response to her comments that in Toronto, you can’t...
View ArticleARTS (MARCH 2017): Blue whale exhibit opens at the Royal Ontario Museum
Bloor Street’s cultural organizations starting to celebrate Canada 150 By Heather Kelly The Annex neighbourhood is so full of art and culture organizations that, for March Break, we don’t have to go...
View ArticleFORUM (MARCH 2017): Build a neighbourhood
Not just buildings By Joe Cressy If you’ve ever made your way to a development meeting in Ward 20, you’ve heard me talk about the need to build community as we grow and change. With almost one quarter...
View ArticleGREENINGS (MAY 2017): Thoughts on hitting the 400 benchmark
Governments need to change behaviour through policy By Terri Chu This past Earth day, the planet surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I remember being taught in...
View ArticleGREENINGS (JUNE 2017): Lessons from Madrid
Time to end the car era By Terri Chu While I grant you that visiting a place for a mere two days can’t possibly do it justice, I was more than happy to leave Madrid after what felt like a very long 48...
View ArticleFORUM (JUNE 2017): Address affordable housing
All levels of government must take responsibility By Joe Cressy Some people measure the progress of a city by the speed of its transit systems or the quality of its public parks, by the number of...
View ArticleFORUM (JULY 2017): Recognize and reconcile Canada at 150
Take personal actions to work towards reconciliation By Mike Layton As festivities wind down from Canada’s 150th birthday, we are granted an important opportunity to look back at where we have been as...
View ArticleGREENINGS: No solutions for nobody’s problem (Dec. 2017)
Governments must move sooner to address issues big and small By Terri Chu If it’s nobody’s problem, does it really need to be solved? Scientists are once again sounding the alarm about the untenable...
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