Growth and Resiliency in Tower in the Park Sites Across the GGH describes the challenges of Tower Renewal and energy retrofitting from a policy and built form perspective and introduces a values-based framework to evaluate redevelopment opportunities on Tower Sites, with a focus on using infill development to fund retrofits and side-wide renewal. This research also include findings related to mapping tower sites across the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Download the summary below or read the full report here.

Growth and Resiliency in Tower in the Park Sites Across the GGH describes the challenges of Tower Renewal and energy retrofitting from a policy and built form perspective and introduces a values-based framework to evaluate redevelopment opportunities on Tower Sites, with a focus on using infill development to fund retrofits and side-wide renewal. This research also include findings related to mapping tower sites across the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Read the full report and summary here.

As our population continues to grow, how will the region accommodate both present and future needs?’ This is the question that Growing Pains asks after summarizing how urban growth in the greater horseshoe evolved over the past half century and in light of the prospect of another two million residents arriving in the region over the next 20 years. The provincial Places to Grow Act was passed in 2005 with the hope of curbing unsustainable growth through urban density and…

Provincial growth targets may be met in apartment tower neighborhoods, while delivering new infrastructure and resources to these growing communities.

This Option Studio focused on a site at Sheppard and Don Mills, typical of Toronto’s inner suburbs, with its distinctive clusters of high-rise residential buildings erected in the period of the 1950’s through the 1970’s. The goal of this studio was to investigate the potential of apartment tower sites to emerge as more liveable and sustainable communities, with a specific emphasis on built form. For more information on the site please see our previous post on the studio. The studio…

In fall 2010, Dean Emeritus George Baird and Graeme Stewart of ERA, conducted an architectural design studio at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, exploring the potential for mixed-use growth in one of the Toronto’s Region’s many post-war Apartment Neighbourhoods. The studio focused on one of the largest opportunities of Tower Neighbourhood Renewal: mixed-use growth within a large cluster of existing post-war Apartment Towers.   The site chosen was the North East corner of Sheppard and Don Mills…

ERA Architects and planningAlliance launch the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R). CUG+R is a non-profit research organization formed in 2009 to conduct cross-disciplinary research to further knowledge about the creation and renewal of sustainable urban, suburban and rural environments in Canada and elsewhere. CUG+R’s objective is to develop research to enhance public policy and promote private initiatives that foster City Regions and local communities that are: well planned and designed, economically vibrant, socially diverse, culturally integrated and environmentally…

Bathurst and Steeles, late 1960s. In the 1960’s, Steeles Avenue was the end of Metropolitan Toronto’s servicing area; the northern boundary of the region’s planned urbanization. North of Steeles, the rolling pastures were to remain as the area’s green belt, while in contrast, dense, mixed-use post-war communities emerged to the south. Bathurst and Steeles emerged as a dense community containing nearly forty modern residential high-rises. Incorporated with the ravine, neighbourhood parks, elementary and secondary schools, churches and synagogues, shopping plazas…

The Centre for Urban Growth + Renewal has released a new “Field Guide” designed to assist apartment owners, the construction industry and apartment residents navigate retrofit construction projects in Canada. Over the past year, the CUG+R has been working to develop a resource to assist property owners, residents and the construction industry with conducting a retrofit efficiently and effectively while tenants are in the building. It provides an overview of a typical residential high-rise retrofit construction project with residents remaining…

Tower Renewal Partnership’s Graeme Stewart speaks at ULI Panel event and report release On December 3, the Tower Renewal Partnership’s Graeme Stewart joined a virtual expert panel to discuss a new Urban Land Institute (ULI) report on Tower Renewal called “Affordability and Resilience: The Challenge of Tower Renewal in Private Rental Apartment Buildings“. The report and panel sought to provide fresh recommendation around increasing Tower Renewal retrofit activity, particularly to private tower owners. The expert panel’s top recommendations include: Reorganize…

In partnership with the North American Insulation Manufacturers Association of Canada (NAIMA Canada), the Centre for Urban Growth + Renewal has developed an online training resource to help workers in the construction industry become more familiar with retrofitting in occupied buildings. The retrofit industry is still developing in Canada and lacks knowledge, skills, strategies and specialized products to effectively carry out retrofits in occupied buildings. This can lead to inflated costs and risk – or buildings owners avoiding retrofits altogether.…

The Centre for Urban Growth + Renewal has released a new “Field Guide” designed to assist apartment owners, the construction industry and apartment residents navigate retrofit construction projects in Canada. Over the past year, the CUG+R has been working to develop a resource to assist property owners, residents and the construction industry with conducting a retrofit efficiently and effectively while tenants are in the building. It provides an overview of a typical residential high-rise retrofit construction project with residents remaining…

Illustration by Daniel Rotsztain As of October 2016, five hundred apartment tower neighbourhoods in the City of Toronto acquired the ability to reconceive the social and economic character of their communities.  A multisectoral group of partners, including United Way Toronto, Toronto Public Health, the City of Toronto, and the Centre for Urban Growth + Renewal, have worked for several years to replace an outdated strict zoning category with a new, more flexible framework. The result, known as the Residential Apartment…

The Tower Renewal Partnership and the City of Toronto recently partnered with the Urban Land Institute (ULI) to bring experts to Toronto for a weeklong visit to explore one of the biggest resilience challenges facing Toronto: retrofitting our aging apartment towers. Experts from across North America formed an Advisory Panel and visited Toronto during the week of February 24 to learn about Toronto’s challenges, meet with leaders on this topic, and make recommendations.  Watch the Advisory Panel’s presentation See the…

The Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal has received CMHC support to explore the challenges of conducting deep energy retrofits in occupied apartment housing and develop tools to help residents, constructors, and owners make retrofit projects a success by minimizing disruption to tenants. Last Thursday, the Federal Government of Canada and the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation announced $2.2 million in funding for eleven project recipients through the National Housing Strategy (NHS) Solutions Labs Initiative. The NHS Solutions Labs initiative…

The Tower Renewal strategy has had significant impact over the past year. Across all levels of government, there is a growing consensus: Tower Renewal can have a scalable impact nation-wide as a means to meet climate change, affordable housing, poverty reduction, smart growth, and economic development objectives. Some highlights include:   1. Announcement of $15.9B Co-Investment Fund, committing to the rehabilitation of 240,000 units of existing affordable housing as part of Canada’s landmark National Housing Strategy.   2. $350M allocated towards apartment…

Graeme Stewart’s article on the RAC Zone tells the context of the new zone and its possibilities for changing the tower landscape, removing barriers and steps towards more complete, resilient communities across Toronto.

  The  RAC Zone, a partnership between ERA Architects, the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal, United Way Toronto & York Region, Toronto Public Health and the City of Toronto, has this week been honoured with an OPPI Award of Excellence. Through research, advocacy, and collaboration, this new zoning framework has been developed and is poised for implementation in hundreds of Toronto’s vertical neighbourhoods, that will remove barriers for a range of exciting small-scale businesses and community services. A City-wide zoning…

  Designed with 1960s ambitions of smart growth, the inherited legacy of tower neighbourhoods provides a unique suburban form of higher density neighbourhoods. This built form of clusters of towers in open space provides a framework for strategic growth, urban diversification and transformation, from which goals of complete, healthy and resilient communities can be achieved.  With emerging investments in mass transit and growth pressures throughout our cities, new models of infill and district design which enhance existing tower neighbourhoods are…

  Postwar apartment towers are the backbone of Canada’s purpose-built rental stock, and provide affordable housing to millions of Canadians. Our recent map, accessed here, showcases the extent of towers across the nation. As Canada faces a growing housing affordability crisis, now is the time for coordinated action to build a future around more complete, resilient, and affordable cities. Tower Renewal is a strategy for realizing this change. The Tower Renewal Action Forum took place on October 5, 2017 at the…

UPDATE Check out “A New Era of Public Housing” with Paul Karakusevic available below or on the Daniels Faculty’s Youtube Channel.     ERA Architects, the Centre for Urban Growth + Renewal and the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design are pleased to present architect Paul Karakusevic of Karakusevic Carson Architects at the University of Toronto. Please join us Monday October 2nd for Paul’s lecture A New Era of Public Housing, focusing on more than a decade redefining social housing in the UK. Paul’s…

The Centre for Urban Growth + Renewal, United Way Toronto and York Region, Toronto Public Health, and the City of Toronto have worked together to replace an outdated zoning category with a new, more flexible framework — paving the way to more complete communities in tower neighbourhoods.

The Intermunicipal Tower Platform brings together Ontario’s four largest cities, including Toronto, Ottawa, Mississauga, and Hamilton, to secure the future resilience of Ontario’s tower neighbourhoods.

On Wednesday, July 19th, leaders in the development of Toronto’s Residential Apartment Commercial (RAC) Zoning by-law gathered at York University to celebrate and explore challenges and next steps in empowering communities to utilize Toronto’s newest zone. The esteemed panel had representation from property owners, entrepreneurs, community members, academics and city builders with Graeme Stewart, Principal at ERA Architect and the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal as the Panel Moderator. Panelists included:      Michael Mizzi Director, Zoning and Secretary-Treasurer Committee of…

A key research stream of the Tower Renewal Partnership has been understanding the tower landscape in shaping our cities. How many towers are there? Where are they located? What is the resulting urban form? How do key relate to investments in transit and growth planning? How can they be better connected to the City at large? Our study, with the Ontario Growth Secretariat, creates a comprehensive inventory for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, which for the first time quantified this region as…

  Property owners, entrepreneurs, community members, academics and city builders will gather at York University in celebration of Toronto’s newest zone: the Residential Apartment Commercial (RAC) (www.raczone.ca). Moderated by Graeme Stewart, Principal of ERA and the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal, this event hosted by the City of Toronto will centre discussions on the zone’s implementation as well as its economic and social opportunities. Topics will touch on: Where does the zone apply? What new things can be done…

Cities internationally are exploring the challenges and opportunities of modern tower blocks and 21st century urban regeneration. Next week Graeme Stewart and Ya’el Santopinto of ERA Architects and the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal will take part in a series of conversations focused on urban regeneration at Urban Design London (UDL) and Oxford University.  UDL is a non profit organization that connects design practitioners and provides up to date information about policy, research, and best practice. They will have…

How can postwar tower neighbourhoods, built 50 years ago, transition into more ecologically- and socially-sustainable places? As we look ahead to the next 50 years, how can we plan for more resilient relationships in the between our city and its remarkable ravine network? In May 2017, the Ontario Climate Consortium (including Toronto and Region Conservation and York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies), the University of Toronto John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, Parallel 52, and the Centre…

Ontario’s post-war apartment towers provide affordable rental housing to more than one million people. These buildings are aging and urgently require rehabilitation, as well as stronger connections to goods, services and transit networks. The renewal of Ontario’s sizable stock of post-war apartment towers represents an opportunity to advance both provincial and municipal goals related to housing quality, affordability, complete communities and greenhouse gas emission reduction. Improving the resilience of apartment tower housing will provide tremendous social and environmental gains across Ontario’s…

As of October 2016, five hundred tower neighbourhoods acquired the ability to re-conceive the social and economic character of their communities. Ontario’s apartment tower neighbourhoods help give the region an urban form unique to North America, reflecting progressive ideas that were considered “smart growth” in post-war Canada. While built with progressive ideas about density and suburban growth, they lack key features that many neighbourhoods take for granted: convenient and walkable access to local shops, services, amenities and the broader opportunities…

Home to more than half a million Torontonians, the post-war apartment tower typology contributes a significant number of units to the affordable housing market. Tower Renewal Partnership research has demonstrated that significant investment toward social and physical improvements to Toronto’s apartment towers may be in part leveraged by well-designed infill housing development. Targeted infill development on tower sites is able to support and energize core renewal goals, harnessing cross-investment of development revenues to make significant changes to tower neighbourhoods. The…

2022 06 23 – MIT Technology Review: The future of urban housing 2022 06 01 – Architectural Record: Housing and Climate 2022 05 17 – Lessons from Grenfell 2022 04 22 – Metropolis Magazine 2022 04 07 – Ken Soble Tower becomes world’s largest residential Passive House retrofit 2021 10 21 – Tall Stories 276: Ken Soble Tower: Monocle Radio – The Urbanist 2021 10 01 – Ken Soble Tower Raising the Bar – Canadian Architect 2021 09 29 – Hamilton’s…

View videos, CUG+R TALKS, the  GALLERY and NEWS sections for more content.     Pechakucha: Tower Renewal 101 A crash course in Tower Renewal by Graeme Stewart.                     Tower, Slab, Superblock: Social Housing Legacies and Futures A conference hosted by the Architectural League of New York that examined the history, current status, and prospects of high-rise and superblock residential development. Experts discussed the potential for redevelopment from design and public policy perspectives. The Life- Sized…

RESIDENTIAL APARTMENT COMMERCIAL (RAC)ZONING Toronto’s  mid-century Tower Neighbourhoods help give the region an urban form unique to North America, reflecting progressive ideas that were considered “smart growth” in postwar Canada. Yet while built with progressive ideas about density and suburban growth, they lack key features that many Toronto neighbourhoods take for granted: convenient and walkable access to local shops, services, amenities and the broader opportunities of neighbourhood life.  In fact, these features are not only missing in many of Toronto’s…

Harlyn Thompson Lecture Series – Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba Thursday, March 16, 2017 6PM Lecture Eckhardt Gramatte Hall University of Winnipeg Speakers: Sabina Ali – Chair, Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee Graeme Stewart – Principal, ERA Architects, Co-Founder/Board Member, Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) and Co-Editor, Concrete Toronto: A Guidebook to Concrete Architecture from the Fifties to the Seventies Graeme Stewart and Sabina Ali will introduce the case of Toronto’s built legacy: upwards of 2,000 modernist tower blocks that define its urban…

As part of the ongoing work related to Tower Renewal, ERA and the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal are consulting with the federal government on the emerging National Housing Strategy. See Graeme Stewart in Ottawa summarizing strategies to ensure the preservation of Canada’s aging apartment housing stock, and to support its rehabilitation through Tower Renewal. A consultation and solutions workshop held in Ottawa focused on the key issue of ‘Maintaining and Preserving Existing Rental.’ Home to millions across Canada,…

Elise Hug (Tower Renewal Office, City of Toronto), Jason Thorne (CUG+R, planningAlliance), and ERA’s Graeme Stewart explore the opportunities of the proposed zoning framework, next steps for implementation, and research and policy initiatives moving forward.

A follow up to the findings of the Poverty by Postal Code 2: Vertical Poverty (2011) report by the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) and United Way Toronto.

Analysis of this housing resource and examination of its future role in our growing region.

What is Tower Renewal? Tower Renewal is a strategy that promotes, supports and directs enhancement and reinvestment in Canada’s affordable apartment tower stock. During the boom years of the 1960s and 70s, Canada built a significant volume of modern apartment towers in response to rapid urbanization. Predominantly privately developed, but supported by public planning policy and incentives, these towers shape the urban and suburban landscape cross county – with at least 750,000 Canadian households calling them home.  Half a century…

The Tower Renewal Partnership is a multisectoral initiative led by the Centre for Urban Growth + Renewal, and made up of Evergreen, United Way Toronto & York Region, Maytree, and DKGI. We work alongside a broad network of nonprofit, governmental, industry, and academic partners. Project Lead Core Partners           Advisory Network                                                    …

    The Tower Renewal Partnership is an initiative working to transform Southern Ontario’s remarkable stock of post-war apartment towers into more complete communities, resilient housing stock and healthy places, fully integrated into our growing cities. Nearly one million people in the Greater Toronto Area live in approximately 2,000 concrete residential tower blocks which were built between 1945 and 1984. These towers were originally intended to promote social progress, alleviate pressures on infrastructure and services in crowded downtown cores, and…

Though the vastness of Toronto’s suburbs is often bemoaned as unplanned sprawl, their shape tells a different story. Containing extensive parks and protected natural systems, transit infrastructure, industrial zones, cultural and community facilities, universities, modern planned communities and, perhaps most noteworthy, hundreds upon hundreds of high-density concrete high-rise apartment buildings, Toronto’s ‘metro’ suburbs showcase a process of metropolitan growth highly affected by regional and modern planning. Financed by the economic boom of the ’60s and ’70s, these expansive areas of…

Congratulations to the team at Highrise for releasing a new and final chapter of their award winning web documentary. Highrise is a multi-year documentary project focusing on the suburban Towers of Toronto and nine other cities around the globe. The latest installment, Universe Within: Digital Lives in the Global Highrise, serves as an interactive narrative revealing the digital human condition of vertical citizens globally. The documentary asks, “trapped in our highrise units, can we find love, hate, peace, god, community—or a better world—online?”   ERA…

    ERA’s Graeme Stewart is pleased to be participating in a webinar presented by Cities of Migration and Centre for City Ecology as part of their Citybuilders Bookclub. The Bookclub is global in reach, aiming to foster a deeper understanding of how cities work, and brings together a diverse group of thinkers and writers from around the world to weigh in on and debate the issues raised through reading. The current edition is focused on Doug Saunders’ seminal book, Arrival City. Saunders’ Arrival…

The fall issue of Spacing Magazine features a short piece by ERA’s Graeme Stewart in a section called “Opinion Makers.” The article reviews Toronto’s history of residential tower development and explains the evolution of the new RAC zone allowing new program and land use in our apartment neighbourhoods. Read the full text below:

    As announced recently in the Evergreen CityWorks’ Intersection Magazine, the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal is teaming up with Evergreen CityWorks and Derek Ballantyne (CEO, Community Forward Fund) to engage in new initiatives in Tower Renewal. The purpose of this Tower Partnership will be to develop feasible funding and implementation strategies for a series of Tower Renewal sites in the GTA, working with project partners City of Toronto, United Way, Metcalf Foundation, Toronto Atmospheric Fund and more. The ultimate goal…

The 2014 Jane Jacobs prize has been awarded to Graeme Stewart of ERA and Sabina Ali of the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee.   According to the creators and stewards of the Jane Jacobs Prize, Ideas that Matter and Spacing Magazine, this honour “celebrates individuals who contribute to the fabric of Toronto life in unique ways that exemplify the ideas of Jane Jacobs. The prize recipients reflect the diverse aspects of city life.” Graeme has been awarded the prize for his…

Image: Toronto Star Throughout the first part of 2014, the Toronto Star is running a series called “Big Ideas“,  asking Torontonians to think big about the future of the region. What type of Toronto do we want to create in the years to come? For our contribution to this series, we discuss Tower Renewal as the key to realizing the region’s potential. The piece can be found at Here at thestar.com, or below:   The GTA can evolve into a…

We are pleased to announce that the Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP) has awarded the Planning Excellence Merit Award for New and Emerging Planning Initiatives to a collection of strategic studies that form part of the Tower Neighbourhood Renewal initiative. Since 2007, the Tower Neighbourhood Renewal initiative has been working to tackle one of the most pressing planning challenges of our times – the renewal and revitalization of Toronto’s post-war Apartment Tower Neighbourhoods. ERA Architects, planningAlliance and the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R), have been…

In an important step forward, Toronto City Council voted Wednesday April 3, 2013, to approve the new Harmonized Zoning bylaw, including the new Residential Apartment-Commercial (RAC) Zone. Starting in 2014, the RAC Zone will be rolled out in key Toronto neighbourhoods. These include: Thorncliff Park, North Jane St., Rexdale, Oriole Community (The Peanut), Taylor-Massey Neighbourhood, East Scarborough, and Pape and Cosburn The new RAC zone supports as-of-right low-impact mixed uses within Apartment Neighbourhoods. Such uses include small shops, farmers markets,…

Last week the NFB’s Highrise: One Millionth Tower won a Canada Screen Award for “Original Program Produced for Digital Media, Non-Fiction.” ERA and the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) had the pleasure of working with the NFB on this remarkable series, directed by Kat Cizek, which examines the current conditions and future potential of post-war high-rise living around the world. For One Millionth Tower, the team worked with residents of the Kipling Towers Neighbourhood in northwest Toronto, to…

As part of the Tower Neighbourhood Renewal project, the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) continues to work with United Way Toronto, the City of Toronto, and key stakeholders to establish a new approach to zoning that will enable Toronto’s hundreds of Apartment Neighbourhoods to emerge as more complete, better-served communities. Recently, Canadian Apartment Magazine interviewed ERA’s Graeme Stewart, as well as Aird & Berlis LLP partner Tom Halinski, on exciting changes coming to Toronto’s zoning laws. Play the…

The newly proposed ‘Apartment Residential Commercial Zoning’, developed by the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal, City of Toronto, United Way and other partners features as the cover story in the January / February 2013 issue of the Ontario Planning Journal. Article authors, Elise Hug (Tower Renewal Office, City of Toronto), Jason Thorne (CUG+R, planningAlliance), and ERA’s Graeme Stewart explore the opportunities of the proposed zoning framework, next steps for implementation, and further research and policy initiatives moving forward. The…

As part of ongoing work on Tower Neighbourhood Renewal, the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) has been working with partners United Way Toronto and the City of Toronto to establish a new approach to zoning that will enable Toronto’s hundreds of Apartment Neighbourhoods to emerge as more complete and better-served communities. This work has recently taken a significant step forward, as Toronto’s Planning and Growth Management Committee has endorsed a new zoning category: the “Apartment Residential Commercial” Zone…

As a follow up to the findings of Poverty by Postal Code 2: Vertical Poverty, the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) and United Way Toronto are pleased to release a new report entitled Strong Neighbourhoods and Complete Communities: A New Approach to Zoning for Apartment Neighbourhoods. Download the full report. The aim of this report is to identify existing policy barriers and consider policy alternatives to enable Toronto’s hundreds of apartment neighbourhoods to reach their potential as healthy,…

The Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) and Toronto Public Health are pleased to release Toward Healthy Apartment Neighbourhoods: A Healthy Toronto by Design Report. Download the full report. As part of the ongoing work related to Tower Neighbourhood Renewal, this report was commissioned by Toronto Public Health in 2011 to examine design tools for improved community health outcomes in Toronto’s hundreds of apartment neighbourhoods. As has been demonstrated in numerous previous studies, growing poverty is linked to poor…

Above images by ERA and NFB with top right photograph by Jaime Hogge, courtesy of The National Film Board of Canada   For over a year, ERA and the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) have been working with the NFB on their remarkable HIGHRISE documentary series directed by Kat Cizek. The series examines the current conditions and future potential of post-war high-rise living around the world. Features have included the One Thousandth Tower, Out My Window, and most…

Tower Neighbourhood Renewal in the Greater Golden Horseshoe available here for download. The Greater Golden Horseshoe is unique globally for its pattern of urbanization due to the proliferation of post-war apartment towers throughout the region. In 2009 the government of Ontario’s Growth Secretariat enlisted ERA Architects and planningAlliance (the founding partners of the not for profit research organization CUG+R) as well as the Cities Centre at the University of Toronto, to analyze this housing resource, and examine its future role…

The Greater Toronto Area contains a heritage of nearly 2,000 post-war concrete residential tower blocks located throughout the region.  The presence of this remarkable collection of modern housing represents an architectural, planning and construction legacy unique to North America. (For more on the history, visit here). This inheritance of high density neighbourhoods provide significant opportunities to create a sustainable, prosperous and connected region, able to meet the challenges of the 21st Century; accommodate growth, alleviate poverty and help grow the…

  This past spring, the Design Exchange hosted Carrot City; an exhibition examining the potentials of achieving future food security, sustainable food networks and engaged communities through urban agriculture. Tower Renewal participated in this project, contributing research related to the potential for urban agriculture within Toronto’s post-war tower block communities. The following is a review of the exhibition by Canadian Architect:

Thorncliffe Park from the air, looking downtown, early 1970’s Thorncliffe Park was a bold 1950s plan by the Town of Leaside to redevelop a former racetrack overlooking the Don River. Conceived in 1955 it was proposed to be the first apartment neighbourhood in Canada. Though breaking ground slightly after neighbouring Flemingdon Park, it was recognized internationally as an ambitious attempt to better organize population growth in response to the sprawl found in Toronto’s outer boroughs.

Comparison of tower districts in Moscow (top) and Toronto (bottom) Next time you are in Chicago or Philadelphia try looking for an apartment tower neighbourhood outside the city core – the kind we have throughout Toronto. They’re rare in North American cities but common in other Commonwealth countries, like Australia, and they are an even more significant force in many European cities, such as Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, and especially Moscow. Aspects of Toronto suburbs display a remarkable similarly of what…

  In the 1960’s, high-rise towers were thought to be the best solution to meet the growing need for rental units, while efficiently organizing new housing with services. The resulting apartment neighbourhoods help us recognize how quickly the city evolves, and how each generation tries in different ways to address the challenges of growth, social and community needs. Take Crescent Town near Dawes Road and the Danforth. In 1900, this was the site of Walter Massey’s experimental farm which he…

For Toronto, the most significant planning question may not be the form and placement of new density, but how to turn our enormous pockets of inherited high density into genuinely sustainable and complete communities. The density of Toronto’s apartment neighbourhoods makes this city unique. In fact, surprisingly, Toronto has a denser metropolitan area than Chicago, Los Angeles, or even Greater New York City. Counter to popular belief, this is not the result of the city core, but rather thanks to…

Uno Prii Towers amid post-war bungalow, Jane Street, North of 401, late 1960s What makes Toronto unique? One of the least recognized answers to that question is that Toronto has more high-rise buildings than any other city in North America, outside New York. The majority of these are concrete modern residential towers, built in the post-war boom of the 1960s and 70s. Following the war, when most North America cities began sprawling without order, Toronto’s Metropolitan Government implemented a regional…