asrise's hovel

Just finished John Sewell's The Shape of the Suburbs: Understanding Toronto's Sprawl

This one might not have been as fun to read as The Shape of the City, but there's still a lot of good information there, and I enjoyed reading it! It's crazy to think that Toronto has been consistently trying and failing to conserve its natural resources from suburban development since the 1940's. This book was pretty succinct, too, with only about 230 pages, including maps and tables. Another point I liked was that there has been a failure of creating a functioning region, and a functioning local government of Toronto, and as a result, the city is forced to pay the price for the wastefulness of the suburbs, whether this be through transport, sewage, water, electricity or just basic social services.

One thing to beware of when reading this book, though, is that it was written in the early 2000s when the more and more responsibilities were being heaped onto the city, rather than being under the province. It's also written before the condo boom, which changed the development pattern in a big way, putting more emphasis on the density rather than outward expansion. But overall, I think it was worth my time, and is valuable for any Toronto area reader who wants to know more about the history of planning!

man i love walking down the streets at night. There's something about the dawn and the dusk that really gets me in a walking mood.

I'm moving soon. I'll miss living in a place as great as this.

also bump lol