Between Paper and Concrete

In 1787, the British government acquired a large swath of land on the shore of Lake Ontario to settle loyalists after the American War of Independence. The acquisition was ratified in British law through a contract called The Toronto Purchase.

This agreement was disputed by the Mississaugas of the Credit who claimed that it overstated the usage rights they had offered the British. While several amendments were later made to address these grievances, the concept of Fee Simple Ownership—a legal principle which makes it possible for an individual to own territorial property—endured as law of the land.

Today, thousands of Indigenous people live in the urbanized area now called Toronto—a name derived from the original Tkaronto. Like their settler neighbours, they are obliged now to live under a European property regime of Fee Simple Ownership.

Inspired by Germany’s Autobahns, Ontario policymakers in the 1930s began remaking the systems of roads that connected cities in southern Ontario.

The first ribbon was cut in 1937 for the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW), and over the subsequent decades a series of highways would pave the way for rapid residential development into the farmlands to the west, east and north of the city.

While these new suburbs initially attracted white Canadian families, their demographics have shifted considerably over time. By the 2000s, the suburbs surrounding Toronto had become home to the highest concentrations of visible minorities in Canada.

On January 1, 1946, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) was created to house returning war veterans and lead the nation’s housing programs.

Among other functions this government agency secured mortgages provided by private banks, allowing many Canadians to pursue ownership dreams that would have otherwise been impossible.

Born out of an optimistic post-war modernism the CMHC and their mortgage program precipitated a shift towards widespread home ownership, a norm that persists today.

In Toronto, an unusually large number of high-rise apartments poke above the flat landscape many miles from downtown.… [T]his is a type of high density suburban development far more progressive and able to deal with the future than the endless sprawl of the U.S.…

Buckminster Fuller, 1968

Between 1950 and 1980, the population of Toronto tripled from 1 million to 3 million people. To house all those newcomers, over 1200 concrete towers were constructed across the GTA.

Inspired by post-war utopian planning ideas from across the Atlantic, Toronto’s policymakers imported European high-density ‘planned communities’ and adapted them to the automobile-centric culture of North America. The result was dozens of far-flung tower communities connected by freeways to the rest of the GTA.

Though initially designed for young professionals favouring a modern lifestyle, the typical resident of the tower communities has morphed over the decades from hip urban swingers to families of new immigrants. Today these concrete towers, while sometimes isolated and deteriorating, comprise 25% of Toronto’s housing stock and form the backbone of the region’s affordable rental market.

In 1947, Canada’s first urban renewal effort began in a project that would clear 69 acres of slum to build a 1056-unit, low-rent housing development called Regent Park.

The project was poorly integrated into the broader city, and contained exclusively social housing for very low income people. As early as the 1960s, disrepair and social ills began to plague the community. By the 1990s, Regent Park had become notorious.

In 2003, a new kind partnership was struck between Toronto’s social housing provider and private developer Daniels Corporation. Through this public-private partnership, Regent Park would be re-developed once again, this time as a mixed-income community.

By 2018, 2 of 5 construction phases were complete. While many Regent Park residents have returned to live in a community with improved public amenities, upgraded rental units, and wealthier neighbours, others chose to move on with fading memories of a planned community dreamed up more than a half-century prior.