Histories of urban knowledge
This year I’ve been part of a team of Montreal-based historians organizing the Écrire l’histoire des savoirs urbains/Histories of urban knowledge conference.
Yonge Street transforms
One of the challenges of writing the history of urban transformations is that they don’t have definite endings and beginnings.
Planning the postwar Canadian city
This week, I was pleased to see my review of Richard White’s Planning Toronto in print in the Canadian Historical Review.
Digital classroom: Vanished urban landscapes
This winter, students in my class on the North American city created a group blog on Montreal’s vanished urban landscapes.
Digital classroom: Making a map of Montréal migration history
This fall, students in my class on the history of immigration created a collaborative map of Montréal’s migration history.
The history of Toronto road rage
I was interviewed this week by the Toronto Star for a feature piece on the history of competition for street space in the city.
Sidewalks, streets, and urban modernity
What do sidewalks and street pavements tell us about the historical city? Quite a bit, it turns out. I recently reviewed Phillip Gordon Mackintosh’s Newspaper City (UTP, 2017) for Historical Geography.
The Jaques murder, continued
The 1977 murder of shoeshine boy Emanuel Jaques continues to draw attention forty years later. I discussed the event and its impact on the city with the Globe & Mail.
Pressing pause on development
CBC News kindly gave me ten seconds of fame today, with an interview on the use of heritage planning to slow redevelopment in downtown Toronto.
Watching Toronto grow, 1900-2002
This video uses building construction dates to map Toronto’s rapidly-expanding urban footprint in the twentieth century.
Remaking and Reimagining the City
I’m excited to be presenting my research on the Toronto Eaton Centre for the first time at the annual meeting of the CHA in Ottawa.
Saving the North American City
The idea that our cities need saving has been around since at least the industrial era, and it continues to have relevance today.
Toronto Boom Town
The post-1945 era was a hopeful and exuberant one for Canadian cities. Toronto in particular was growing faster than ever before. This 1951 NFB documentary captures the excitement.
