Spacing Magazine

3 days ago | spacing.ca | Dylan Reid

A Vision for Pedestrian-Filled StreetsOn the last Sunday in April, thousands of people flooded downtown Toronto for the Khalsa Day parade, celebrating the Sikh New Year and the establishment of the Sikh community in 1699. Since beginning in 1986, Toronto’s Khalsa Day parade has grown into one of the city’s largest annual events, closing major streets like Lake Shore Boulevard, York Street, University Avenue, and Queen Street West.

1 week ago | spacing.ca | Erick Villagomez

In British Columbia, democracy is being redefined—not through elections or referendums, but through legislation with quiet names and sweeping consequences. Bill 13 and Bill 15 are not household names, nor do they arrive with much fanfare. But together, they represent a fundamental reordering of power between the Province and its municipalities. Framed as tools to accelerate housing and infrastructure, these bills do far more than expedite permits or streamline approvals.

1 week ago | spacing.ca | Dylan Reid

When Spacing’s publisher Matt Blackett suggested an issue about collectors, I was skeptical. Was this really going to capture something essential about Toronto that would engage readers? But as soon as we started to get pitches, I was converted. It was delightful to get to know the interesting characters who are driven to bring together related artifacts, and to see what their collections reveal about distinctive slices of Toronto that we might otherwise overlook.

1 week ago | spacing.ca | Erick Villagomez

Parts I and Part II of The Coriolis Effect explored how market-aligned tools like the pro forma have subtly—but powerfully—steered urban planning in directions that often favour capital over community. These tools, cloaked in technical neutrality, have become stand-ins for judgment, overshadowing the planner’s role as steward of the public interest. But if the diagnosis is clear, the next question becomes urgent: What would it take to resist the pull? This third piece looks forward.

1 week ago | spacing.ca | John Lorinc

How should a city solve major problems without allowing the proposed solutions to inadvertently prevent the solving of said major problems? This bureaucratic paradox — the outlines of which will be familiar to any civil servant tasked with a big job and limited resources — hangs like a sword of Damocles over a pair of recent city council directives aimed at confronting two of Toronto’s most tenacious headaches: chronic congestion and the enveloping shabbiness of our public realm.