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The shape of the city: Toronto struggles with modern planning
REVIEWS
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professional role. On closer reading, however, the strongest examples used are actually lumber mill towns rather than countryside as is sometimes implied. In any case, Comacchio’s work demonstrates that the accepted interpretation that infant mortality and, as a corollary, morbidity were highest in cities may need to be refined. Class differences, as Comacchio explains, are even harder to uncover given the aggregate and often questionable character of the statistics used by the health officials, but a start can be made by using local reports from depressed areas of the province. Here it seems is an opportunity for some potentially rewarding historical geography making greater use of reports of the local medical officers of health and school health inspectors, among other sources, and paying greater attention to the character of the regions or districts being discussed. Such research, which should be placed within a comparative perspective, is only touched upon in this useful monograph. Pennsylvania State University
SUSANW. FRIEDMAN
JOHN SEWELL, The Shape of the City: Toronto Struggles with Modern Planning (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. Pp. xvii+252. g33.00) At a time when many writers have been attempting to emphasize the contradictions and conflicts within a variety of modernisms, Sewell’s book seems strangely out of place. His assessment of Toronto’s changing urban form rests on a unilinear view of history, in which “the new urban ideas” of Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Clarence Stein began to influence the planning of Canadian towns and cities in the 1920s and 1930s came to dominate “modernist planning theory” in the decades following the Second World War, and were then rejected in the 1970s. Far from being a story which acknowledges-for example-the melting of all that is solid into air, Sewell’s book casts modernism as a monolithic enterprise, propelled forward by planners and architects who determined the shape of the city. The case study of Toronto is intended “to illuminate urban political struggles”, “to provide some understanding of why Toronto is the way it is at the end of the century”, and to provide “a reasonable approach for looking at the problems of urban form in other North American cities” (p. xvi). Given these important (and, potentially, very interesting) aims, it is disappointing to find that the book engages only very partially with the politics of urban restructuring, presents an opaque view of Toronto as a whole, and pays little or no attention to related developments in other Canadian or North American cities. The introductory chapters of the book trace an emerging “modern style” of city planning, from manifestations of the Garden City, through Canadian examples of the City Beautiful movement (Lindenlea in Ottawa and Hydrostone in Halifax), to plans for resource towns in northern Ontario and subdivisions in Montreal, Toronto and Hamilton. All, Sewell argues, were expressions of “ideas about the need for a new city” (p. 42). He then proceeds to assess developments in Toronto. Our first glimpse of the metropolis, however, is not of the city itself, but of Don Mills, “Canada’s first corporate suburb”. This particular development, Sewell suggests, had a significant impact both upon suburban plans and upon centre city redevelopment projects in Toronto. By the late 196Os, however, “the public” had begun to reject “modem planning” proposals, and Sewell enumerates a variety of planning schemes which were either substantially altered, or abandoned entirely, as a result of popular pressure. Chapters 6 and 7 document a suburban/central city split in attitudes: while “by the mid 1970s . . . the modernist approach had few ‘friends or allies in the city itself” (p. 174), “modern planning was ascendant on the fringes of Toronto” (p. 200; my emphasis). The final chapter describes several contemporary suburban “design solutions” which, Sewell
112
REVIEWS
concludes, “signal a change that is growing within the development industry itself-to rethink the basic elements of modem planning in Toronto suburbs” (p. 240). Sewell’s text oscillates between examples of central city redevelopment projects and plans for suburban communities. This is often difficult to follow, particularly as the book lacks a map of the entire metropolitan Toronto region. The reader is left with little or no sense of the relations between the places Sewell describes. In fact, this sense of dislocation reflects a much more substantive problem. Having introduced Don Mills as an example of “the modern suburb”, Sewell then fails to address crucial questions about the relationship between the city and the suburbs. Debates over the funding of public transport, for example, are cited, but there is little attempt to think through the political dimensions of the conflict. Perhaps the weakest aspect of the book is its analysis of urban politics. Despite the subtitle, struggles over the control of streets and neighbourhoods are-to me at any rate-puzzlingly absent. The book contains tantalizing glimpses of residents’ resistance to particular projects, but is inattentive to the constellations of power in which individuals were located. In the case of Alexandra Park (an inner city area of Toronto slated for urban renewal), Sewell cites a letter to the Globe and Maif, written by Meg Richardson, which protested against the project. Although “there were several years of discussion about the project. . .” (where? with whom?) much of the area was ultimately demolished. In summarizing the outcome, Sewell simply states: “Mrs. Richardson was not to have her way” (p. 154). Further, the extent to which various levels of government influenced the specific form that Toronto took is also inadequately theorized. At the federal level, for example, the 1935 Dominion Housing Act explicitly promoted the growth of single family, owner-occupied housing, and played a crucial role in shaping the Canadian urban landscape. Additionally, it is important to acknowledge that local planning outcomes have often been framed by the nature of relations between municipal, provincial and national administrations. Much of Sewell’s discussion presents planning as a technical process, disconnected from political and economic activity. He frequently draws-largely uncritically-upon statements made by planners and architects, and upon promotional material from development companies. It is no surprise that the book is dominated by the voices of men and, perhaps, that a significant literature considering the gendered construction of urban and suburban space is effectively ignored. Finally, several more minor quibbles. The shape of the city is well illustrated with plans, architects’ sketches and photographs, ranging from Ebenezer Howard’s diagrams of the Garden City to plans for the redesign of neighbourhoods in contemporary Toronto. Given the emphasis on the illustrations, it is rather astonishing that no attempt was made to integrate the figures with the text. A number of typographical errors and incorrect use of 1anguagee.g. “. . . the stoops of these decripid buildings . . .” (p. 105) and “Nothing was more likely to peak the imagination of a crowd in the 1950s . . .” (p. 98)-further detract from the book. University of Cambridge
SUZANNE REIMER
City Form and Everyday Life: Toronto’s Gentrljkation and Critical Social Practice (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Pp. xv+253. $17.95)
JON CAULFIELD,
Since 1945 Toronto has been one of the most affluent and fastest growing metros on the continent. While now flagging, the shape of its urban form is not likely to repeat that of its nearby big US neighbours because professionals have a strong hold on central city housing, old and new. The flight to the suburbs has never been serious enough to undermine the city, as Professor Caulfield notes. He might have added that the central city’s average household income as a proportion of the census metropolitan area is now nearly the same as in 1950-ninety percent, falling a bit only in the 1960s.
111
professional role. On closer reading, however, the strongest examples used are actually lumber mill towns rather than countryside as is sometimes implied. In any case, Comacchio’s work demonstrates that the accepted interpretation that infant mortality and, as a corollary, morbidity were highest in cities may need to be refined. Class differences, as Comacchio explains, are even harder to uncover given the aggregate and often questionable character of the statistics used by the health officials, but a start can be made by using local reports from depressed areas of the province. Here it seems is an opportunity for some potentially rewarding historical geography making greater use of reports of the local medical officers of health and school health inspectors, among other sources, and paying greater attention to the character of the regions or districts being discussed. Such research, which should be placed within a comparative perspective, is only touched upon in this useful monograph. Pennsylvania State University
SUSANW. FRIEDMAN
JOHN SEWELL, The Shape of the City: Toronto Struggles with Modern Planning (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. Pp. xvii+252. g33.00) At a time when many writers have been attempting to emphasize the contradictions and conflicts within a variety of modernisms, Sewell’s book seems strangely out of place. His assessment of Toronto’s changing urban form rests on a unilinear view of history, in which “the new urban ideas” of Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Clarence Stein began to influence the planning of Canadian towns and cities in the 1920s and 1930s came to dominate “modernist planning theory” in the decades following the Second World War, and were then rejected in the 1970s. Far from being a story which acknowledges-for example-the melting of all that is solid into air, Sewell’s book casts modernism as a monolithic enterprise, propelled forward by planners and architects who determined the shape of the city. The case study of Toronto is intended “to illuminate urban political struggles”, “to provide some understanding of why Toronto is the way it is at the end of the century”, and to provide “a reasonable approach for looking at the problems of urban form in other North American cities” (p. xvi). Given these important (and, potentially, very interesting) aims, it is disappointing to find that the book engages only very partially with the politics of urban restructuring, presents an opaque view of Toronto as a whole, and pays little or no attention to related developments in other Canadian or North American cities. The introductory chapters of the book trace an emerging “modern style” of city planning, from manifestations of the Garden City, through Canadian examples of the City Beautiful movement (Lindenlea in Ottawa and Hydrostone in Halifax), to plans for resource towns in northern Ontario and subdivisions in Montreal, Toronto and Hamilton. All, Sewell argues, were expressions of “ideas about the need for a new city” (p. 42). He then proceeds to assess developments in Toronto. Our first glimpse of the metropolis, however, is not of the city itself, but of Don Mills, “Canada’s first corporate suburb”. This particular development, Sewell suggests, had a significant impact both upon suburban plans and upon centre city redevelopment projects in Toronto. By the late 196Os, however, “the public” had begun to reject “modem planning” proposals, and Sewell enumerates a variety of planning schemes which were either substantially altered, or abandoned entirely, as a result of popular pressure. Chapters 6 and 7 document a suburban/central city split in attitudes: while “by the mid 1970s . . . the modernist approach had few ‘friends or allies in the city itself” (p. 174), “modern planning was ascendant on the fringes of Toronto” (p. 200; my emphasis). The final chapter describes several contemporary suburban “design solutions” which, Sewell
112
REVIEWS
concludes, “signal a change that is growing within the development industry itself-to rethink the basic elements of modem planning in Toronto suburbs” (p. 240). Sewell’s text oscillates between examples of central city redevelopment projects and plans for suburban communities. This is often difficult to follow, particularly as the book lacks a map of the entire metropolitan Toronto region. The reader is left with little or no sense of the relations between the places Sewell describes. In fact, this sense of dislocation reflects a much more substantive problem. Having introduced Don Mills as an example of “the modern suburb”, Sewell then fails to address crucial questions about the relationship between the city and the suburbs. Debates over the funding of public transport, for example, are cited, but there is little attempt to think through the political dimensions of the conflict. Perhaps the weakest aspect of the book is its analysis of urban politics. Despite the subtitle, struggles over the control of streets and neighbourhoods are-to me at any rate-puzzlingly absent. The book contains tantalizing glimpses of residents’ resistance to particular projects, but is inattentive to the constellations of power in which individuals were located. In the case of Alexandra Park (an inner city area of Toronto slated for urban renewal), Sewell cites a letter to the Globe and Maif, written by Meg Richardson, which protested against the project. Although “there were several years of discussion about the project. . .” (where? with whom?) much of the area was ultimately demolished. In summarizing the outcome, Sewell simply states: “Mrs. Richardson was not to have her way” (p. 154). Further, the extent to which various levels of government influenced the specific form that Toronto took is also inadequately theorized. At the federal level, for example, the 1935 Dominion Housing Act explicitly promoted the growth of single family, owner-occupied housing, and played a crucial role in shaping the Canadian urban landscape. Additionally, it is important to acknowledge that local planning outcomes have often been framed by the nature of relations between municipal, provincial and national administrations. Much of Sewell’s discussion presents planning as a technical process, disconnected from political and economic activity. He frequently draws-largely uncritically-upon statements made by planners and architects, and upon promotional material from development companies. It is no surprise that the book is dominated by the voices of men and, perhaps, that a significant literature considering the gendered construction of urban and suburban space is effectively ignored. Finally, several more minor quibbles. The shape of the city is well illustrated with plans, architects’ sketches and photographs, ranging from Ebenezer Howard’s diagrams of the Garden City to plans for the redesign of neighbourhoods in contemporary Toronto. Given the emphasis on the illustrations, it is rather astonishing that no attempt was made to integrate the figures with the text. A number of typographical errors and incorrect use of 1anguagee.g. “. . . the stoops of these decripid buildings . . .” (p. 105) and “Nothing was more likely to peak the imagination of a crowd in the 1950s . . .” (p. 98)-further detract from the book. University of Cambridge
SUZANNE REIMER
City Form and Everyday Life: Toronto’s Gentrljkation and Critical Social Practice (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Pp. xv+253. $17.95)
JON CAULFIELD,
Since 1945 Toronto has been one of the most affluent and fastest growing metros on the continent. While now flagging, the shape of its urban form is not likely to repeat that of its nearby big US neighbours because professionals have a strong hold on central city housing, old and new. The flight to the suburbs has never been serious enough to undermine the city, as Professor Caulfield notes. He might have added that the central city’s average household income as a proportion of the census metropolitan area is now nearly the same as in 1950-ninety percent, falling a bit only in the 1960s.