The role of the Toronto Girls' Home, 1863-1910

It has been suggested that the role of Ontario children's homes, who had for half a century been helping disadvantaged children, changed significantly and immediately under the 'Children's Protection Act of 1893'. However, the records of the girls admitted to Toronto Girls' Home from 1863 to 1910 suggest that this was not the case, for this home at least. For most of their history, their core clientele was the children of poor respectable parents dealing with a crisis or who could not both work and care for their children. Thus, although prior to 1893 they did also care for a significant number of neglected children, and after 1893 fewer such children were admitted, the Home continued for more than 20 years to help families as they always had, providing a form of family support for which the child protection system was not designed.     

Municipally managed gentrification in South Parkdale, Toronto

Earlier studies of Canadian inner-city gentrification, especially in Toronto, project an image of the process as being emancipatory: a middle-class reaction to the oppressive conformity of suburbia, modernist planning and market principles. This paper, a case study of gentrification in South Parkdale, Toronto, questions this image by illustrating the role of local context in theory and policy and the consequences of gentrification for vulnerable inner-city populations. Once a desirable residential neighbourhood, South Parkdale experienced disinvestment following the construction of the Gardiner Expressway in the 1960s and also experienced further problems in the 1970s and 1980s following the deinstitution-alisation of psychiatric patients from adjacent hospitals. Discharged patients suffered from a shortage of affordable housing options, and many ended up in substandard rooming houses and bachelorettes, of which South Parkdale has a disproportionate share in Toronto. The neighbourhood's sporadic gentrification since the mid-1980s has intensified in recent years, as the City of Toronto is regularising and licensing the neighbourhood's low-income housing—a major concern for tenants who fear that landlords will use recent provincial legislation on tenancy to attract wealthier residents into their improved buildings. This paper examines this situation with qualitative evidence and argues that gentrification in South Parkdale, driven and managed by neoliberal policy, is far from an emancipatory process and argues for an interpretation of gentrification that looks beyond the experiences of the middle classes.     

Toronto,an American city: Aspects of its postwar planning, 1940–1960

Toronto is conventionally considered quite unlike “American cities.” This article does not fundamentally challenge this convention, but does suggest that differences between Toronto and American cities may be overdrawn and that Toronto may have more American elements than is generally recognized. The evidence presented in this study comes from three episodes in Toronto’s postwar planning history: creation of an ambitious postwar master plan in 1943–44, formation of metropolitan government and planning in the mid-1950s, and the design and construction of the iconic suburban neighborhood of Don Mills also in the 1950s. All three show strong American planning connections. The article then offers some reasons why these American planning ideas did not produce an “American city,” and concludes by challenging the view that it is due to Canada having a fundamentally different urban culture.     

Giving new meaning to religious conversion: Churches,redevelopment, and secularization in Toronto

Research on secularization has increased in recent years, particularly amongst urban geographers. Yet the debate is still dominated by competing theories that generally fail to account for the many institutions that impede and facilitate religiosity on the urban landscape. This article is about the role that land use planning regulations have had on changes to the religious landscape in Toronto. The empirical focus is on former churches that have recently been converted to residential uses. The larger conceptual goal is to explore the extent to which these transitions affect the religious landscape in the city and to determine what they can tell us about broader processes of secularization.     

多伦多华人商业的发展演变及其社会影响

论文分析了加拿大华人移民构成的变化和地理分布、加拿大多伦多华人商业发展与演变及其理论与社会意义,并以"劳动力市场排斥论""文化差异论"和"多因素相互作用论"等社会学理论解释了为何在多伦多众多的少数民族中,华人经营的商业最为发达、自给程度最高。华人人口的持续增长,促使华人商业出现了与30年前迥然不同的经营模式,既对当地的经济发展做出了很大贡献,也对城市规划和社区生活带来了一定的冲击和影响。而随着移民人数的增加和社会文化的多元化,传统的、单向的"归化"模式已经不合时宜,取而代之的应该是一种新的双向的甚至是多向的"相互融合"的社会发展方式。     

Exploring the associations between cooling centre accessibility and marginalization in Montreal,Toronto, and Vancouver,Canada

Cooling centres provide respite, safety, and social support during extreme heat events for populations that do not have the resources to own or operate in-home air conditioning. The objective of this study was to measure the spatial accessibility of cooling centres and analyze the associations between cooling centre access and marginalization in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, Canada. The potential spatial accessibility of cooling centres within a 15-minute walk was measured at the dissemination area scale using the two-step floating catchment area method. A two-stage modelling approach was used to analyze the associations between cooling centre access and marginalization. Approximately 62%, 58%, and 54% of the populations in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver had access to at least one cooling centre. In Montreal and Vancouver, high marginalization areas were more likely to have cooling centre access than low marginalization areas. Of the areas with cooling centre access, smaller access scores were observed in areas with high residential instability. Approximately one-fifth of the areas in each city had no cooling centre access and high marginalization, and may be considered for future cooling centres or programs that improve accessibility to existing centres.     

Meteorological influences on the spatial and temporal variability of NO2 in Toronto and Hamilton

The spatial and temporal variability of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) concentrations and their relationships with meteorology was evaluated in the Toronto–Hamilton urban airshed. NO₂ concentrations were highest in the early morning and late evening. Mean concentrations were highest in winter, although individual one-hour NO₂ concentrations were found to be highest in summer. Wind direction was the strongest control on hourly NO₂ concentration, and temperature and wind speed also had an effect. Our analysis of NO₂ concentration variation by wind direction showed that areas downwind of major highways, urban centres and industry were exposed to higher pollutant concentrations. Seasonal patterns of NO₂ concentration displayed significant spatial heterogeneity, in particular, in Toronto. Onshore winds sheltered coastal inhabitants from the full extent of NO₂ exposure they would otherwise experience. Seasonal variations in meteorology and emissions mean that the degree of spatial variability in NO₂ concentrations changes from season to season. This study will help to improve existing land-use regression-based NO₂ prediction models by incorporating meteorological controls on NO₂ distributions for health effect studies.     

Constructing contemporary artistic identities in Toronto neighbourhoods

This paper examines the role of the neighbourhood in the construction of artistic identities. Drawing upon in‐depth, semistructured interviews with Canadian visual artists from Toronto, I identify some of the common features of downtown Toronto neighbourhoods where artists congregate. I demonstrate that artists are drawn to neighbourhoods that have not been gentrified and do not directly reflect current dominant values in society. I focus, in particular, on the importance of marginal niches of improvisational space within the urban fabric. Marginal spaces, often neglected and overlooked, weakly classified and in a state of becoming, I argue, are essential to the development and sustenance of an artistic identity .     

An Osteobiography of a 19th‐Century Dog from Toronto,Canada

A 19^th‐century dog burial uncovered from a historical homelot in Toronto, Canada, provided a unique opportunity to reconstruct the individual's osteobiography. Of particular interest are the dog's very large size and a suite of skeletal pathologies. Recovery of a nearly complete skeleton combined with the use of X‐rays and micro‐computed tomography (micro‐CT) allowed for a discriminating differential diagnoses. Stable isotope analyses were applied to investigate questions of diet. Results reveal an individual who suffered greatly from disease towards the end of his life and hint at its owners attitudes towards dogs. The interdisciplinary approach applied to this case study highlights the potential information obtainable from pet burials. We argue that better analyses and reporting of pet burials will help address research questions targeting broader themes related to human–animal relationships. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Zoning and Neighbourhood Change: the Annex in Toronto, 1900–1970

Most models of neighbourhood change envisage an insignificant role for zoning, whereas contemporary analyses of the politics of land use change treat it as a major means of controlling change. In the Annex neighbourhood, where zoning was potentially able to prevent all major land use changes after 1900, it proved to be only a minor influence, whether in its enforcement or through new zoning restrictions. In the long run, zoning and the political control of zoning responded to, rather than modified, the dominant economic and social forces which produced change in the neighbourhood.
La plupart des modèles de changement de quartier envisagent un rle peu important en ce qui concerne l'aménagement de tenitoire tandis que les analyses contemporaines de la politique du changement du développement des terrains le traitent comme un moyen principal de contrbler les changements. Dans le quartier Annex, après le début du siècle, l'aménagement du tenitoire aurait pu virtuellement empêcher tout changement en ce qui concemait le développement des terrains. Au contraire, l'aménagement du tenitoire n'est aujourd hui qu'une influence secondaire soit à cause de la manitre de son application soit h cause des nouvelles restrictions qu'il a entamées. En fin de compte, l'amknagement de temtoire aussi bien que son contrble politique ont suivi plutht que de modifier les forces économiques et sociales dominantes qui ont à leur tour produit des changements dans le quartier.