The Public Metropolis traces the evolution of Ontario government responses to rapid population growth and outward expansion in the Toronto city region over an eighty-year period. Frisken rigorously describes the many institutions and policies that were put in place at different times to provide services of region-wide importance and skilfully assesses the extent to which those institutions and policies managed to achieve objectives commonly identified with effective regional governance. Although the province acted sporadically and often reluctantly in the face of regional population growth and expansion, Frisken argues that its various interventions nonetheless contributed to the region's most noteworthy achievement: a core city that continued to thrive while many other North American cities were experiencing population, economic, and social decline. This perceptive and comprehensive examination of issues related to the evolution of city regions is critical reading not only for those teaching and researching in the field, but also for city and regional planners, officials at all levels of government, and urban historians. The research, writing, and publication of this book has been supported by the Neptis Foundation.

Paris is famous for romance. Chicago, the blues. Buenos Aires, the tango. And Toronto? Well, Canada’s largest urban centre is known for being a “city that works” – a remarkably livable metropolis for its size. In this lavishly illustrated book, Richard White reveals how urban planning contributed to Toronto becoming a functional, world-class city. Focusing on the period from 1940 to 1980, he examines how planners shaped the city and its development amid a maelstrom of local and international obstacles and influences. Based on meticulous research of Toronto’s postwar plans and supplemented by dozens of interviews, Planning Toronto provides a comprehensive and lively explanation of how Toronto’s postwar plans – city, metropolitan, and regional – came to be, who devised them, and what impact they had. When it comes to the history of urban planning, the question may not be whether a particular plan was good or bad but whether in the end it made a difference. As White demonstrates, in Toronto’s case planning did matter – just not always as expected.

Young, single women emerged in the late 1990s as powerful consumers in the wave of real estate development that was reshaping the landscape of cities. Reports claimed that condominium ownership offered women new-found freedom, financial independence, and personal security. But has home ownership truly empowered women, or were the reports merely celebratory rhetoric that disguised more disquieting trends? To get at the reality behind the rhetoric, Sex and the Revitalized City explores the phenomenon from the perspective of planners, developers, and women condo owners to reveal that women’s relationship with the city is being remade in the image of fast capital and consumer citizenship. As filtered through condominium ownership, neoliberal ideologies are not freeing women from constraints – they are reinforcing patriarchal norms. This fresh look at urban revitalization exposes the notion of women’s emancipation through condominium ownership as a marketing ploy rather than a major shift in gender relations.

Condoland casts CityPlace – a massive residential development of more than thirty condominium towers just outside Toronto’s downtown core – as a microcosm of twenty-first-century urban intensification that has transformed the city skyline beyond all recognition. Built almost entirely by a single private developer, this immense neighbourhood took decades to plan, design, and develop, but the end result lacks a sense of place and is not widely accessible to those who need homes: only a small number of its 13,000 units constitute affordable housing, and public amenities are limited. James T. White and John Punter journey through the forty-year development of Toronto’s largest residential megaproject, focusing on its urban design and architectural evolution. They also delve into the background, summarizing the tools used to shape Toronto’s built environment, and critically explore the underlying political economy of planning and real estate development in the city. Using detailed field studies, interviews, archival research, and with nearly two hundred illustrations, they reveal an alarmingly flexible approach to planning and design that is acquiescent to the demands of a rapacious development industry. Condoland raises key questions about the sustainability and long-term resilience of city planning.

Canada's last experience with national urban policy-making was in the 1970s. The authors focus on what has happened since, exploring how both our city-regions and our ideas about the urban policy-making process have changed. The authors also examine both the past and present roles of the federal government, and what it can and should do in the future. Contributors include Caroline Andrew, Paul Born (Tamarack Institute for Community Engagement, Cambridge), Kenneth Cameron (FCIP, Policy and Planning, Greater Vancouver Regional District), W. Michael Fenn, (Ontario Deputy Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing), Pierre Filion (University of Waterloo), Katherine Graham, Pierre Hamel (Université de Montréal), Christopher Leo (University of Winnipeg), Barbara Levine (World University Service of Canada), Sherilyn MacGregor (PhD, Environmental Studies, York University), Warren Magnusson (University of Victoria), Beth Moore Milroy (Toronto Metropolitan University), Merle Nicholds (former Mayor of Kanata), Evelyn Peters (University of Saskatchewan), Susan Phillips, Valerie Preston (York University), Andrew Sancton (University of Western Ontario), Lisa Shaw (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives), Enid Slack (Enid Slack Consulting Inc.), Sherri Torjman (Caledon Institute of Social Policy), Carolyn Whitzman (doctoral candidate, School of Geography and Geology, McMaster University), David Wolfe (University of Toronto), and Madeleine Wong (University of Wisconsin).

Cities and towns are vital for the development of economic systems and social organisations. However, cities face tremendous challenges. They have to simultaneously attract business, provide a good livelihood for their inhabitants, generate enough resources to finance infrastructure and social needs, and take care of their poor. The Challenge of Urban Government: Policies and Practices looks at the consequences of globalisation on city management. This book focuses on the complex of issues generated in urban areas, such as the dynamics of metropolitan spaces, and the need to define strategic territory for operational and policy purposes. Some urgent challenges include how to handle spillovers across municipalities and the need to create a new city structure over an existing city to give the suburbs some elements of centrality. It examines the dynamics of governance and how to get stakeholders' participation in the government process.