Bringing the Toronto lakefront to life, this survey presents the stories of a largely unrecognized and forgotten legacy. This book examines the Toronto waterfront, past and present, through the lens of four nearby districts—the Scarborough Bluffs, the Beach, the Island, and the Lakeshore (New Toronto, Mimico, Humber Bay, and Long Branch). A rich photographic journey supplements the history and explores the geography and landscape of these waterfront districts, revealing a thriving culture of people who relied upon Lake Ontario for survival. Anecdotal, descriptive, but also deeply personal, this is more than a local history, it is a layered trip into time and place.

Drawing on a series of in-depth interviews among a segment of Toronto's inner-city, middle-class population, Caulfield argues that the seeds of gentrification have included patterns of critical social practice and that the 'gentrified' landscape is highly paradoxical.