Smart Cities

With the advent of the Internet of Things and other technologies, Toronto and other urban areas are looking to be “smarter cities” when tackling critical issues – from climate change to affordable housing.

There's just one problem.

“Smart cities are only smart if they have relevant data,” says Mark Fox, a professor of industrial engineering in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and a distinguished professor of urban systems engineering.

Enter the Urban Data Centre at �Թϱ��'s School of Cities. Created last fall, the centre seeks to enable smarter cities by providing awareness and access to relevant urban data. “We're creating a Canadian catalogue of urban data sets to allow people to discover relevant data, where it's located and any restrictions on use,” says Fox, who holds a cross-appointment to the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

The centre is being supported by a commitment from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) of $1 million over five years to add core staff and expand operations.

One of the main challenges of achieving awareness is that datasets are spread across repositories, created by municipalities, provincial and federal agencies, NGOs and universities, making it difficult to find what is relevant.

“Getting data is hard work and it requires a lot of discipline,” says Raju Goteti, global vice-president of the TCS Co-Innovation Network.

“It requires innovation from multiple stakeholders and specific elements like the Urban Data Centre. The idea is to create new knowledge in the ecosystem, and we believe the School of Cities is a wonderful partner for this.”

Fox, for his part, says the TCS contribution will advance the centre’s work.

“We already have funding for some work streams within the centre, such as urban ontologies and standards, but this provides us with the funds to focus on core elements of our research program, such as the Urban Data Catalogue and Repository,” he says.

Urban Data Centre Director Mark Fox says relevant urban data enables smarter cities (photo courtesy of Pat Doherty)

The school is building the capacity of urban communities to collect, analyze and visualize data to make cities more efficient and equitable.

“The TCS support will give our Urban Data Centre a jump-start in creating a data ecosystem for universities and cities around Canada,” says Karen Chapple, director of the School of Cities.

For all the buzz about using machine learning to build and operate smarter cities, not many people appreciate how much effort goes into pulling relevant data together, according to Fox.

“About 80 per cent of the time it takes to build a smarter-city application is spent on what's called data wrangling, which is finding the data, cleaning it and integrating it, as opposed to actually building machine learning models.”

Creating the Canadian urban data catalogue is an enormous but crucial first step for the centre’s mission, providing a means for urban researchers, developers and planners to find the data they need, says Fox.

He says the centre is working to create standards for the catalogue system that will provide detailed information on each dataset listed.

“Once we have that standard, we're creating the appropriate software so anybody who has a dataset can go to the web page, fill in the metadata for the set they are submitting, and then it goes into our catalogue.”

The next step will be creating a data repository. Fox says they will focus primarily on data from academic research. One potential treasure trove of smart city data is graduate student research on urban environments, which, at present, is often lost upon graduation. “It either sits on their laptop or gets wiped out,” Fox says. “We’ll make it known to academe that not only can they provide us with the metadata associated with their dataset for the catalogue, they can also download their dataset into our repository.”

The Urban Data Centre is also an integral part of the upcoming School of Cities node in India that is being set up in collaboration with Tata Trusts – a philanthropic organization associated with TCS.

Fox says the centre will work with the School of Cities Alliance in India – a network of Canadian and Indian researchers – to create an Indian catalogue and data repository.

“TCS has been focusing on several smart city initiatives for more than a decade,” says K Ananth Krishnan, executive vice-president and chief technology officer at TCS. “We believe the interplay between smart cities and industries will generate ‘innovation at the intersection,’ a core TCS philosophy. I am excited about the Urban Data Centre at the School of Cities, close to our collaboration hub, TCS Pace Port Toronto. I am sure this will offer deep insights for better citizen and customer experiences.”

“It's all about making good decisions,” adds Fox. “And to make good decisions, you need to be aware of what data exists and where.”

Being smart about smart cities: �Թϱ��'s Mariana Valverde explores the possibilities and pitfalls

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 16:47:57 +0000

Being smart about smart cities: �Թϱ��'s Mariana Valverde explores the possibilities and pitfalls

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 01/28/2021 - 11:47

Cutline

(photo by Abstract Aerial Art via Getty Images)

Chris Sasaki

Topic

Our Community

Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies

Cities

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Law

Geography and Planning

Smart Cities

In Iqaluit, Edmonton, Guelph, Montreal, Toronto and other cities and towns across Canada, residents, governments and corporations are navigating the promising and perilous landscape of “smart cities.”

Smart cities integrate hardware, software, cameras and sensing technologies into infrastructure to enable the collection of vast amounts of data that can be used to optimize energy use, garbage collection and other services. The data can also be used to enable urban planning and municipal decision-making.

Smart Cities: Digital Dreams, Corporate Designs examines these digital communities and the issues they raise around urban planning, corporate involvement and privacy.

The book’s co-editor is Mariana Valverde, a professor emerita at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies in the Faculty of Arts & Science, with cross appointments to the department of geography and planning and the Faculty of Law.

Valverde and her co-editor Alexandra Flynn, an assistant professor of law from the University of British Columbia, as well as other experts, will be taking part in a live, online discussion about smart cities organized by the Faculty of Arts & Science’s Centre for Ethics on Jan. 29.

Writer Chris Sasaki recently spoke with Valverde about the book and the issues it tackles.

What is a typical beneficial innovation found in smart cities?

It’s very common for cities nowadays to purchase technology that will help to moderate traffic flow. So, you can have a camera on a traffic light and the camera can send information back to some data centre. And the system lets you alter the timing of the traffic lights depending on the time of day so that traffic flows more efficiently.

It’s easy to see why city officials would be interested in an innovation like that. It can be very helpful to residents. However, the challenge is that there are many different things – not just traffic flow – that make a city more efficient, sustainable and livable.

How should a city decide what those innovations will be? Who decides what’s most important?

These are key questions. What kind of needs assessment takes place? Who starts the process? And who controls the process? When cities don't prioritize what they want or what their needs are, there’s the danger of a company coming in and selling technology to them which can then result in the city being dependent on a private company and the city’s needs not being met.

Are there initiatives in Canada that can serve as an example of how to do it right?

When Montreal initiated their smart city challenge, it started with a democratic discussion about priorities. They asked people: What are the most important needs that must be met? And one of the things they heard was that food security wasn’t equal everywhere in the city. In some neighbourhoods, there’s a great selection of food that’s readily available. But there are also many neighbourhoods that are “food deserts” that lack access to fresh food. And so, having understood that food was a priority, Montreal came up with a system that helped identify food deserts. And with a fleet of smart vehicles – though not driverless ones – they could better distribute fresh food from nearby farms to specific neighbourhoods. So the innovation solved a problem that citizens themselves identified. And it was done in a way that there are no surveillance or privacy issues.

What are the issues around surveillance and privacy?

We have a couple of chapters in our book that deal with that. There can be all sorts of data and surveillance problems. But it’s worth pointing out that they're not significantly different from the data mining and surveillance problems that come with simply owning a smart phone.

Yes, there are dangers – especially when cities don't own the data and don't control it. And in the vast majority of cases, data isn't even stored in Canada. But that, too, isn’t a problem specific to smart cities.

What else should we be thinking about when we think about smart cities?

In the introduction to the book, we point out that, as a northern country, Canada should be leading the way in providing broadband access everywhere before putting resources into technology for small areas of highly urbanized and privileged parts of the country. In fact, my co-editor Alexandra Flynn – who is a lawyer who grew up in Nunavut and is an expert on Indigenous rights – says in her chapter that broadband access could be considered as a federal duty under the agreement that created Nunavut.

Paying attention to northern and Indigenous communities should be a priority. And we think that's a contribution that Canada can make to the global discussion on smart cities – a more democratic conversation about prioritizing infrastructure needs and infrastructure projects.

Right now, Canada is making a point of providing the COVID-19 vaccine to Indigenous and northern communities. If we can do that for the vaccine, maybe we can do that for basic internet access, which is a vital, much longer-term need.

From smart cities to Indigenous culture and classical music: Check out these January events

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 17:41:17 +0000

From smart cities to Indigenous culture and classical music: Check out these January events

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 01/07/2019 - 12:41

Cutline

(photo by Laura Pedersen)

Angela Gu

Topic

City & Culture

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Alumni

Artificial Intelligence

Centre for Ethics

Centre for Indigenous Studies

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

Rotman School of Management

Welcome back! The start of a new year naturally invites discussions about the future – and, at the University of Toronto, the subjects range from technology to medicine to the city.

Here are some of the events happening in and around �Թϱ�� in January:

Jan. 8

“Why Smart Cities are maybe so 2017” is the name of a discussion at �Թϱ��’s Transportation Research Institute. As Sidewalk Labs' Quayside development in Toronto gains international attention, key urban theorists discuss what the project involving the Google sister company means for innovation in urban mobility and for social relations in the city.

The integration of artificial intelligence into medical practice and diagnostics is on the agenda at this talk at the Centre for Ethics, with Sunit Das, Vinyas Harish and Felipe Morgado of �Թϱ��'s Faculty of Medicine.

Jan. 9

Indigenous Elder Wendy Phillips welcomes those who want to explore Indigenous knowledge systems, culture, healing and teachings at the January Indigenous Learning Circle. This evening of community building, food and song takes place at �Թϱ�� Scarborough.

Jan. 16

Watch teams of emerging classical music composers and performers compete at songSLAM, which premieres new music and has composers compete for cash prizes. Teams present a new song for voice and piano in any language while the audience votes for the winners. Presented by Women on the Verge in partnership with �Թϱ�� Voice Studies and the �Թϱ�� New Music Festival.

Data security and public policy are the topics of this talk by John Chen, BlackBerry's CEO and executive chairman, in conversation with McKinsey & Co.'s John Kelleher, who is also a senior fellow at �Թϱ��'s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at �Թϱ��. This event is co-hosted by the Munk School and Rotman School of Management.

Jan. 18

Hear about the contemporary rhetorics, pre-histories and politics of the smart city phenomenon at the Urban IQ Test Symposium. The keynote panel is Jan. 18, followed by symposium panels the next day – all part of the Home and Away lecture series at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.

Jan. 20

Enjoy a break from the city with a day of food and fun up at Hart House Farm. Learn the art of pie-making and enjoy the property’s facilities, including trails, ponds and a wood-fired sauna.

Jan. 23

Dress in your most colourful outfit and come to the annual Rainbow Tie Gala, where �Թϱ�� Scarborough celebrates its vibrant community of LGBTQIA2S+ and supporters. The night of performances, guest speakers, activities, food, drinks, and dancing is open to all, no RSVP required.

Hear about the ethics of regulating fake news and freedom of expression at this talk by Étienne Brown, a visiting postdoctoral fellow at �Թϱ��’s Centre for Ethics.

Jan. 24

Mindfest is a free mental health and wellness fair on �Թϱ��'s downtown campus that is open to the public. Aiming to increase awareness of mental health and mental illness, as well as providing resources and services, the fair includes fun workshops, informative exhibits and inspiring speakers like Tony George, a �Թϱ�� professor of psychiatry who will be talking about cannabis legalization and psychiatric disorders.

See some ghostly hijinks on stage at the revenge-filled comedy, Blithe Spirit, opening today and running until Feb. 3 at �Թϱ�� Mississauga’s Theatre Erindale.

Jan. 25

Taste what Toronto has to offer at Winterlicious, running from Jan. 25 to Feb. 7. Gallery Grill at Hart House is among the participating restaurants, offering their three-course prix fixe menu that serves up dishes with local ingredients.

Jan. 26

Students and recent graduates are invited to attend the annual Next Steps conference, a day of career exploration panels and networking opportunities on the downtown campus. With industry panels and discussions on internships, PhD pathways and more, kick-start the rest of your life.

Jan. 30

“We All Belong: Creating Spaces for Dialogue & Change in Health Care” is the name of a conference at �Թϱ��’s Faculty of Medicine. The focus is on the roles of diversity and inclusion in health care, with a keynote presentation by �Թϱ�� alumna Nanky Rai. ASL interpretation is provided.

Urban experts from �Թϱ�� and India share city building know-how

Romi Levine — Wed, 17 May 2017 19:47:51 +0000

Urban experts from �Թϱ�� and India share city building know-how

Romi Levine Wed, 05/17/2017 - 15:47

Cutline

Thousands of commuters use the Bandra Skywalk daily in Mumbai. �Թϱ�� faculty are attending a Smart Cities conference in Mumbai this week, tackling the country's rapid urbanization (photo by Ritesh Uttamchandani/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

Torontonians might grumble about the consequences of their city’s rapid growth, but its growing pains pale in comparison to India’s massive urbanization.

University of Toronto cities experts, including Mark Fox, distinguished professor of urban systems engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, and Enid Slack, director of the Institute on Municipal Finance & Governance at the Munk School of Global Affairs, are in India this week to apply their city building knowledge to challenges India’s cities are facing.

They’ll be taking part in the Future of Smart Cities workshop in Mumbai from May 18 to 19 – an event in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay, Tata Trusts and the Ontario government. The workshop is taking place alongside Municipalika, an international urban conference for urban experts and professionals.

Visit and chat with Oberoi high school students about UofT with Enid Slack from @imfgtoronto pic.twitter.com/Zf0FJ44c64
— Shauna Brail (@shaunabrail) May 16, 2017

“Our urban experts are not just urban experts for Toronto – they're international experts,” says Shauna Brail, �Թϱ��’s presidential adviser on urban engagement and director of the urban studies program, who is also participating in Future of Smart Cities.

�Թϱ�� has a longstanding relationship with India that continues to grow and impact both countries, says Brail.

“We can learn quite a bit by meeting with others,” says Brail. “It enhances both �Թϱ�� faculty research expertise and networks while at the same time, they can talk about ideas, developments, initiatives and technologies that may in fact work in an Indian context – I do think it's really reciprocal.”

Follow �Թϱ�� activities in India this week on Twitter

In Canada, 83 per cent of the population live in urban centres compared to 33 per cent in India, according to Statistics Canada and UN World Urban Prospects.

“The proportion of their population is so much less urbanized than in Canada but they actually have far greater numbers of people living in cities,” says Brail.

India has 59 cities with over a million people, five of which have over ten million, and that number is growing, she says.

Graphic by Daniela Trapani

“The scale of India’s urbanization is on par with countries like China and Brazil. What distinguishes their growth is their unique historical, cultural, political and economic context,” says Fox. “While the theories and methods developed by �Թϱ�� faculty are relevant to India, the underlying question is how we adapt them to work in India.”

�Թϱ�� will be working with IIT Bombay and Tata Trusts to strengthen its partnership with cities in India, starting with Mumbai and then expanding beyond. This will engage faculty from various disciplines from both countries and expand to include a diverse range of institutional partners.

“The faculty that are presenting at the workshop represent a small sample of faculty who have insights of relevance to India’s city builders,” Fox says.

�Թϱ�� team off to Surat to meet with smart city officials @uoftdaniels @global_uoft @UofTCities @municipalika @tatatrusts @shaunabrail pic.twitter.com/8mmaAuLg1f
— Robert Wright (@wright1000) May 15, 2017

�Թϱ�� has also helped alumni like Ayushman Banerjee, gain perspective on India’s urban growth. Originally from India, Banerjee came to �Թϱ�� as an international student where he completed his undergrad in urban studies and sociology and a master’s degree in public policy.

He returned to India after his studies and now works in Chennai for Okapi Research & Advisory, consulting on urban development projects.

“On a fundamental level the �Թϱ�� experience – both undergraduate and graduate – has helped foster and hone my creativity, perceptiveness and social skills, all of which are critical to navigating a multi-stakeholder urban environment characterized by rapidly changing socio-economic, political, and environmental dynamics and problems,” says Banerjee, who will also be attending Future of Smart Cities.

In Nepal, Banerjee helped to introduce more sustainable building materials after an earthquake devastated the region in 2015. He has also helped small- and medium-sized businesses in Chennai build structures that are more resilient to flooding.

India’s urbanism is much more complex than Toronto’s, says Fox.

“India has its own unique political system and bureaucracy that affects their ability to change things, massive poverty, and as in all large cities, huge affordable housing challenges,” Fox says.

This makes it harder to navigate, adds Banerjee.

“Solutions you come to – environmental, social, economic – are often a product of insurgencies, protest movements or negotiations amongst different groups, accommodating different people's feelings, religious sentiments and cultural proclivities,” Banerjee says. “There are so many different layers here.”

Frontier City: �Թϱ��’s Shawn Micallef takes on populism and potential in Toronto

Romi Levine — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 17:00:32 +0000

Frontier City: �Թϱ��’s Shawn Micallef takes on populism and potential in Toronto

Romi Levine Thu, 03/09/2017 - 12:00

Cutline

Shawn Micallef's new book ‘Frontier City: Toronto on the Verge of Greatness’ explores what's behind the rise of populism in Toronto (photo by Romi Levine)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

Before Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, before the United Kingdom voted in favour of Brexit, there was Rob Ford.

The late former mayor of Toronto made it clear that populism was alive and well in Canada. But what drew people to become loyal followers of Ford Nation?

That’s what Shawn Micallef is exploring in his new book Frontier City: Toronto on the Verge of Greatness.

Micallef is an author, co-founder of Spacing Magazine, a Toronto Star columnist and a lecturer at University College and Innis College at University of Toronto.

“When you're downtown, it's very easy to be seduced by the prosperity of this place with cranes in the sky,” Micallef said at a book launch on Tuesday at Innis Town Hall. “There's a lot of Toronto that doesn't get to participate necessarily in all of that prosperity and all of that Sesame Street urbanism.”

Micallef was joined by Shauna Brail, �Թϱ��’s presidential adviser on urban engagement and director of the urban studies program, who moderated the event, as well as Jennifer Pagliaro, Toronto Star city hall reporter and former city council candidates Alejandra Bravo and Keegan Henry-Mathieu – who were both interviewed for the book.

Frontier City tells the story of Toronto’s neighbourhoods often neglected by downtown-centric politicians through conversations with 12 former non-incumbent City Hall candidates on walks around their wards.

“What was great about underdog candidates – people who were challenging power – was they were critiquing power. They’re not trying to hold on to it,” said Micallef. “They're a lot freer to come up with ideas, to talk about the future potential of the city – what’s wrong with it and where it's going. That kind of liberation of thought was a fun thing to explore.”

Panelists at the Frontier City book launch, from left to right, Jennifer Pagliaro, Alejandra Bravo, Keegan Henry-Mathieu and Shauna Brail (photo by Romi Levine)

Henry-Mathieu, a Ward 7 candidate, said he enjoyed reflecting on his neighbourhood with Micallef.

“It was the first opportunity for me to really walk around and see the neighbourhood differently – to be able to make that connection between the greatness of our people and the potential of our neighbourhoods.”

It’s important for all Torontonians to remember that different people experience the city in different ways, said Bravo, who was a candidate in Ward 17.

“It's important to challenge our generalized assumptions about how inclusive and diverse our city is,” she said.

“For so many people, they've only ever known low wages, high unemployment, really expensive housing – this generates a sense of insecurity and fear about the future. That's what a lot of our neighbours are contending with.”

The danger comes when we think we’re immune to the discourses the United States has been confronted by, she said.

“We have a tendency to mythologize Canadian exceptionalism,” she said.

If City Hall continues to brush these issues aside, Toronto runs the risk of electing another Ford-like leader, said Micallef.

“These looming crises of being left out of the prosperity that a lot of people in the city enjoy means it's going to come back,” he said. “There's no one on the radar yet, but if a populist leader with the magical charisma that Rob Ford had...if another person like that comes along, they'll be unstoppable.”

But Micallef’s message is also hopeful, said Pagliaro who cited an exerpt from the book that reads: “We're always longing for a city we don't allow ourselves to have.”

“It is both an urgent callout but also something that's very hopeful,” she said.

From �Թϱ�� to Ishinomaki: future city builder David Wang embraces Japan’s DIY spirit

Romi Levine — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 20:47:44 +0000

From �Թϱ�� to Ishinomaki: future city builder David Wang embraces Japan’s DIY spirit

Romi Levine Mon, 03/06/2017 - 15:47

Cutline

�Թϱ�� alumnus David Wang has learned everything from furniture building to marketing at Ishinomaki Labs (photo courtesy of David Wang)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

City & Culture

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Faculty of Arts & Science

They're the new generation of Toronto city builders.

Meet the ambitious University of Toronto students and recent grads poised to become big players in shaping the city’s identity and contributing to its growth.

This ongoing series from Romi Levine, who covers the city beat for �Թϱ��, shares their stories.

After an earthquake in 2011 ravaged Japan, the small city of Ishinomaki was in ruins. Over 3,000 people were dead, and more than 50,000 buildings were either damaged or destroyed.

Out of the rubble came a small furniture workshop called Ishinomaki Laboratory, founded by Tokyo-based architect Keiji Ashizawa. The lab's focus was to teach residents how to fix their houses and build their own furniture, helping to restore normality and rebuild the city.

University of Toronto alumnus David Wang learned about Ishinomaki Laboratory in 2015 during his final year of university when he was studying abroad in Tokyo.

“It's an authentic story of how a community used basic tools to slowly pick themselves up,” says Wang, who majored in Asia-Pacific studies and East Asian studies at �Թϱ��'s Munk School of Global Affairs.

Wang began his forays into Asia as an undergrad with brief trips abroad. He participated in a Woodsworth Summer Abroad course taught in Shanghai, and in his third year, he went on one of the Faculty of Arts & Science's international course module (ICM) trips, travelling to China’s Yanbian Autonomous Prefecture. (See a blog about the trip.) He also travelled to Taiwan to film a documentary with fellow student and filmmaker Betty Xie (also supported by the Faculty of Arts & Science) and in 2014 he spent a year abroad at Waseda University.

He was supported by the Dr. David Chu Scholarship and the Northrop Frye Centre Undergraduate Award. The latter award subsidized research trips to the devastated Tohoku region, where Wang learned about community-based, grassroots initiatives started after the 2011 disaster for local and regional revitalization

After interning with Ishinomaki in the summer of 2015, he was hired hired full time a year later.

The company has since evolved to become a profitable furniture company that sells mostly minimalistic wooden items. As a project manager, Wang plays a big part in helping Ishinomaki expand internationally.

“The overseas expansion was a good fit for my skills. It was something I felt like I could immediately contribute to,” he says.

The company only has five full-time staff so Wang has had to become a jack-of-all-trades. Not only is Wang taking on international distribution, he’s also Ishinomaki’s marketer and translator. He’s even become adept in the workshop – learning how to build, drill, sand and pack furniture.

Wang says he has a new appreciation for hands-on work.

“Right now, at least in North America, what's really popular is tech-literacy like coding,” he says. “Woodworking, working with your hands – I see it as old-school programming using these tools. You’re making stuff through a series of logical processes, and you're shooting for a finished product to solve something. It’s design thinking.”

Ishinomaki Laboratory is still loyal to its do-it-yourself roots – it continues to hold workshops in the city and all over Asia.

This past weekend, Wang was in Singapore running a stool-building workshop for the city’s Design Week. At the end of the month, the lab is heading to the Philippines to teach residents of a gentrifying Manila neighbourhood how to build furniture.

“We're working with these people to see if what we learned in Ishinomaki and the spirit of DIY can be transmitted as a cultural exchange,” Wang says. “It’s a worldwide movement.”

Wang says he wouldn’t have pursued job opportunities in Japan were it not for his time studying abroad.

“It's good to have these kinds of experiences when you're young because you still have a malleable mindset, and it really can expand your mind to what’s possible,” he says. “It was a desire to actualize the knowledge I gained in the classroom – put some meat around it.”

The chance to learn drew Wang to Japan, but Ishinomaki Laboratory is what convinced him to stick around.

“I'm a bit of an idealist at heart,” he says. “I don't really think I'm selling furniture, I'm selling the story. I'm presenting the story to consumers.”

�Թϱ�� experts' creative solution to Toronto's housing problems: laneway homes

Romi Levine — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 14:49:02 +0000

�Թϱ�� experts' creative solution to Toronto's housing problems: laneway homes

Romi Levine Fri, 03/03/2017 - 09:49

Cutline

Award-winning architect and �Թϱ�� Professor Brigitte Shim lives in a laneway house in Leslieville (photo by Romi Levine)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

On Location

Smart Cities

Sustainable Cities

Subheadline

“What happens in architecture schools should not be seen as a project... but as a way of projecting a different future for our cities”

Twenty-five years ago, award-winning architect Brigitte Shim was scoping out a location to build her home.

“It was a derelict lot with six abandoned cars, and weeds that were shoulder height,” she says.

Shim, a professor at University of Toronto at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, decided the laneway in what is now Leslieville was the perfect space to design and build her dream home.

“In the end, I felt it was a really amazing experience to actually have gone through, not only the design process but the municipal approval process,” she says. “After building it and living in it, I actually thought that it was a really interesting territory for future densification in our cities.”

Today, laneway housing is seeing a renewal.

As housing prices and the cost to rent in Toronto continue to rise, architects like Shim, city councillors, community groups and the University of Toronto are exploring different ways to make the city more liveable and sustainable – and laneways have been a popular starting point.

�Թϱ�� is hoping to build around 50 laneway houses in the Huron-Sussex neighbourhood – across the street from Robarts Library. While it’s still in the planning stages, the university hopes to kick-start a pilot project by 2018 to build two laneway houses in the alley located just west of Huron Street and north of Glen Morris Street.

“It provides a different texture to the neighbourhood. Because these units will be smaller, it does add to a range of options for housing so not just in the Victorian homes that are scattered through the neighbourhood but also the opportunity for smaller-scale and more affordable living,” says Christine Burke, director of campus and facilities planning at �Թϱ��.

According to the Laneway Project, there are 2,400 publicly-owned laneways in Toronto, stretching over 250 kilometres. While there are a few laneway houses, most of these narrow streets are lined with graffiti-covered garages and garbage bins. Building a home in a laneway is only currently permitted on a case-by-case basis by the city, and it could take a while to get the right permits.

City Councillor Ana Bailão for Ward 18 and Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon for Ward 32 are working with community groups Evergreen CityWorks and Lanescape to explore different policy options to make laneway housing more widespread.

“Together as a group we're trying to change the conversation and push forward recommendations to the City of Toronto on how to make laneway suites doable in the city,” says Jo Flatt, �Թϱ�� alumna and senior project manager at Evergreen.

The university is working closely with the Huron-Sussex Residents Organization, the City of Toronto, Evergreen and Baird Sampson Neuert Architects to ensure that all parties are involved in the vision for the neighbourhood’s future.

“There's a profound understanding of the need to do something with lanes throughout the city, and this is a good place to start and show how it can be successfully done. That's our hope,” says Andy Vice, vice-president of the Huron-Sussex Residents Organization. “It's a chance to shine a light and lead by example.”

From left to right, Huron-Sussex Residents Organization members Béatrice Lego, Julie Mathien and Andy Vice (photo by Romi Levine)

The neighbourhood has a high turnover rate because a large proportion of residents are students, and visiting faculty members and their families. Members of the Residents Organization hope new housing options will allow residents to stay longer either as homeowners or on longer-term leases.

“If there's more housing, there won't be the imperative to keep moving people through,” says Julie Mathien, president of the Residents Organization.

Shim hopes more neighbourhoods in Toronto embrace laneway housing.

“Development doesn't mean tearing down all the buildings and starting from scratch. As homeowners need more space, more flexibility, it's something that can be additive and doesn't need to be a razing of the block,” she says.

Other cities around the world including Vancouver and London, England, have already embraced laneway housing, creating models Toronto can emulate, says Shim.

�Թϱ��’s architecture talent can play a big role in shaping the way we think about housing, she says.

“What happens in architecture schools should not be seen as a project, a hypothetical situation, but as a way of projecting a different future for our cities,” says Shim. “We can tackle big questions like this and keep pushing on them. Student projects become real projects where we actually can reshape the future of our cities.”

What is public transit's effect on the environment? A �Թϱ�� researcher crunches the numbers

ullahnor — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 15:30:56 +0000

What is public transit's effect on the environment? A �Թϱ�� researcher crunches the numbers

ullahnor Wed, 03/01/2017 - 10:30

Cutline

Professor Shoshanna Saxe analyses the environmental and social impact of large public transit infrastructure projects, equipping policymakers with data as they decide which investments to make (photo by Tyler Irving)

Tyler Irving

Author legacy

Tyler Irving

Topic

Public Transportation

Greenhouse Gas

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Sustainable Cities

Smart Cities

Subheadline

The latest extension of the London Underground “turned out to be a bit of a mixed bag,” and Toronto's Sheppard subway line initially struggled to provide greenhouse gas savings with low ridership

The benefits of building public transit include reducing greenhouse gas emissions, relieving traffic congestion and expanding a growing city. Yet each transit project is unique, and often the immediate environmental benefits can be a mixed bag.

Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering Shoshanna Saxe crunches the numbers on existing infrastructure to provide key decision-makers with a reality check on the environmental and social impacts of today’s transit investments.

“Engineers usually aren’t involved in policymaking, and policymakers usually aren’t involved in engineering,” says Saxe. “I’m trying to bridge that gap.”

Read about her work at the Toronto Star

Saxe joined �Թϱ��'s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering in August 2016.

Before completing her PhD at the University of Cambridge, she spent three years at a major consulting engineering firm in Toronto, working on projects such as the Eglinton Crosstown transit line and the Toronto-York Spadina subway extension.

“I love design – it’s amazing,” she says. “However, when you’re building things that people are going to use, you have to stay well within the limits of what you know for sure. I was curious about questions that we didn’t already know the answers to.”

During her PhD, Saxe conducted a detailed analysis of the London Underground’s extension of the Jubilee Line, which was completed in 1999. She gathered data on the greenhouse gases produced during construction and operation of the line, then used transit and land-use surveys to estimate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions attributable to people using the line and living near it. By combining the two, she could calculate the net environmental benefit of that transit project.

“It turned out to be a bit of a mixed bag,” she says. “If you make some optimistic assumptions, you could say that it broke even in terms of greenhouse gas emissions around 2012 or 2013. If you are more pessimistic, you’re looking at a greenhouse gas payback of twice as long.”

Saxe says that the Jubilee Line extension sees approximately 175 million trips per year. On projects where ridership is low, the environmental payback period can be much longer.

Saxe also studied the Sheppard subway line in Toronto and found it initially struggled to provide greenhouse gas savings with a much lower ridership. Over time, the Sheppard Subway Line has benefited from the decreasing emissions associated with electricity in Ontario. The results of the Sheppard Subway study were recently published in the journal Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment.

“If you’re at Don Mills station, and you want to go north, east, or even southeast, the network doesn’t serve you yet,” she says. “We still see people from that area driving 70 per cent of the time so unfortunately there’s just a lot less opportunity for savings.”

Saxe says that her dream project would be to follow a major piece of infrastructure such as a new transit line from conception through construction and use for 20 or 30 years.

“I want to answer questions like: why did we originally build it, how did we originally build it, how did it perform over its lifetime, how did we maintain it and what did it need?” she says. “If we know how our present decision-making affects things decades from now, we can make better decisions.”

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What is public transit's effect on the environment? A �Թϱ��� researcher crunches the numbers

Read about her work at the Toronto Star

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Read more about TCS’ support of the Urban Data Centre in the Toronto Sun (paywall )

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What is public transit's effect on the environment? A �Թϱ�� researcher crunches the numbers