Tour Leader: Zack Taylor, University of Western OntarioDowntown east redevelopment tour that begins at Union Station and heads through St. Lawrence, King East, Corktown, and culminates at the Pan Am Games/Canary District site. Drinks to follow at the Distillery District. The tour unpacks Toronto early industrial history and layers on eras of more recent redevelopment. Once the site of the 19th-century colonial assembly, the eastern flank of the central business district was for most of the 20th century a mix of industry and worker housing and had by the 1960s become dominated by brownfields and parking lots. Over the past five decades the area has been incrementally redeveloped, sometimes as a result of planning, sometimes in spite of planning, and sometimes as a result of “unplanning” — the relaxation of land-use regulation. These areas exemplify the complex interplay of public- and private-sector-led regeneration in the context of inner-city deindustrialization. As such they embody the ambivalent nature of the Toronto’s post-1970 success story: an urban core that (unlike many North American cities) is densely populated and commercially and culturally vibrant, yet whose social mix is challenged by rapid social and economic change.
The tour moves through five areas that represent different modes of urban regeneration. (1) St. Lawrence was comprehensively redeveloped by government in the 1970s as a mixed-use, mid-rise residential neighborhood of public, co-op, and market housing. (2) King St. East’s transformation from a decaying 19th-century commercial strip to a condominium corridor was enabled by the city’s adoption of permissive zoning. (3) Rapidly gentrifying Corktown contains some of the oldest housing in Toronto. (4) The Canary District is a clean-slate megaproject: a new mid-rise residential neighborhood initially constructed to house athletes during the 2015 Pan-Am Games. (5) The tour’s end-point is the Distillery District, a privately developed festival marketplace located in a historic distillery complex. We will cap off the tour with an optional visit to one of only two North American sake distillers.
Note: The total walking distance will be approximately 1.5 miles (2 km). Participants are encouraged to bring comfortable clothing, walking shoes, scarfs, and gloves as necessary. There is a streetcar stop near the tour’s endpoint.
Maximum capacity: 20 personsMeans of travel: WalkingDate: Saturday, April 7Approximate time period: 1:00pm—4:30pm or 5:00pmMeeting time: 12:45pm in Sheraton Hotel LobbyTicket Price: $26.00 USDClick here to purchase tickets for Tour 3: Downtown East Redevelopment- Planning, Unplanning, and the Regeneration of the East Downtown!
