Accidental City: The Transformation of Toronto - Hardcover
Traces the development of Toronto over the past thirty years, discussing the city's different regions, its recent history, urban planning, and economic development.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
From the Inside Flap:
With photos by Steven Evans.
Northrop Frye once called Toronto "a good place to mind your own business," and until the 1960s that was about the best that could be said for it. Toronto had no street life, no sidewalk cafes, no festivals, no downtown gathering place. It was a city of sober reticence.
"Accident," writes Robert Fulford "plays a role in the building of any city. It has played a major role in the transformation of Toronto." That transformation began with the opening in 1965 of the New City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square. Since then, Toronto has changed from a private city, seemingly without a collective identity, to a public one - a transformation that came about through the series of (mostly) happy accidents chronicled in this vastly entertaining urban tour.
Fulford, who grew up beside Lake Ontario and has lived in Toronto all his life, writes brilliantly about the city?s architecture, its commercial development, its ravines, its monuments, its man-made underground, and its people - from Jane Jacobs, whose iconoclastic ideas on urban planning have had a profoundly positive effect on Toronto (where she ended up living mostly by accident), to Fred Gardiner, whose controversial expressway remains an eyesore decades after it was built.
Even the most knowledgeable Torontonian will be informed and entertained by Fulford?s graceful erudition. Visitors will find the book an invaluable introduction to a city viewed by foreigners as a model of livable urbanity - and by many Canadians as the very symbol of smug self-satisfaction. Whatever your view of Toronto, it will be challenged and deepened by this original, insightful, and thoroughly engaging book.
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author:
Northrop Frye once called Toronto "a good place to mind your own business," and until the 1960s that was about the best that could be said for it. Toronto had no street life, no sidewalk cafes, no festivals, no downtown gathering place. It was a city of sober reticence.
"Accident," writes Robert Fulford "plays a role in the building of any city. It has played a major role in the transformation of Toronto." That transformation began with the opening in 1965 of the New City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square. Since then, Toronto has changed from a private city, seemingly without a collective identity, to a public one - a transformation that came about through the series of (mostly) happy accidents chronicled in this vastly entertaining urban tour.
Fulford, who grew up beside Lake Ontario and has lived in Toronto all his life, writes brilliantly about the city?s architecture, its commercial development, its ravines, its monuments, its man-made underground, and its people - from Jane Jacobs, whose iconoclastic ideas on urban planning have had a profoundly positive effect on Toronto (where she ended up living mostly by accident), to Fred Gardiner, whose controversial expressway remains an eyesore decades after it was built.
Even the most knowledgeable Torontonian will be informed and entertained by Fulford?s graceful erudition. Visitors will find the book an invaluable introduction to a city viewed by foreigners as a model of livable urbanity - and by many Canadians as the very symbol of smug self-satisfaction. Whatever your view of Toronto, it will be challenged and deepened by this original, insightful, and thoroughly engaging book.
From the Hardcover edition.
Robert Fulford has devoted much of his long, critically acclaimed writing life to culture and society, art and architecture, and politics and power. A nationally respected storyteller, essayist and critic, he has won many National Magazine Awards for his articles and broadcasts and has been honored with the Order of Canada and the Prix d’honneur of the Canadian Conference of the Arts. Former editor of Saturday Night for 19 years, he now writes a weekly column for The National Post. He is also a frequent contributor to Toronto Life, Canadian Art, and CBC radio and television.
From the Hardcover edition.
From the Hardcover edition.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherReplica Books
- Publication date1999
- ISBN 10 0735101329
- ISBN 13 9780735101326
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages225
- Rating
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