City Limits

Three books provide different insights into how Toronto has been made. One outlines a neighbourhood’s origins; another walks us through various streetscapes; the third charts the history of a long-running conflict between cars and bicycles. With differing perspectives and speeds, they all probe an essential question: How do we cultivate nurturing communities? Because with devastating homelessness, an affordability crisis, social isolation, loneliness, and the attendant mental distress, plus the erosion of generative conversation and, as many warn us, the demise of democracy, we desperately need wisdom on how to tend to the connectedness essential for individual health and collective thriving. Without human-to-human attachments, we are left to make our way through life alone, and that is proving to be a condition fraught with despair and disaster.

Richard White begins his history of the Beach with a warm, declarative description: “The Beaches is one of Toronto’s best...