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Reposted by Alex Bozikovic

Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 16h

Toronto’s civic square should be a place for people to come together. It can be - with some leadership and some followthrough. My column:

www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

Toronto deserves a civic space with heart. Why can’t it fix Nathan Phillips Square?

The ongoing attempts to fix the space in front of City Hall continue – 60 years after it was built

www.theglobeandmail.com

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 14h

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 16h

Case in point! bsky.app/profile/alex...

Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 16h

Toronto’s civic square should be a place for people to come together. It can be - with some leadership and some followthrough. My column:

www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

Toronto deserves a civic space with heart. Why can’t it fix Nathan Phillips Square?

The ongoing attempts to fix the space in front of City Hall continue – 60 years after it was built

www.theglobeandmail.com

1 2

Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 16h

Toronto’s civic square should be a place for people to come together. It can be - with some leadership and some followthrough. My column:

www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

Toronto deserves a civic space with heart. Why can’t it fix Nathan Phillips Square?

The ongoing attempts to fix the space in front of City Hall continue – 60 years after it was built

www.theglobeandmail.com

1 8 32

Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 16h

This applies 10x to the design and construction of public space. Endless missed opportunities.

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Reposted by Alex Bozikovic

Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 17h

Good thread about evolution of traffic planning in the heart of Bologna. I want to emphasize this particular post for Toronto. The city has lost the ability to plan higher order transit so municipal politicians need to stop spending all their effort on federal funding and start doing what they can.

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 18h

Pragmatism.

In a context where funding for mass transit projects was sorely lacking, the city didn't waste time on pipe dreams; instead, it acted on what it had control of and fiscal capacity for: bus service levels and patterns, allocation of street space, and traffic flow organization.

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Reposted by Alex Bozikovic

Stan Oklobdzija @stano.bsky.social · 17h

Not exaggerating when I say that SB 79, a bill making it easier to build housing near mass transit, is the most consequential piece of legislation that the Democratic Party has passed all year. Saying no to the worst people in our coalition proves we're serious about the future.

Joe Cohen @cohenhouse.bsky.social · 17h

WE DID IT!!!

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 1d

The near-complete Adisoke, Ottawa’s new central library. Presented without comment.

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 1d

Today in Ottawa: Library Archives Canada, Mathers Haldenby, 1967.

This is just the lobby. What a feast of details.

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Reposted by Alex Bozikovic

Jeremy Hopkin @jeremyhopkin.bsky.social · 1d

Photos taken at “The Grange,” Toronto, 112 years ago today - Oct. 9, 1913.

📸: City of Toronto Archives

#OnThisDay #otd #thegrange #grangepark #1910s #artgallery #artgalleryofontario #art #house #history #torontohistory #toronto #canada #jeremyhopkin

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Reposted by Alex Bozikovic

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 2d

repost this if an editor has ever saved you from yourself

violent alien @blipstress.bsky.social · 2d

An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 3d

AS+GG.

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 3d

Correction! 30m and 37m widths.

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 3d

Straight from 1986.

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 3d

The main street. 47m/154’ wide. One and half times the width of a Manhattan avenue. Lined by tall buildings on very large blocks. Just horrendous urbanism.

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 3d

Overscaled buildings, overscaled roads, big parks. like Canary wharf, but less interesting.

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 3d

The emerging vision for East Harbour. 👀

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 3d

We’ve been going around in circles for days and I have no idea what your specific proposal is. What degree of upzoning? Where? How do you imagine the effects of this? Why?

Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 3d

?

Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 3d

Arguably North York Centre.

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 3d

I would ask you again, what development pattern would you like to see precisely?

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 3d

You have it backwards. The highest demand is in the core, where development is not permitted on 90% of land. So the dev’t is displaced.

There is no logic to 50-storey towers at Eglinton and Kennedy. It remains to be seen how much of that stuff gets built or whether it’s “successful”

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 3d

Much of Central Toronto is predominantly single-family houses. These areas have declined in population and continue to do so.

Great transit, existing neighbourhood, amenities, negative population growth. Why is this not the target for infill?

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 3d

Central Toronto is the heart of the region’s infrastructure, economy, and culture. Also, by far, the most walkable area. It is *not* the whole city, but it is singularly important.

To acknowledge this is not snobbery; it is empirical observation.

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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 3d

Pushback on this idea from a veteran planner and scholar, seemingly suggesting more node planning. Which absolutely requires “forcing” the market and repressing growth in the core. And has never worked. bsky.app/profile/pame...

Pamela Blais @pamelablais.bsky.social · 4d

It’s not “forcing” growth - it’s no different than allowing new growth in Toronto. Remove the obstacles, zoning and otherwise, which exist in places like Mississauga too. So too does demand for housing, believe it or not. Target threshold areas near jobs, eg allow housing in business parks, for one.

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