New report shows York Region is a healthy and vital community

York’s Knowledge Mobilization (KMb) Unit, in partnership with the York Region Community Foundation (YRCF), has released its first Living in York Region Vital Signs report. Titled "Living in York Region: Our Community Check-up", the report presents context indicators for 12 issue areas and summarizes the opinions of more than 1,000 York Region residents who attended focus groups […]

City Institute researcher Simon Black on urban youth and the federal election

Which party speaks for urban youth this federal election? Over the past few weeks, media commentators have pointed to two important trends, wrote Simon Black, a graduate student researcher at The City Institute at York University, in the Toronto Star April 28: Polling suggests young people favour the Greens, Liberals and New Democrats: parties that […]

Two York Professors part of team creating art for St. Clair streetcar stops

From Yonge Street to Keele Street, 24 original artworks have been installed above the new streetcar shelters as part of Toronto’s St. Clair Avenue West Transit Improvement Project. Six of these installations – a quarter of the entire series – are the work of York University artists. This massive public art project had four separate […]

City Institute researchers say perceptions must shift for mixed-income neighbourhoods to work

If mixed-income neighbourhoods are to work, such as the one proposed for Lawrence Heights, there has to be a mental shift in the way people view renters, said a professor in York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies, wrote InsideToronto.com Jan. 6: “You can’t tell people the way to go is to own property,” said Roger […]

"In-Between City" neighbourhoods face poor services and rough justice

Last week was not a good one to be living in the “in-between city”, the term urbanists use to describe areas wedged between the outer suburbs – with their sprawling residential neighbourhoods – and the downtown core of office towers, condos and cultural institutions, wrote Simon Black, a graduate student in the City Institute at […]

Professor Roger Keil: Cutting Transit City could increase racialized poverty, social dislocation

Economic spinoff arguments for transit can be complex, wrote NOW Magazine April 29 in a story about efforts by Toronto Mayor David Miller to save the Transit City plan: If people use their cars less, for example, they may have more cash to spend on clothes or theatre tickets, but there might be less work […]