Robert Walter-Joseph
An urban planner and researcher unravelling the experiences of diverse populations in North American urban centres
Last Friday, I wrote about New York's Boro Taxi program and the larger battle between the taxi industry and Uber. In researching the blog post I learned about the way that New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) regulate Uber and other ridesharing services. It turns out that a lot can be learned about how to regulate these services in Ontario.
I've been in New York for the past couple of days. I had the occasion to wonder about how New York's Boro Taxi program is faring given the unrelenting rise of Uber in recent years. It's an interesting question in New York given the unique partnership between the municipal government and the cab companies
Monday while heading down the 401 on my trip back from Ottawa, I had plenty of time to listen to summer radio programming on the CBC. While listening to a program called The Dirt on Soil, I got to thinking, "how can food make our neighbourhoods better?" Here are three examples from cities in Canada.
As the sun sets every Sunday during the height of the summer in Toronto, people gather on a hill in Christie Pits. With blankets, drinks and snacks in hand, people kick back to enjoy a movie with hundreds of their neighbours. This park has long been a central place for the community and its history mirrors that of its community. So what of its future?
This is a stretch of storefronts along Bloor street near Christie Pits. Take a look at the signs on the storefronts. Notice anything? What can a laundromat, salon, drugstore and record shop tell us about this neighbourhood?
I had the chance to write a post on the LSE Politics and Policy blog with Mark Williamson, a colleague on the Generationed City research team. We review recent work by Canadian researchers Markus Moos and Pablo Mendez about the shifting dimensions of income in Canadian cities.
The researchers operationalize the concept of ‘suburban ways of living’ to break apart the idea of suburbs being rather homogenous districts located outside of central areas. They examine the relationship between these suburban ways of living and the changing dimensions of income in Canadian cities.
A map of social and material deprivation in Toronto. The Canadian Deprivation Index is based on measures of employment, education, income, marital status, living alone and single-parent families. High deprivation scores in the city's northeast and northwest are compounded by reduced transit provision, and lower levels of transit service. Also an inferior housing, fewer recreational opportunities and a lower quality public realm in these neighbourhoods contributes to health inequities and higher rates of chronic disease.
It was in a moment when I had stumbled outside of my usual territory that I found myself looking up at a high-rise in Toronto's inner suburbs. At present we contemplate and debate the progression of density throughout the city. But evidently, the city has a long history of density throughout its centre and periphery. But how common was this highrise form in suburban neighbourhoods in the past?
Increasingly we can describe the divisions of social space in cities not only by income, gender and race but also by age. Generationed City, a research project launched earlier this year, aims to understand the unique conditions influencing the housing experiences of young adults in cities across North America.
I'm on a train this afternoon heading out of Dublin en route to Galway. I spent 24 hours visiting Dublin for the first time. It's a great city. It ticks all the urbanist boxes.