A fascinating, well-researched tale of 21st-century urbanism set in Toronto.
Cohen’s debut nonfiction work chronicles a Toronto housing project’s makeover.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Cabbagetown South was home to some of Toronto’s poorest slums. In the 1940s, these slums were razed and replaced by a 69-acre public housing complex named Regent Park. The crime and poverty that afflicted the original site soon came to affect the new housing project, and in the early 21st century, a new plan was created to redevelop Regent Park as a mixed-use, mixed-income community. Cohen, a real estate developer and musician, was part of the team tasked with reenvisioning the neighborhood in a way that would work for both newcomers and long-time residents—who, temporarily displaced by the plan, were promised the right to return. “There were moments when we had no idea where the music would take us,” writes Cohen. “There were others in which the notes resonated in perfect harmony, reflecting hope, potential, and personal growth. Darker tones often took centre stage, reflecting anger, resentment, and a deep sadness for what had been lost.” This book records Cohen’s memories of the project, which spanned 18 years and three phases of revitalization. From creating pedestrian-friendly streets and new green spaces to fostering new economic and cultural energy, all while collaborating with residents and preserving the century-old history of the neighborhood, Cohen and his colleagues had their work cut out for them. The author writes in bubbly, problem-solving prose, outlining the peculiar challenges of designing a neighborhood to meet the needs of its many residents. Here, he describes when two locals wanted to start a cricket team. “There was, however, one small problem: there was no place to play cricket in Regent Park. Their practices and games were in eastern Scarborough—three bus and streetcar transfers away.” (Athletic fields were eventually installed.) Fans of urban planning and social housing policy will particularly enjoy this work, which includes many wonderful architectural illustrations and photographs. Given the length and the success of the project, this accessible in-depth account of how it came about is a great resource.
A fascinating, well-researched tale of 21st-century urbanism set in Toronto.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781774585054
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Page Two
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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