By Derek Flack, blogTO
Founded in 2007, Jane’s Walk, the annual celebration of urban theorist and advocate Jane Jacobs, has grown into an international event that takes place in 68 cities across the world and involves over 400 guided walking tours. As the city where it all started, Toronto thankfully leads the way with over a 100 walks scheduled for the weekend of May 7 and 8th. Needless to say, there’s a lot to choose from. With that in mind, I’ve put together some of …

Dave Meslin leading City Idol contestants on a tour of City Hall’s second floor in May 2006.  Photo by HiMY SYeD.
By Jonathan Goldsbie, Spacing
An A+ way to sheepishly admit something of which you’re not proud is to put out a release at 4:16 on a Friday afternoon.  Hence, we can infer that the City is not terribly keen on the press picking up on the draconian new measures taking effect in just over a week’s time that will fundamentally alter the way that the public — advocates, lobbyists, …

By Mark Kuznicki, ChangecampTO
A huge thank you to our sponsors (Toronto Public Library, Peapod Studios, Samara Canada, Ascentum, Microsoft and OSSTF District 12), our volunteers and our participants for an incredible start to our project to create a civic engagement toolkit and a self-organizing movement of people who create spaces for civic discourse, community dialogue and citizen action.
The event was called ChangeCampTO: Designing a Civic Engagement Toolkit and it took place Tuesday, February 16th at the Bram and Bluma Appel Salon at the Toronto Reference Library.

The event was envisioned as an opportunity to engage a diverse …

By JUSTIN SKINNER, InsideToronto
With news that the dump at Moss Park will likely expand as soon as Monday, some local residents are doing what they can to divert waste away from the public space.
Moss Park’s basketball courts are currently piled high with trash, and with room running out in the enclosed space set aside as a temporary dump, the site will soon have to grow to encompass part of the soccer field, as well.
In hopes of minimizing the impact of waste in the park, some local residents have taken to …

By Tatiana, blogTO

What: The Human River Walk
When: 21 October, 12:30 – 6:00 p.m.
Where: starts at Christie Pitts Park, ends at Fort York
Do you have any blue items in your wardrobe? I hope you do, because they might come in handy this Sunday if you plan to join the Human River Walk organized by the Toronto Public Space Committee. The walk follows the path of the Garrison Creek, Toronto’s largest buried river, bringing the stream back to life, if only for one afternoon. The …

By Kevin Bracken, Torontoist
The Toronto Public Space Committee’s excellent new Municipal Elections website contains a veritable treasure trove of information about each candidate in the 2006 election (and a pretty sexy Google maps mashup).
The site also features sometimes-hilarious quotations from and anecdotes about our to-be-elected officials in poster format.
We have selected some gems from the site for your reading pleasure:
Ward 20: “[Adam Vaughan] is on record as wanting to gate alleyways in the ward, including Graffiti Alley, and ban the sale of art supplies to minors.”
Ward 19: “Joe [Pantalone] had no problem with …

It is the first day of the World Urban Forum. 6,000 people were expected. 8,000 registered. Even more are here.