“In Toronto, an unusually large number of high-rise apartments poke above the flat landscape many miles from downtown…this is a type of high density suburban development far more progressive and able to deal with the future than the endless sprawl of the US …” Buckminster Fuller, ‘68

Beyond Downtown

Much of the mythology surrounding Toronto is focused on “the city of neighbourhoods”; enabled by the City’s early rejection of modernism through citizen groups and the reform council. Yet what is perhaps of equal interest is the thoroughness and completeness in which Toronto accepted the modern project prior to this point. Between the late 1950’s through the 1970’s, Metro planning policies guided the rapid development of the region in a manor which can be described as rigorously ‘modern’. In what is perhaps the most significant phase of development period in our history, Metro’s boarders were quickly filled in with housing for millions. Today, within the boundaries of the new City of Toronto, the prewar fabric popularized by Jane Jacobs represents a minority within a City of predominantly modern conception.

One striking result of Metro’s modern planning was the proliferation of high density apartment towers. Metro planning promoted mixed density housing in the expanding suburbs, and called for high density housing along highways, arterials, industrial zones and ravines sites. Developers were more than happy to oblige. Toronto’s modern apartment boom peaked in the 1960’ and rivalled any other on the continent. By the end of what can be considered Toronto’s first boom in mass housing, complexes numbering nearly a thousand, and housing hundreds of thousands were spread throughout the region.

Guided by Metro and a CMHC land use requirement calling for as much as 70% open space, the ‘tower in the park’ became the predominant form. Some projects sought European expertise in planning and construction, such as City Park - the fist modern apartment complex in the city, (built only two years after Marseille), and Flemingdon Park, the City’s first apartment neighbourhood - modelled after ‘New Towns’ such as the Vallingby in Sweden.

Downtown land was cost prohibitive, and the process of assembling small lots was a bureaucratic mess. And as many of the downtown development proposals resulting in citizen opposition, the vast majority of apartment projects were suburban. Open space requirements were much more easily met on green-fields, and suburban boroughs offered attractive tax rates to both developers and tenants.

Similar in many respects to today’s buoyant condo market, a steady stream of young professionals were able to fuel a boom which satisfied both the goals of municipalities and developers. Tower after tower was erected to meet the market demand. Seas of bungalows were built in concert with hundreds of high density housing blocks in the expanding suburbs. The number of apartment high-rises built in this era match those of large Brazilian cities – though spread out over Metro’s 629 km2.



The distribution pattern of these highrise has resulted in suburbs of mixed density and form. Pockets of high density were created (...read more...)