City Building : Featured Stories

Is there much to learn from Toronto's experience with immigration? Lots, says the Cities of Migration project as it aims to share not just Toronto's ideas on successful immigration inclusion, but those of other cities around the world.

Even as it's entered the digital age, the Toronto Public Library has kept real live people at the heart of its enterprises so the world's biggest public library system continues to be a busy and crucial part of everyday Toronto life.

Diaspora Dialogues is creating a Toronto (& Canadian) literary scene that reflects one of the world's most diverse cities, helping its writers tell new stories that allow us understand ourselves better. At the same time, the program is feeding new kinds of work into the ever-growing body of Canadian Literature.

Toronto nonprofit developers Options for Homes fill a niche between market-based condominiums and traditional affordable housing by creating projects that are in the price range for people who might not otherwise be able to own their own home. In this Yonge Street Video we visit their new Village by High Park project in The Junction.

Toronto developers like Streetcar and BSaR are building residential buildings across the city that fill in the gaps. They aren't super-tall towers, and they aren't single family homes -- but they are the buildings that will tie this city together.

Makom wants to restore Kensington Market's robust Jewish culture with their participatory congregation. They hold services in members homes, artist studios and, guided by Jane Jacobs' adage that "new ideas need old buildings," in the historic Kiever synagogue.

Toronto-based director Katerina Cizek breaks new ground in the documentary format with Out My Window, a multi-media National Film Board project about the highrises we call home here in Toronto and around the world. Already the city-building project is nominated for an award at the Sheffield Doc Fest, and will be presented in installation form at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam this month.

Residential Fruit Pickers Not Far From the Tree want to harvest more than just Toronto's wasted fruit bounty with their first fundraiser tonight, part of their plan to turn their sustainability work into a sustainable organization.

The Light The Night project aims to increase safety and reduce electricity consumption by creating an unusual alliance between Toronto Police, hydro employees and a number of Toronto neighbourhoods.

Part of our series on neighbourhood strips and informal community centres, take a tour of the diverse and busy Peanut Plaza with Yonge Street's Bert Archer and Tanja Tiziana in both words and pictures.

Adding to Toronto's mix of ethnic neighbourhoods is Little Tibet, a relatively new addition to the Parkdale street scene. In this video, the Valunbisitsang family keeps both Tibetan food and music alive.

Green is the new bling: while building Regent Park's first multi-use residential building, part of a massive renewal and rebuild of the neighbourhood, The Daniels Corporation overturned conventional assumptions about what would sell in Toronto's condo market.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) embarks on a bold new plan for quicker mental health recovery by bringing patients and community together in a redesign of their main Toronto site on Queen West that aims to break down barriers. It's the first of its kind in Canada too.

Double Double Land in Kensington Market blurs the lines between art gallery, event venue, community hub and soon enough, international artist residency. How one second-floor studio apartment changed the face of the Toronto art scene, one Pay-What-You-Can event at a time.

The founder of multicultural Toronto-based and internationally successful film distribution company Mongrel Media is a practical idealist whose newest feature, Score, will open the Toronto International Film Festival next month.