This is a collection of essays focusing on the process of city-building in Canada. The authors weigh the relative broad social, economic and technological trends as they attempt to explain the shaping of this urban landscape.

Taking on the key issues in urban design, Shaping the City examines the critical ideas that have driven these themes and debates through a study of particular cities at important periods in their development. As well as retaining crucial discussions about cities such as Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Brasilia at particular moments in their history that exemplified the problems and themes at hand like the mega-city, the post-colonial city and New Urbanism, in this new edition the editors have introduced new case studies critical to any study of contemporary urbanism – China, Dubai, Tijuana and the wider issues of informal cities in the Global South. The book serves as both a textbook for classes in urban design, planning and theory and is also attractive to the increasing interest in urbanism by scholars in other fields. Shaping the City provides an essential overview of the range and variety of urbanisms and urban issues that are critical to an understanding of contemporary urbanism.

Critics have long voiced concerns about the wisdom of living in cities and the effects of city life on physical and mental health. For a century, planners have tried to meet these issues. John Sewell traces changes in urban planning, from the pre-Depression garden cities to postwar modernism and a revival of interest in the streetscape grid. In this far-ranging review, Sewell recounts the arrival of modern city planning with its emphasis on lower densities, limited access streets, segregated uses, and considerable green space. He makes Toronto a case history, with its pioneering suburban development in Don Mills and its other planned communities, including Regent Park, St Jamestown, Thorncrest Village, and Bramalea. The heyday of the modern planning movement was in the 1940s to the 1960s, and the Don Mills concept was repeated in spirit and in style across Canada. Eventually, strong public reaction brought modern planning almost to a halt within the city of Toronto. The battles centred on saving the Old City Hall and stopping the Spadina Expressway. Sewell concludes that although the modernist approach remains ascendant in the suburbs, the City of Toronto has begun to replace it with alternatives that work. This is a reflective but vigorous statement by a committed urban reformer. Few Canadians are better suited to point the way towards city planning for the future.

The federal government and its policies transform Canadian cities in myriad ways. Canada in Cities examines this relationship to better understand the interplay among changing demographics, how local governments and citizens frame their arguments for federal action, and the ways in which the national government uses its power and resources to shape urban Canada. Most studies of local governance in Canada focus on politics and policy within cities. The essays in this collection turn such analysis on its head, by examining federal programs, rather than municipal ones, and observing how they influence local policies and work with regional authorities and civil societies. Through a series of case studies - ranging from federal policy concerning Aboriginal people in cities, to the introduction of the federal gas tax transfer to municipalities, to the impact of Canada's emergency management policies on cities - the contributors provide insights about how federal politics influence the local political arena. Analyzing federal actions in diverse policy fields, the authors uncover meaningful patterns of federal action and outcome in Canadian cities. A timely contribution, Canada in Cities offers a comprehensive study of diverse areas of municipal public policy that have emerged in Canada in recent years.

Rising income inequality and concentrated poverty threaten the social sustainability of North American cities. Suburban growth endangers sensitive ecosystems, water supplies, and food security. Existing urban infrastructure is crumbling while governments struggle to pay for new and expanded services. Can our inherited urban governance institutions and policies effectively respond to these problems? In Shaping the Metropolis Zack Taylor compares the historical development of American and Canadian urban governance, both at the national level and through specific metropolitan case studies. Examining Minneapolis–St Paul and Portland, Oregon, in the United States, and Toronto and Vancouver in Canada, Taylor shows how differences in the structure of governing institutions in American states and Canadian provinces cumulatively produced different forms of urban governance. Arguing that since the nineteenth century American state governments have responded less effectively to rapid urban growth than Canadian provinces, he shows that the concentration of authority in Canadian provincial governments enabled the rapid adoption of coherent urban policies after the Second World War, while dispersed authority in American state governments fostered indecision and catered to parochial interests. Most contemporary policy problems and their solutions are to be found in cities. Shaping the Metropolis shows that urban governance encompasses far more than local government, and that states and provinces have always played a central role in responding to urban policy challenges and will continue to do so in the future.

As the federal government's recent 'New Deal for Cities' suggests, the importance of cities is now widely recognized. Large urban centres are seen at once as primary engines of the economy and as concentrations of societal problems: poverty, homelessness, criminality, environmental degradation. Calls are thus mounting not only for the allocation of more resources but for the adoption of new policies, grounded in urban realities, that will enable Canadian cities to function more effectively. This third edition of Canadian Cities in Transition has been completely revised and updated. Examining the uneven development and uncertain future of Canadian cities, 41 specialists in the field-urban geographers, political scientists, urban planners, civil engineers-offer state-of-the-art understanding of everything from the evolution of the Canadian urban system to site-specific design, problems of transportation and infrastructure, the containment of urban sprawl, the impacts of immigration and gentrification, and the sustainability of cities-both environmentally and economically. The 27 chapters are supported by abundant illustrative material-maps, tables, figures, and photographs-and followed by two appendices, one discussing the changing nature of urban research and the other presenting essential data on Canada's census metropolitan areas. In addition, for the first time this new edition includes a comprehensive bibliography. Required reading for students of Canadian urban geography and urban studies, Canadian Cities in Transition: Local Through Global Perspectives will also be an invaluable resource for anyone concerned about the future of Canada's cities. Book jacket.

All countries have distinctive urban regions, but Canadian cities especially differ from one another in culture, structure, and history. Anthony Perl, Matt Hern, and Jeffrey Kenworthy reveal that despite the peculiarities and singular traits that each city embodies, a common logic has guided the development of transportation infrastructure across the country. Big Moves analyzes how Canada's three largest urban regions - Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver - have been shaped by the interplay of globalized imperatives, aspirations, activism, investment, and local development initiatives, both historically and in a contemporary context. Canadian urban development follows a distinct pattern that involves compromise between local viewpoints and values and the pursuit of global capital at particular historical junctures. As the authors show, the success or failure of each city to construct major mobility infrastructure has always depended on the timing of investments and the specific ways that cities have gained access to necessary capital. Drawing on urban mobility history and global city theory, this book delves into the details of the big moves that have affected transport infrastructure in major Canadian cities. Knowing where urban development will head in the twenty-first century requires understanding how cities' major mobility infrastructures were built. Big Moves explains the shape of Canada's three biggest cities and how their mix of expressways and rapid transit emerged.