Connecting Past and Present
March 17, 2026 By: Daphnee Cairns
Urbanization
For urbanization, I looked at the article Limiting urban sprawl requires establishing clear targets and limits to expansion, new Concordia study proposes. The article argues that greenbelts alone are not enough and that cities also need clear growth limits and policies. That really connected with my own experience living in the Greater Toronto Area, where I watched massive farms turn into housing developments in less than a year. It also aligns with what we learned about urban environmental history: urban growth is not just a housing issue, but a process that changes land, ecosystems, and the relationships between cities and the rural spaces that support them.
Parks
For parks, I looked at the article Largest Park in a Generation Opens on City of Toronto’s New Island through Transformative Port Lands Flood Protection Project. This article connects well to Unit 3 because it shows that parks are not just places for recreation, but also spaces shaped by environmental planning and competing land uses. The park in question was created as a result of a much larger flood protection project that resulted in new green space and habitat, as well as housing and other municipal services. This fits the idea that parks are often tied to broader social and environmental goals. On a personal level, parks matter to me because they are important places for family time, outdoor activity, and mental health; and having spent some years in the Greater Toronto Area, I understand the importance of having access to more natural spaces.
I really enjoyed your post, especially the way you tied your own experience in the GTA to what we’ve been learning in Unit 3. Watching farms disappear into housing developments in less than a year sounds like a pretty vivid real-life example of what Steinberg means by the “organic city” — that cities aren’t really separate from nature, but are constantly transforming the landscapes around them.
It also got me thinking about the rewilding movement in Toronto, which is what I looked at for my own assignment. Your article is focused on holding back sprawl from the outside, while rewilding is more about making the city that already exists work better ecologically — things like turning laneways and vacant lots into native plant habitat. It’s interesting that both approaches are basically responding to the same underlying problem of unsustainable urban growth, just from completely opposite directions.