Geography and Planning

Reimagining the curb: U of T alum helps cities design smarter streets

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 15:26:17 +0000

Reimagining the curb: U of T alum helps cities design smarter streets

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 12/20/2024 - 10:26

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Marian Mendoza, who earned an honours bachelor of arts in geography and international relations at U of T, is among a new generation of city-builders using data and emerging technologies to build more inclusive and sustainable cities (supplied image)

David Goldberg

Topic

Our Community

Alumni

Cities

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geography and Planning

Victoria College

Subheadline

Marian Mendoza is a product operations specialist at CurbIQ, a Toronto company that's helping cities wield data to better manage curbsides

For Marian Mendoza, curbsides aren’t simply where road and sidewalk happen to meet – they’re dynamic urban spaces with the potential to boost sustainability, inclusion and mobility.

An alum of the ��Ƶ’s Faculty of Arts & Science, Mendoza is a product operations specialist at CurbIQ, a Toronto-based company that offers a digital platform to help urban centres gather information about curbsides and optimize their use.

“Cities are finally starting to see the value of this real estate and taking steps to make the most of it,” says Mendoza, who earned her honours bachelor of arts in geography and international relations in 2019 as a Victoria College member.

Curbside management has become increasingly important as curb use expands beyond vehicle parking to include bike lanes, patios and designated pickup areas for rideshares. Toronto, for example, has about 5,600 kilometres of curbside – a distance roughly equal to that between U of T’s St. George campus and Whitehorse, Yukon.

By providing cities with the tools to analyze real-time and historical data, CurbIQ helps municipalities and large urban institutions that manage roadways – such as universities and airports – make strategic, data-informed decisions to better optimize curbside space.

“A city can use CurbIQ to see that certain on-street parking spaces are underutilized,” says Mendoza. “And this could help decision-makers to consider converting those spaces into alternative curbside uses, such as a dedicated lane for transit or active transportation – improving accessibility and mobility in general for the city.”

CurbIQ digitizes curb regulations, integrates usage data from multiple sources and centralizes the information into a single platform (Image courtesy of Arcadis)

Since its founding in 2019, CurbIQ has had an impact in cities across Canada and around the world.

In Toronto, the platform facilitated the expansion of bike lane infrastructure on Bloor Street and Danforth Avenue, and helped identify potential patio sites for the city’s CaféTO program, which created curb lane patios for restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Edmonton, Alta. and Arlington County, Va., CurbIQ was used to optimize management of parking spaces.

And in Dublin, Ireland, CurbIQ mapped more than 30 kilometres of curbside, helping city staff and third-party vendors, such as delivery services, better understand curb usage patterns – reducing congestion, lowering carbon emissions and improving traffic flow.

“I’ve already noticed a shift in support from the public and private sectors for building our cities smarter, in ways that use technology to improve urban planning processes,” says Mendoza, noting digital tools like CurbIQ are essential to helping manage rising demand for housing, transit and curb space as cities and populations grow.

“But I’m a firm believer that technology doesn't replace human expertise; it just gives us the data and confidence to make better decisions.”

CurbIQ's platform has been used in cities across Canada and around the world (image courtesy of Arcadis)

Mendoza says the skills she developed at U of T have stood her in good stead as she establishes herself among a new generation of city-builders using data and advanced technology.

“U of T taught me to be curious, ask questions and develop strong research skills,” says Mendoza. “You’re free to ask any questions you want, and you have guidance from professors to explore and nurture your research interests.”

Mendoza’s work at U of T included an independent research project on multimodal transportation in Portland, Oregon, conducted under the mentorship of Michael Widener, chair and professor in the department of geography and planning. “As a student, Marian had a special talent for thinking through complex urban problems, their connections to both social and technical systems, and then charting a way forward,” says Widener.

“She always brought to class a wonderful mix of intellectual curiosity and positivity,” adds Don Boyes, a professor, teaching stream and associate dean, teaching and learning, who taught Mendoza in several courses. “It’s great to see her doing so well in her chosen field.”

In addition to the support of professors and peers, Mendoza is grateful for the numerous scholarships she received at U of T, which included the William G. Dean Scholarship in Geography Field Research.

“I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunities I had,” says Mendoza. “Scholarships gave me the freedom to explore a career path that wasn’t a straight line.”

U of T urban studies course explores wildfire response in Canada's North

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 19:57:57 +0000

U of T urban studies course explores wildfire response in Canada's North

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 08/12/2024 - 15:57

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Clouds of smoke billow into the air as forest fires burn in the Northwest Territories in 2015, leaving trees damaged and charred (photo by Sherry Galey via Getty Images)

Cynthia Macdonald

Topic

Our Community

School of Cities

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geography and Planning

Graduate Students

Innis College

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

Subheadline

As part of a graduate seminar, students and professors visited Yellowknife to study the city's 2023 wildfire evacuation with an eye to informing future policy recommendations

Wildfires such as the one that devastated Jasper, Alta., in July are becoming ever more common in Canada due to increased record-high temperatures and drought conditions associated with climate change.

One year ago, it was Yellowknife that found itself under threat, forcing a near-complete evacuation of its 20,000 residents. Unlike Jasper, Yellowknife's homes and businesses were ultimately saved from destruction, but the Northwest Territories capital is nevertheless reviewing its wildfire response plans so it will be better prepared in the future.

And the city is receiving valuable assistance from the ��Ƶ.

Professors and graduate students from the urban studies program at Innis College recently visited the city to research disaster response policies and make suggestions on possible improvements.

“We ended up designing a course that provided a retrospective on the evacuation experience as it related to government officials and the non-profit sector,” says David Roberts, an associate professor, teaching stream, in the department of geography and planning in the Faculty of Arts & Science and director of the urban studies program.

“The students are now working on projects that will provide policy recommendations for the future.”

The view over Yellowknife’s Old Town (supplied image)

This seminar, which was also taught by Assistant Professor Aditi Mehta, is one of several Multidisciplinary Urban Graduate Seminars (MUGS) being offered by U of T’s School of Cities.

Roberts and Mehta created the class in consultation with Rebecca Alty, Yellowknife’s mayor and a visiting expert, or Canadian Urban Leader, at the School of Cities.

Mehta says that the seminar’s multidisciplinary nature was key to crafting a well-rounded response to the crisis.

“We were very deliberate in picking students from different disciplines so that we could create knowledge and think about what happened from different perspectives,” she says, adding that students who successfully applied came from backgrounds including geography and planning, forestry, anthropology, landscape architecture and public health.

The seminar’s participants pose for a group photo at the Bush Pilot’s Monument in Yellowknife (supplied image)

The 10 graduate students visited sites and interviewed government officials, community organizations, residents and Indigenous leaders. They explored how to build improved communication infrastructure in the city and investigated the connections between a local housing crisis and climate change.

They also studied how Indigenous Peoples, including members of the Dene Nation living in Yellowknife, suffer disproportionate harms due to wildfire. Research shows that while 12 per cent of the entire Canadian population is at risk, that number rises to 32 per cent for on-reserve First Nations communities.

Léo Jourdan, who is completing his master of science degree in forestry at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, says the seminar provided him with an opportunity to examine wildfire science from a different angle.

“The research we do in our lab has to do with wildfires, but from a scientific point of view – in the sense that we try to answer ecological questions about the origins of these fires. So this class was a great opportunity to broaden my perspective and learn more about the human side of wildfires, and I think it did an amazing job.”

Jourdan explains that most wildfires are a natural – and necessary – phenomenon. “A lot of the forest in Canada co-evolved with fires, and their ecosystems would not function without them,” he says. “The issue we’re facing now, however, is that the wildfires are getting more intense and the communities closer.”

The seminar group enjoyed the city’s culinary and cultural offerings (supplied image)

For Lilian Dart, the course offered an opportunity to explore her twin interests in environmental justice and housing policy.

“One of the focuses was to look at how people experiencing homelessness were evacuated,” says Dart, a PhD student in the department of geography and planning.

She notes that in the wake of the wildfire evacuation, a team from professional services firm KPMG conducted an audit that revealed significant holes in the system that allowed vulnerable populations to fall through.

“People without housing, for example, did not have social safety supports that other people did,“ she says. “They also had comorbidities that affected their health, making them even more vulnerable.”

Dart’s final assignment for the course is a policy paper that examines this issue. “My recommendations are mostly to do with how the municipality can better support service organizations in their collaboration with one another. How can resources be co-ordinated? And how can people work together to ensure a more organized response?”

Jourdan, for his part, is proposing that Yellowknife adopt the principles of FireSmart, a national program that leads the development of programs and resources to help Canadians increase their resilience to wildfires.

Mehta says Yellowknife’s mayor provided the group from U of T with some recommendations of her own. “She gave an important critique of planning education in our country, noting that people rarely study the problems that cities in northern Canada are facing,” Mehta says. “Instead, we are overly focused on big cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.”

Roberts says that the policy recommendations written by Dart, Jourdan and the other students will be offered “not just to the mayor, but to everyone else we talked to – those working in the non-profit field and at the territorial level, as well as those who work with the Dene.

“We’re now thinking about other ways of presenting this information, such as returning to Yellowknife to ensure that the dialogue we’ve started is able to continue.”

From building bone to children’s literacy: 36 U of T researchers awarded Canada Research Chairs

lanthierj — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 17:51:06 +0000

From building bone to children’s literacy: 36 U of T researchers awarded Canada Research Chairs

lanthierj Tue, 08/29/2023 - 13:51

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Karina Carneiro, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Dentistry, is one of 36 researchers at U of T and its partner hospitals to receive a new or renewed Canada research chair (photo by Jeff Comber)

Topic

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Canada Research Chairs

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Computer Science

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Economics

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Dentistry

Geography and Planning

Hospital for Sick Children

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Research & Innovation

U of T Scarborough

University Health Network

Subheadline

The new and renewed chairs at U of T and its hospital partners were part of a broader research funding announcement by the federal government

At the ��Ƶ’s Faculty of Dentistry, Karina Carneiro and her team are working on developing new treatments to regenerate bone with DNA-based biomaterials.

Karina Carneiro (photo by Jeff Comber)

The researchers are exploring ways to use synthetic materials, created using DNA nanotechnology, to help bones regenerate and support the body’s efforts to heal them naturally.

That’s in contrast to current bone repair treatments, which involve taking bone tissue from another part of the body and breaking it into little pieces that can be inserted into the defect.

“Using a DNA-gel for this purpose could be an effective treatment option as it can be injected to fill the defect size fully,” says Carneiro, an assistant professor in the faculty.

“What we believe to be the difference between our DNA gel and other materials being developed is that over time, the DNA can degrade into molecules that promote our own body’s healing mechanism to further regenerate the bone.”

Carneiro is one of three researchers at the Faculty of Dentistry to be awarded a new or renewed Canada Research Chair in the latest round – and one of 36 across U of T’s three campuses and hospital partners (see list below).

Established in 2000, the prestigious federal program aims to recruit and retain top researchers and scholars in the country. It invests more than $300 million annually to enable world-class researchers to reach new heights in disciplines spanning engineering, health sciences, humanities and social sciences.

“Congratulations to all the researchers at the ��Ƶ who received new or renewed Canada Research Chairs in the latest round,” says Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.

“From using AI to improve medicine and health care to better understanding Indigenous geographies and environmental dispossession, the work by U of T investigators supported by this important federal program is pushing the boundaries of research and innovation – and promises to have a big impact in Canada and around the world.”

Anil Kishen (photo by Jeff Comber)

Professor Anil Kishen, who is also at the Faculty of Dentistry, will use the funding associated with his Tier 1 Canada Research to advance his work in oral health nanomedicine.

He and his colleagues in the Kishen Lab are using multifunctional bioactive nanoparticles to study how cells communicate with each other and how wounds heal – in particular, how nanoparticles can be used to help save infected natural teeth and treat wounds and ulcers in individuals with diabetes.

Kishen says one of the reasons chitosan-based nanoparticles, which are optimized for different therapeutic applications, are so promising is because they’re derived from a naturally occurring molecule that is readily available.

“Affordability is important when developing a treatment to reach the masses,” Kishen says.

Massieh Moayedi (photo by Jeff Comber)

Massieh Moayedi, an associate professor in the Faculty of Dentistry, is receiving funding to pursue research in pain neuroimaging as a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair.

“There’s tenuous evidence that body image might be involved in some types of chronic pain,” Moayedi says, adding that his end goal is to understand how pain works so he can improve patient outcomes.

He’s already shown that people with arthritic hands who see the limb looking healthier through a special device experience improvements in pain, so he’s now trying to understand which brain regions are involved.

“This chair will give me funding and the capacity to allow me to investigate these questions, and to really understand the relationship between pain and body image.”

Randy Boissonnault, minister of employment, workforce development and official languages, announced the CRCs at a press conference on Aug. 29 on behalf of François-Philippe Champagne, minister of innovation, science and industry, and Mark Holland, minister of health.

He also revealed the researchers and projects receiving funding through a diverse array of programs administered by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI).

They include the recipients of the SSHRC’s Partnership Grants, Partnership Development Grants and Insight Grants, as well as the recipients of the CFI’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF), which helps institutions to recruit and retain outstanding researchers, and provide them with the necessary tools and technology to perform their work. Named after a former U of T president, JELF supports projects that deal with a range of pressing issues. This year’s recipients include 35 researchers at U of T and its hospital partners sharing a total of more than $11 million for projects ranging from an assessment of plant responses to environmental change to the development of an ultra-sensitive cryogenic detector for dark matter and neutrino experiments.

“The federal government’s ongoing support for research through all of these programs – from the John R. Evans Leaders Fund, to the NSERC and CFI grants and the Canada Research Chairs – is critical to supporting the kind of research that ultimately improves lives through new knowledge and innovations,” Cowen said.

Here is the full list of new and renewed Canada Research Chairs at U of T:

New Canada Research Chairs

Stephanie Ameis at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and in the department of psychiatry in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in neuroimaging of autism and mental health in youth
Yvonne Bombard at Unity Health and in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Tier 2 in genomics health services and policy
Karina Carneiro in the Faculty of Dentistry, Tier 2 in DNA-based biomaterials
Jesse Chao at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and in the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in precision cancer diagnostics and artificial intelligence
Xi (Becky) Chen-Bumgardner in the department of applied psychology and human development in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Tier 1 in literacy development of bilingual and multilingual children
Mark Chiew at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and in the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in computational biomedical imaging
Sarah Crome at University Health Network and in the department of immunology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in tissue-specific immune tolerance
Michelle Daigle in the department of geography and planning in the Faculty of Arts & Science, Tier 2 in Indigenous geographies and environmental dispossession
Karen Davis at University Health Network and in the department of surgery in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 1 in acute and chronic pain research
Rahul Gopalkrishnan in the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in computational medicine
Housheng (Hansen) He at University Health Network and in the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 1 in RNA medicine
Margaret Herridge at University Health Network and in the department of medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 1 in critical illness outcomes and the recovery continuum
Anil Kishen in the Faculty of Dentistry, Tier 1 in oral health nanomedicine
Bowen Li in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, Tier 2 in RNA vaccines and therapeutics
Iacovos Michael at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and in the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in tumor biology and precision oncology
Massieh Moayedi in the Faculty of Dentistry, Tier 2 in pain neuroimaging
Faiyaz Notta at the University Health Network and in the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in pancreatic cancer and cancer evolution
Valeria Rac at the University Health Network and in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Tier 2 in health system and technology evaluation
Fahad Razak at Unity Health Toronto and in the department of medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in health-care data and analytics
Clinton Robbins at the University Health Network and in the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 1 in cardiovascular immunology
Lena Serghides at the University Health Network and in the department of immunology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 1 in maternal-child health and HIV
Catriona Steele at the University Health Network and in the department of speech language pathology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 1 in swallowing and food oral processing
Bo Wang in the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, tier 2 in artificial intelligence for medicine

Renewed Canada Research Chairs

Angela Cheung at University Health Network and in the department of medicine at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 1 in musculoskeletal and postmenopausal health
Xi Huang at the Hospital for Sick Children and in the department of molecular genetics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in cancer biophysics
Cendri Hutcherson in the department of psychology at the ��Ƶ Scarborough, Tier 2 in decision neuroscience
Joanne Kotsopoulos at Women’s College Hospital and at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Tier 2 in hereditary breast and ovarian cancer prevention
Arthur Mortha in the department of immunology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in mucosal immunology
Kelly O’Brien in the department of physical therapy in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in episodic disability and rehabilitation
Trevor Pugh at the University Health Network and in the department of medical biophysics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in translational genomics
Diego Restuccia in the department of economics in the Faculty of Arts & Science, Tier 1 in macroeconomics and productivity
David Sinton in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, Tier 1 in energy and fluids
Olivier Trescases in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, Tier 2 in power electronic converters
Joel Watts in the Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Tier 2 in protein misfolding disorders
Michael Widener in the department of geography and planning in the Faculty of Arts & Science, Tier 2 in transportation and health
Stephen Wright in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, Tier 1 in population genomics

A big, boxy part of Canada's heritage: The untold story of Toronto's suburban banquet halls

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 20:53:17 +0000

A big, boxy part of Canada's heritage: The untold story of Toronto's suburban banquet halls

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 11/21/2022 - 15:53

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A woman rubs colorful powder on the face of Kanak Bhalla during the holi Indian festival at the National Banquet Hall in Mississauga (photo by Lucas Oleniuk/Toronto Star/Getty Images)

Cynthia Macdonald

Topic

City & Culture

Cities

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geography and Planning

Graduate Students

In the Greater Toronto Area, the phrase “heritage building” might bring to mind a Georgian mansion or a pre-Confederation church. But as Sneha Mandhan’s work reveals, it may be time to add banquet hall to the list.

Banquet halls, explains Mandhan, are sites of key importance to many immigrant communities throughout the Greater Toronto Area and elsewhere – including the South Asian diaspora. Big and boxy on the outside, they are colourful, vibrant and richly decorated within. And their uses are many.

Sneha Mandhan

“They might host religious wedding ceremonies and receptions,” says Mandhan, a PhD candidate in the ��Ƶ’s department of geography and planning in the Faculty of Arts & Science. “But there are also engagements, bridal and baby showers, and birthday parties. Also school graduations and celebrations of religious festivals like Diwali and Eid, trade conventions and conferences.

“So they’re really catering to a wide set of needs.”

Mandhan, whose research is supported by the School of Graduate Studies' Connaught PhDs for Public Impact Fellowship Program, says “banquet hall” is a term used by the public, but it hardly covers the many purposes of these ubiquitous buildings. Mississauga alone is home to more than two dozen.

“In a lot of planning policy, they’re called event spaces or places of assembly which are more accurate terms,” says Mandhan, an urban planner, urban designer and architect who studies the relationship between physical spaces and cultural activity.

“But in some ways, that language takes away from how important they are as community and social spaces.”

Spaces like these are essential to newcomers. In the 20th century, European immigrants to Toronto were well-served by places like the Hungarian House on St. Clair Avenue West or the Ukrainian Cultural Centre on Christie Street. In addition to hosting celebrations and life cycle events, such locales allowed new Canadians to make much-needed contact with each other. And crucially, they were located close to residential areas.

But in the downtown area, Mandhan notes, “land values have risen, so developers have come in and pushed out a lot of the older uses which were not profit-making enterprises. Now, these kinds of places have all been relegated to what the province calls ‘employment lands’ outside the city.”

Banquet halls in "employment lands" such as the Sagan Banquet Hall and Convention Centre in Mississauga, often have a bare-bones boxy façade (photo courtesy of Mandhan)

Employment lands are commercial and industrial spaces located outside the city’s centre. They are often the site of warehouses and auto-body shops, as well as places of worship and banquet halls. They can be inaccessible for anyone without a car, which is a problem for many of the people who wish to attend events serving the South Asian community – including seniors or young guests, and minimum-wage workers.

“Banquet halls are extremely important employment centres,” says Mandhan, “because they employ service workers directly and many others indirectly, such as those supplying décor, videography, music and food. But they’re not commuter friendly, especially during weekends and late-night hours when events are commonly hosted. So accessibility is important to think about.”

Initially, Mandhan wasn’t aware just how important banquet halls were to the South Asian community.

“In the early stages of research for my PhD dissertation, I started off doing exploratory phone interviews to try and understand the kinds of spaces that the South Asian diaspora was using for rituals and celebrations,” she says. “I remember having this long conversation with someone who went to 10 to 15 weddings per year pre-COVID, which was just mind-blowing to me. And so I started doing research on banquet halls just to see how people were talking about it. And what I found was that the public narrative around these spaces was essentially absent.”

Interior of Sagan Banquet Hall and Convention Centre in Mississauga decorated for an event (photo courtesy of Mandhan)

As a Connaught PhDs for Public Impact Fellow, Mandhan will direct information derived from her PhD research toward two projects.

“The first is an op-ed that will question how cultural heritage historically has been related more to colonial history: a lot of the buildings that are preserved for that reason are colonial buildings. How do we flip that narrative and start to understand what heritage looks like for immigrant communities? It might not always involve beautiful architecture. There are other studies being conducted, such as the work being done around the designation of Little Jamaica as a cultural district, that really are starting to question how we might move from understanding cultural heritage as colonial buildings, to understanding what cultural uses are worth preserving.”

Mandhan’s second project is a photo exhibit documenting the stories of celebration in banquet halls that she hopes will have a physical presence for a short period. “But I’m hoping for it to live online for a longer period, as something that can grow and evolve,” she says.

Though her work concentrates on the South Asian diaspora, she says that guests from many cultural backgrounds use the services of banquet halls and attend celebrations there, making her research potentially attractive to anyone with an interest in Toronto’s ever-evolving cultural landscape.

Broadly speaking, Mandhan’s project argues for a better consideration of the needs that immigrant groups have for celebration, gathering and connection – needs that were better fulfilled in earlier times when such spaces were accessible, central and located close to other community services.

“I want to bring banquet halls into the public discourse because these are important spaces that we need to be thinking more about,” says Mandhan. “Right now, they’re just considered from a purely functional point of view as spaces where many people will congregate. But these places have a lot of emotional and cultural value to people. We need to start incorporating that idea into the decisions we make about planning in our cities.”

With her podcast, Alexandra Lambropoulos tells the stories of urban innovation in Africa and beyond

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 14:52:29 +0000

With her podcast, Alexandra Lambropoulos tells the stories of urban innovation in Africa and beyond

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 10/13/2022 - 10:52

Cutline

A master's student in urban planning at U of T, Alexandra Lambropoulos created a podcast dedicated to researchers and community leaders driving projects that are transforming cities in Africa and elsewhere (photo courtesy of Alexandra Lambropoulos)

Tina Adamopoulos

Topic

Our Community

Black Research Network

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

School of Cities

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geography and Planning

Global

Graduate Students

When Alexandra Lambropoulos conducts research, she also seeks out the stories behind it.

Lambropoulos, a master’s student pursuing urban planning at the ��Ƶ, picked up the idea during her first trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo to see her family a few years ago.

There, she was inspired by the urban developments and creativity in her family’s hometown to further pursue urban planning.

“I was amazed to see the city and all these creative interventions being done by people to make their communities better in any way possible,” Lambropoulos says.

From there, she did some digging on different aspects of urban planning, finding groups, organizations and case studies in Africa dedicated to urban growth, art and sustainability across various countries. When she came back to Toronto, Lambropoulos discovered that Africa wasn’t a focus of study in her undergraduate courses.

So she decided to tell these stories herself.

Enter Urban Limitrophe, a podcast dedicated to researchers and community leaders driving projects that are transforming cities across Africa and the diaspora. Launched at the height of the pandemic, the podcast is nearing almost 20 episodes, with countless urban planning innovations – including initiatives in education, the arts and climate change – in countries ranging from Ghana and Kenya to Peru and France.

Urban Limitrophe is co-sponsored by the department of geography and planning in the Faculty of Arts & Science and the School of Cities, an Institutional Strategic Initiative (ISI) at U of T dedicated to building resilient and inclusive urban spaces.

For Lambropoulos, the podcast is a unique way to mobilize knowledge about urban planning in Africa for a Canadian audience, while securing its presence in academia.

Conversations with guests on Urban Limitrophe have even informed her U of T research, which spans the intersection of culture, community and economic development, as well as arts and urban planning. That includes featuring initiatives like Surf Ghana, a non-profit organization building skateparks in Accra, as well as Justice Defenders, an organization providing equitable access to justice across Africa. The project also includes CLUSTER, a non-profit in Cairo, Egypt whose work analyzes urban informality in the city, and the Abibiman Project’s efforts to celebrate African cuisine and tackle food insecurity in Toronto.

“The podcast has really shaped my approach with the way that I conduct research. It’s allowed me to take a different lens and look for the stories that are not being told,” Lambropoulos says.

As a project officer at the Infrastructure Institute at the School of Cities, Lambropoulos and a team of researchers examined the role of exhibitions to promote urban-related topics, focusing on mixed-use buildings to support community resilience. The project is part of the Creative Mixed-Use Initiative at the School of Cities, which has propelled partnerships to build mixed-use projects since 2019.

Mixed-use buildings are seen in city infrastructure, such as adding restaurants or other services to residences — and often facilitate partnerships between private, public and non-profit organizations to nurture deep community ties and vibrant neighbourhoods.

In July, the group launched its first exhibit, called +(Plus), at the World Urban Pavilion in Regent Park. The virtual and in-person exhibition traced the history of mixed-use buildings in Toronto, using examples like the North Toronto Collegiate Institute / Republic, a four-storey high school with two condominium towers situated above it. They also reimagined what the future of mixed-use buildings could look like in Toronto – such as adding housing above fire stations.

Earlier this year, Lambropoulos was one of several recipients of the Geography & Planning award for Black students, which recognizes outstanding academic and professional achievements within the department and recipients’ work to eliminate anti-Black racism and advance systemic change within the university and the field.

“It was so great to be recognized. I appreciate the support that comes from the Black Research Network and my department to help me fulfill this dream to work in this sector,” Lambropoulos says.

“Sometimes things like this are a reminder that you’re on the right path.”

With her sights set on completing her degree, Lambropoulos will continue to work at the Infrastructure Institute to help curate more exhibitions. As for the podcast, Lambropoulos has received invitations to visit cities across Africa from people she’s interviewed — and hopes to travel and bring the podcast to them one day.

Listen to the podcast:

How U of T’s School of Cities is helping reimagine a Toronto fire station: The Globe and Mail

mattimar — Wed, 18 May 2022 15:51:50 +0000

How U of T’s School of Cities is helping reimagine a Toronto fire station: The Globe and Mail

mattimar Wed, 05/18/2022 - 11:51

Cutline

An artist’s concept of mixed-use development comprising residential housing and fire station on Bloor Street East in Toronto (rendering courtesy of Infrastructure Institute, School of Cities)

Topic

City & Culture

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

School of Cities

Cities

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geography and Planning

Matti Siemiatycki, director of the Infrastructure Institute at the ��Ƶ's School of Cities, is on a mission to create development that blends residential, commercial and other uses in new and old buildings throughout the city.

In a column in the Globe and Mail, Siemiatycki meets with writer Dave LeBlanc to tour 441 Bloor Street East, a two-story Toronto Fire Station that is surrounded by high-rises and is ripe for redevelopment. The roof of the fire station is already used by the Glen Road Early Learning & Child Care Centre, but Siemiatycki told the Globe that the School of Cities is in the early stages of talks with CreateTO, the city’s real estate agency, and the fire department to reimagine how to use the site. The plan is to “reuse the site in a way that we’re going to put the station back in,” Siemiatycki told the Globe. “And then build housing above, and my preference would be affordable housing, and we’ll see how the economics work; the nice thing is there’s a real interest in seeing how far we can push this.”

School of Cities recently rolled out a three-pronged, city-building plan emphasizing mixed-used development with the help of a donor. Siemiatycki told U of T News he wants to “morph this into the norm rather than the exception and bring partners together intentionally, to turn into a model of creative mixed-uses designed for a social purpose, because that’s what enables growth to drive community benefits.”

Going places: Students work with Toronto Public Space Committee to address city's lack of public washrooms

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 06 May 2022 13:17:55 +0000

Going places: Students work with Toronto Public Space Committee to address city's lack of public washrooms

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 05/06/2022 - 09:17

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Graduate students from U of T's department of geography and planning spent months investigating the lack of public washrooms in Toronto, a problem exacerbated by COVID-19 when many retail outlets restricted access to their facilities (photo by David Lee)

Rebecca Cheung

Topic

City & Culture

Cities

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geography and Planning

Graduate Students

What do you do in Toronto when you have no place to answer nature’s call?

The lack of public washrooms in Canada’s largest city is a real and ever-present concern for many – particularly for unhoused populations, families with young children and those living with incontinence.

The pandemic has only exacerbated the situation. As restaurants and retail outlets closed or began restricting access to their facilities, many essential workers, including delivery drivers and public transit operators, found themselves with no place to pull over for a pit stop during the work day.

“I think it’s a problem everyone in Toronto has felt, especially this past summer during the pandemic when our only options for seeing people was to gather outdoors,” says Alycia Doering, a master’s student in the ��Ƶ’s department of geography and planning in the Faculty of Arts & Science. “There are not a lot of places for people to go.”

In the summer of 2021, the Toronto Public Space Committee was eager to make headway in its GottaGoTO campaign, advocating for increased public washroom access across the city. So, Igor Samardzic, a member of the steering committee and a U of T alumnus, turned to his former graduate program at the department of geography and planning for help.

The department accepted his pitch to include GottaGoTO as a project for students in the Workshop in Planning Practice course, which has student teams partner with an external client to tackle a real-world planning problem.

Doering and fellow master’s students Sawdah Ismail, Siobhan Kelly, Emily Power and Rameez Sadafal spent months looking into the issue – and their work promises to go a long way in supporting the Toronto Public Space Committee’s mission to make the city more liveable.

“We wanted to give talented students an opportunity to make a real impact with us,” says Samardzic, who earned his honours bachelor of arts as a member of Trinity College and his master of arts degree from the department of geography and planning. “This was not going to be a project where they wrote a dense report that would collect dust on a city planner’s desk.”

Sadafal says the team quickly discovered there are many gaps in Toronto's current public washroom network. “It’s also a multifaceted issue,” Sadafal says. “Our main challenge was figuring out how to summarize the issue so a decision-maker could fully appreciate the problem.”

The students completed a rigorous review and jurisdictional scan, which involved poring over policy documents and analyzing strategies undertaken by other cities, including implementing automated public toilets and arranging agreements with commercial businesses.

“We did a deep dive into all aspects of public washroom planning,” explains Doering. “We really needed to understand all angles of the issue.”

The team toured Toronto neighbourhoods, paying close attention to gaps in public washroom access. They spoke directly to stakeholders, including community groups, City of Toronto staff members and city councillors.

“I am really proud of what this group was able to accomplish on behalf of the Toronto Public Space Committee at a time when the topic is especially charged with a sense of urgency and political debate,” says course instructor Michelle Berquist, manager of area transportation planning at the City of Toronto. “This group took on a project with an ambitious scope, looking critically at the state of practice in our city and its shortcomings. It was a job well done.”

Ultimately, the effort paid off. The students delivered a comprehensive report and presentation to the Toronto Public Space Committee in December, when the workshop wrapped, and a few students hope to continue their engagement with the GottaGoTO program in the future.

“We were truly impressed by the work, and we’re excited to have a report, backed with evidence, that we can make public and create buzz around the city on this issue,” says Samardzic.

Improving water equity in India: Research team one of 17 to receive support from U of T's Data Sciences Institute

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 20:29:17 +0000

Improving water equity in India: Research team one of 17 to receive support from U of T's Data Sciences Institute

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 02/16/2022 - 15:29

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(Photo by Atul Loke via Getty Images)

Fanni Barocsi

Safa Jinje

Topic

Global Lens

Data Sciences Institute

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

Resarch & Innovation

Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geography and Planning

A multidisciplinary team at the ��Ƶ is developing tools and metrics to improve water equity in India by empowering water planners, communities and activists.

While India has made gains in expanding access to water distribution networks, rapid urbanization and inadequate infrastructure have resulted in systems that provide water for less than four hours per day in some regions, impacting 390 million people.

To cope, residents invest in water storage infrastructure and seek alternative water sources, imposing significant financial, environmental, educational, health and time costs, especially on women and girls.

“The level of complexity and inequality is staggering,” says David Meyer, an assistant professor in the department of civil and mineral engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “Since 2018, I have been exploring options for visualizing and learning from water supply schedules.”

Meyer is leading the project alongside Nidhi Subramanyam, an assistant professor in the department of geography and planning in the Faculty of Arts & Science, and Carmen Logie, an associate professor in the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work.

It is one of 17 projects receive Research Catalyst Funding Grants through U of T’s Data Sciences Institute.

With their project, “Harnessing Data to Visualize and Mitigate Urban Water Inequities within the Cauvery River Basin, India,” Meyer, Subramanyam and Logie bring together diverse disciplinary perspectives on water and data – including a deep understanding of water engineering, water governance and equity.

“Water is a cross-cutting theme that flows through so many disciplines, geographies, technologies and aspects of our lives,” says Subramanyam. “Any study about water must engage different kinds of data, expertise and knowledge systems.” 

“Professor Subramanyam has helped me realize that data cannot be interpreted properly without considering the data generation process and the data generators themselves,” adds Meyer. “Understanding the context and incentives for water utilities to report and curate data will prove key to leveraging it on an ongoing basis.” 

All projects supported by the Catalyst Grants fund multidisciplinary research teams focused on using the development of new data science methodology or the innovative use of data science to address questions of major societal importance.

“The Data Sciences Institute is committed to fostering new opportunities to cultivate multi-disciplinary collaborations between data science methodologists and researchers in various application domains,” says Timothy Chan, a professor in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering who is the Data Sciences Institute’s associate director of research and thematic programming. “This is just the beginning. With this inaugural round, we received 70 highly competitive proposals, which were carefully assessed by a multidisciplinary review panel.”

The Data Sciences Institute Catalyst Grants are supported by the U of T Institutional Strategic Initiatives program and external funding partners, with two of the 2022 Catalyst Grants co-funded by Medicine by Design directed to finding solutions to challenges in regenerative medicine.

See the full list of grant recipients at the Data Sciences Institute

Scientists find evidence of a warming planet high in the Earth’s atmosphere

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 21:14:04 +0000

Scientists find evidence of a warming planet high in the Earth’s atmosphere

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 11/23/2021 - 16:14

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(Illustration by Buradaki/istockphoto)

Chris Sasaki

Topic

Breaking Research

Climate Change

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geography and Planning

Global

Research & Innovation

An international team of scientists has provided further evidence of climate change by measuring the expansion of the troposphere – the lowest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere – which is being driven by rising temperatures.

The researchers tracked the altitude of the upper limit of the troposphere, called the tropopause, from 1980 to 2020. They found that it has risen an average of 50 to 60 metres per decade over the last 20 years, a rate slightly higher than the previous two decades and in stark contrast to pre-1960, when the altitude of the tropopause was generally stable.

The scientists subtracted the effect of natural forces and determined that roughly 80 per cent of the increase in the temperature of the troposphere since 2000 was due to anthropogenic – or human-caused – warming driven by growing levels of greenhouse gases.

"Our research provides another piece of very important evidence of anthropogenic climate change and proof that can be observed even in the tropopause,” says Jane Liu, an associate professor in the ��Ƶ’s department of geography and planning in the Faculty of Arts & Science, and corresponding author of a paper describing the result published in the journal Science Advances.

“It shows that fossil fuel consumption is leaving its fingerprints — not just on the planet’s surface with extreme weather, sea level rise and retreating glaciers — but everywhere, even high above our heads.”

The paper’s lead author is Lingyun Meng is from Nanjing University in China, while the co-corresponding author is William Randel from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. Other authors include researchers from Canada, Austria and China.

(Image via the Faculty of Arts & Science)

The tropopause is roughly 10 kilometres above sea level at the poles and 20 kilometres above sea level at the equator. The researchers analyzed the data on the altitude of the tropopause in the northern hemisphere between 20 degrees and 80 degrees latitude.

The natural forces they accounted for included major volcanic eruptions of El Chichón in 1982 and Mount Pinatubo in 1991, as well as warming in the Pacific Ocean due to the climate phenomenon known as El Niño.

Liu and her collaborators used data collected by instruments carried high above the Earth by weather balloons that measure temperature, pressure, humidity and wind. Additional data came from a technique known as radio occultation in which signals from global positioning system (GPS) satellites pass through the atmosphere and are received by satellites on the other side of the planet.

In addition to their main finding, Liu and her collaborators saw a change in the forces driving the rise in the tropopause.

Between 1980 and 2000, the rise was the result of both warming of the troposphere and cooling of the stratosphere, which is the layer above. Stratospheric cooling prior to 2000 was the result of a depletion of atmospheric ozone caused by the proliferation of chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons, commonly used in refrigeration and air conditioners.

Yet, after 2000, the stratospheric cooling subsided as the concentration of chlorofluorocarbons dropped. According to Liu, this is a sign that the atmosphere’s ozone layer is recovering as result of the 1987 Montreal Protocol that curtailed the use of chlorofluorocarbons.

While the slowdown of stratospheric cooling is a positive sign, the rise in the tropopause has not slowed, meaning that greenhouse-gas-driven tropospheric warming has more than made up for that turnaround.

“Still, this shows that the Montreal Protocol has worked,” says Liu. “And we can do the same with global warming.”

The results were published while representatives from around the world assembled in Glasgow, Scotland for the COP26 summit to address the climate crisis. The gathering is being viewed by many as the last, best chance to address the global threat and Liu hopes that those in attendance will pay attention to this result and all the scientific evidence.

“I think this research sends a very clear message to the delegates at COP26, as well as to anyone who still has doubts about anthropogenic climate change and what’s happening to our planet.”

Experts from U of T, city and other post-secondary institutions meet to discuss pandemic recovery

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 15:03:16 +0000

Experts from U of T, city and other post-secondary institutions meet to discuss pandemic recovery

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 11/19/2021 - 10:03

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(Photo by Evgeny Klein/EyeEm via Getty Images)

Ravisha Mall

Topic

City & Culture

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

School of Cities

Cities

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Dublin Awards. Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Geography and Planning

School of Continuing Studies

U of T Mississauga

U of T Scarborough

University Health Network

Students, faculty and staff from eight post-secondary institutions, including the ��Ƶ, will meet with officials from the City of Toronto for a free, two-day virtual event focused on developing an equitable and inclusive pandemic recovery policy framework.

Karen Chapple

The CivicLabTO Academic Summit, to be held on Nov. 23-24, will focus on issues such as public health, housing, transit, transportation, climate change, green recovery and the future of public space. It will tap leading experts from the city and local post-secondary institutions to share best practices.

The event, hosted by York University, will also examine potential partnerships, innovations and solutions through the lens of equity and inclusion.

Writer Ravisha Mall recently spoke with Karen Chapple, director of U of T’s School of Cities and a professor in the department of geography and planning, about the impetus for the broader partnership between the city and the eight post-secondary institutions and the potential for such events to contribute to the development of a “Toronto School” of urbanism.

Why is this type of discussion happening now?

Crises of all kinds produce openings for radical change. Yet, this particular moment is not just the simple convergence of multiple crises – pandemic, climate change, income inequality, resurgent nationalism and systemic racism – but a juncture that is reaffirming the need for collective action. As much as we hate the masks and distancing, dread the climate extremes and feel upset or oppressed by the ongoing political, economic and cultural polarization, we still share hope. And we can take comfort in the fact that our institutions continue to push on. We are in it together, we learn and that’s inspiring.

How have you seen cities and academic institutions collaborate effectively to create real change?

One obvious example is the University of Chicago’s civic engagement program, which makes sure that disadvantaged high school students have a pipeline into college, builds civic capacity in the community and ensures that local universities procure from local businesses. I love this example because a university that was the birthplace of urban sociology 100 years ago continues to this day with intense empirical urbanism that has transformed both how we think about cities and how we empower their communities. As I look at the many disciplinary perspectives coming together in CivicLabTO to address urban challenges, I get excited about the potential for a “Toronto School” that is just as transformative as the Chicago School.

I would also note that, during the pandemic, U of T also found many ways to support municipalities, including hosting vaccination clinics across the tri-campus, rethinking aging apartment towers and supporting small businesses.

What is the School of Cities’ role in all of this?

We are the School of, for, and by Cities. We build and translate knowledge about cities, we connect communities and stakeholders around the world to support sustainable urbanism and we make sure that our urban residents have the capacity and power to create their own communities. To borrow from Toronto’s own David Miller, the former mayor, we see the cities as the solution to the crises we face. So, we teach the world why cities matter so much for our future.

Leveraging the work being done across the university’s divisions, the School of Cities curated a list of speakers for the event – many of whom contributed to public policy during the pandemic and are providing advice in the recovery.

Here is a list of members of the U of T community, including students and faculty, who are scheduled to appear at the summit:

Matti Siemiatycki, department of geography and planning, Faculty of Arts & Science
Catherine Chandler-Crichlow, School of Continuing Studies
Mark Campbell, department of arts, culture and media, U of T Scarborough
Beth Coleman, Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology, U of T Mississauga
Andrew Boozary, Dalla Lana School of Public Health and University Health Network
Andrew Bond, department of family and community medicine, Temerty Faculty of Medicine
Shoshanna Saxe, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
Menilek Beyene, PhD student at U of T Scarborough
Zahra Ebrahim, department of geography and planning, Faculty of Arts & Science

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How U of T’s School of Cities is helping reimagine a Toronto fire station: The Globe and Mail

Read more in the Globe and Mail

Read more at U of T News

Going places: Students work with Toronto Public Space Committee to address city's lack of public washrooms

Improving water equity in India: Research team one of 17 to receive support from U of T's Data Sciences Institute

See the full list of grant recipients at the Data Sciences Institute

Scientists find evidence of a warming planet high in the Earth’s atmosphere

Experts from U of T, city and other post-secondary institutions meet to discuss pandemic recovery