Urban Renewal Revisited: Toronto, 1950 to 1970

Postwar programs of urban renewal in Canadian cities have long been considered failures in the sense that their objectives were faulty and their impacts generally harmful. However, so complete is the consensus around this interpretation that historians have not made as much effort as they might have to understand the goals and mechanisms of renewal programs. This close study of postwar urban renewal in Toronto identifies several significant aspects, largely unrecognized, of one city's renewal program. It clarifies that urban renewal and public housing, though often conflated, were actually two discrete things. It finds that renewal advocates carefully inventoried the communities they sought to renew - their plans were by no means based on James C. Scott's now paradigmatic "synoptic'' view - but it confirms that many did indeed have insufficient understanding of those communities. It also finds that much less urban renewal was done in Toronto than is generally assumed, suggesting that urban renewal's failure resulted more from inaction than from action. In conclusion, it notes that physical renewal of the city was ultimately accomplished not by urban renewal programs but, rather, by the actions of private property owners and entrepreneurs, raising questions about public endeavour as a means of urban improvement.