2016-02-19
Introduction
This review is devoted to the book “Toronto: Transformations in a City and its Region” by the author Relph E. The book consists of nine chapters, which describe the features of the old and new city of Toronto, its urban transformation and other changes during the twentieth and twenty first centuries. The first part of review shows the concise summary of the whole book and the second one describes the chapter 2 in more detail.
Summary of the Book
The second chapter of the book is devoted to the analysis of the historical features of city development. The history of this city has started at the end of the seventieth century, when Huron Indian settlements have been created near the Lake Ontario (Relph, 2014, p. 12).
The third chapter is devoted to the formation of the Old City Toronto. The natural environment of the Old City Toronto has strongly changed: mountains, wide rivers, deserts seem quite tame. The main cause of urban growth is economic growth (Relph, 2014, p. 35). The transport infrastructure developed rapidly for business needs as well as the needs of the increased population. Industrial prosperity, developed transport system and high rate of construction are the main characteristics of the definition “city”. The increased population density becomes a cause of development of “unplanned suburbs”.
The fourth chapter of the book describes the importance of Metropolitan Toronto. The construction of metro was very important for further development of the downtown of Toronto. High growth rates of population density forced the building of high-rise apartments. The majority of them was built as a rental housing. In the 1960s the downtown of Toronto had “25 percent of the employment and 65 percent of the office space in Metro” (Relph, 2014, p. 53).
The next phase of Toronto’s development is linked to the increase number of skyscrapers that is described in the fifth chapter of the book. The skyline of downtown Toronto has significantly changed from 1900 to 2010: the large number of condominiums have appeared (Relph 2014, p. 64).
According to Skyscraperpage.com the new City of Toronto with 1900 skyscrapers is ranked the second in the world to New York City. The building high-rise rental accommodation ceased to be profitable in Toronto. More families preferred the private condominium ownership. In this case, condominium towers began to be built as a way to meet the continuing demand for housing.
The era of increased housing building in the suburbs has started. The growth rate of the population as well as dwellings in Great Toronto and Hamilton Area was much higher than the same rate in the City of Toronto (Relph, 2014, p. 75).
The next, sixth chapter shows the diversity in the outer suburbs. Such elements of the outer suburbs as districts of huge distribution centers, intermodal facilities, the international airport and other features have no clear precedents in older urban forms.
Further development of neighborhoods and suburbs led to polycentricity and deconcentrated concentration. Downtown Toronto lost its importance due to the rise of other centers around it. The author highlighted in the seventh chapter of the book that there were three superimposed urban forms in Toronto region:
a monocentric one that focused on the core of the Old City,
a polycentric one with many overlapping networks:
an amorphous (post-polycentric one).
Globalization processes and their impact on the city development are described in the eighth chapter of the book. Economic growth was the crucial reason of high rates of population increasing. Social globalization also impacts on Toronto’s population. According to the UN report, Toronto was the most multicultural city in the world (Relph, 2014, p. 132). Multiculturalism became one of the reasons of the inequality among people.
Further growth of the city caused existence of new problems which concern population density and ecological problems. The Greenbelt Plan was the first that was implemented. The main its purpose was to protect agricultural land base and ecological features from urbanization processes. This plan is described in the last, ninth chapter of the book.
Summary of the Chapter 2
The specialist Relph describes the history of the establishment and initial development of settlements and first city on the place, where modern Toronto is located, in the second chapter of his book. Let’s analyze it in more detail in the context of the dispossession of the indigenous population and the legacies of white-settler colonization, urbanization processes.
The name “Toronto” is the indigenous name of the site where the modern city began and it means “gathering place” or “place of meeting”. There are also coma other points about the origin of this name. New stage of development is connected with the eighteenth century, when the British have arrived in that region. They arrived in the 1780s and bought around 1000 square kilometers of the land. This deal was known as the Toronto Purchase (Relph, 2014, p. 14). Its region was chosen as the future capital of the Upper Canada.
After World War II, the Province of Ontario linked all six municipalities in a two-tier system of regional government that is officially called he Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. Nevertheless, the Old City remained the dominant part. It had factories, offices, public transit, department stores, theaters. As the population grew, the townships upgraded their official status to boroughs, then – to the cities. In this case, the author highlighted that the definition “city” is the dominant among other forms of settlements.
The 1970s and the 1980s are characterized by the huge urbanization of Toronto’s region. Four regional municipalities, as Halton, Peel, York and Durham together with Metro Toronto have formed the Greater Toronto Area (Relph, 2014, p. 20).
Nowadays, the name “Toronto” can be heard in everyday speech, on radio, TV. In this case, as the author wrote, the name “Toronto” is used for three different meanings:
as a part of the city built before 1940;
the New City;
the Great Toronto Area (Relph, 2014, p. 26).
Toronto has been identified as an Alpha city since 2000 and has never ranked lower than the fifteenth out of more than three hundred cities analyzed. The author also indicated that Toronto was “actively engaged at a consistently high level in the global economy” (Relph, 2014, p. 25). The author payed great attention to the borders of current Toronto agglomeration that includes the following parts:
the continuously built-up area of the New City of Toronto (with 2,6 million of population in 2011);
outer suburbs in Halton, Peel, York, Durham and some parts of Hamilton (with 3,5 million of population in 2011) (Relph, 2014, p. 26).
The whole name of that region is proposed as the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. The bigger area with around 9 million people is called the Greater Golden Horseshoe. It can be considered as porous membranes through which people and goods continually flow (Relph, 2014, p. 26).
Conclusion
In conclusion one can say that the author clearly and quite accessibly describes the main historical aspects of Toronto. The city features and main stages of suburb development are analyzed in the book. The author shows that the definition “Toronto” can be considered as at least three meanings. Passing stages of Old City, New City, Toronto has transformed to the Great Toronto Area. Urbanization processes and suburbs formation have significantly impacted on the development of city Toronto. Nowadays, population of Toronto grows rapidly and problems with housing and transport infrastructure have appeared. In this case, the suburbs become more preferable than downtown for the majority of people.
References
Relph, E. (2014). Toronto: Transformations in a City and its Region. Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press.
