Reshaping Toronto's Waterfront

Gene Desfor is a professor emeritus and senior scholar in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University.Jennefer Laidley holds an MES in Urban Planning from the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University.

‘Reshaping Toronto’s Waterfront offers a comprehensive overview of the city’s ever-changing shoreline. Readers will learn about the monumental decisions and socio-economic pressures that have transformed Toronto’s waterfront for over two hundred years. They will also be reminded of the territorial battles between all levels of government that have been going on for over a century, and most disturbingly, continue to be played out to this day. If we want to know how Toronto’s lakeshore has ended up in its current state, we have to learn from the mistakes and successes that dot its history. Reshaping Toronto’s Waterfront is a good place to get your history lesson.’ - Matthew Blackett, publisher, Spacing ‘The book provides an insightful historical sketch and critical analysis of the variegated socio-natural processes of waterfront development to urban historians, scholars of urban environmental history, urbanists, city planners, scholars of local politics, students as well as activists.’- Thorben Wieditz (Urban Studies vol 51:04:2014)

• IntroductionPART ONE: FORGING THE INDUSTRIAL WATERFRONT1 Planning for Change: Harbour Commissions, Civil Engineers, and Large-Scale Manipulation of NatureMICHAEL MOIR2 Establishing the Toronto Harbour Commission and Its 1912 Waterfront Development PlanGENE DESFOR, LUCIAN VESALON, AND JENNEFER LAIDLEY3 From Liability to Profitabilit: How Disease, Fear, and Medical Science Cleaned Up the Marshes of Ashbridge's Bay PAUL S.B. JACKSON4 From Feast to Famine: Shipbuilding and the 1912 Waterfront Development PlanMICHAEL MOIR5 A Social History of a Changing Environment: The Don River Valley, 1910–1931JENNIFER BONNELL6 Boundaries and Connectivity: The Lower Don River and Ashbridge's BayTENLEY CONWAY7 Networks of Power: Toronto's Waterfront Energy Systems from 1840 to 1970SCOTT PRUDHAM, GUNTER GAD, AND RICHARD ANDERSONPART TWO: SHAPING THE POST-INDUSTRIAL WATERFRONT8 Creating an Environment for Change: The 'Ecosystem Approach' and the Olympics on Toronto's WaterfrontJENNEFER LAIDLEY9 From Harbour Commission to Port Authority: Institutionalizing the Federal Government's Role in Waterfront DevelopmentCHRISTOPHER SANDERSON AND PIERRE FILION10 Cleaning Up on the Waterfront: Development of Contaminated SitesHON Q. LU AND GENE DESFOR11 Who's in Charge?: Jurisdictional Gridlock and the Genesis of Waterfront TorontoGABRIEL EIDELMAN12 Public-Private Sector Alliances in Sustainable Waterfront Revitalization: Policy, Planning, and Design in the West Don LandsSUSANNAH BUNCE13 Socio-ecological Change in the Nineteenth and Twenty-first Centuries: The Lower Don RiverGENE DESFOR AND JENNIFER BONNELLReferences ContributorsIndex