Suburbanicity Blog

News, updates and ideas from Roger Keil, principal investigator of Global Suburbanisms.

Welcome to Toronto after suburbs

By Roger Keil The inner suburbs in Toronto are places of great contradiction: hyperconnectivity and total lack of connectivity; universities and strip clubs; airport runways and bicycle lanes; highrises and bungalows, oldtimers and newcomers. They are also the site of disaster and planning failure: Sometimes it is the catastrophic kind like the Sunrise propane fire […]

What’s with all the hype about hipsturbia?

By Roger Keil Raw data. That’s all we want. When one of our research teams conducted expert interviews in the suburban municipalities of Barrie and Markham  last year to study their identities in the global city region, one of the first common denominators we detected was the existence of vegan restaurants in both communities. The […]

Time, space and the suburbs

By Roger Keil A new book by Nashville based writer, editor and photographer Rohan Quinby contains a thoughtful and inspiring essay on the possibilities for progressive, radical, democratic politics “where we live now”. That latter phrase refers to “these new postmetropolitan suburbs” that many North Americans call home (or place of work, consumption, education, play […]

In-between Toronto Transit Commission

By Roger Keil The shake-up of Toronto Transit Commission membership on Monday, March 5 reveals an apparent shift to a more suburban focused body. No inner city councilors are now on the TTC. All but one represent the inner suburbs. Does that mean that the needs of Toronto's in-between city are finally getting recognized? This […]