Streetcars and the Shifting Geographies of Toronto

A Visual Analysis of Change

By: Brian Doucet, Michael Doucet

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Paperback | 22 February 2022

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Streetcars and the Shifting Geographies of Toronto visually compares historic and contemporary images of different parts of Toronto to better understand how and why the city has changed.

When looking at old pictures of Toronto, it is clear that the city's urban, economic, and social geography has changed dramatically over the generations. Historic photos of Toronto's streetcar network offer a unique opportunity to examine how the city has been transformed from a provincial, industrial city into one of North America's largest and most diverse regions.

Streetcars and the Shifting Geographies ofToronto studies the city's urban transformations through an analysis of photographs taken by streetcar enthusiasts, beginning in the 1960s. These photographers did not intend to record the urban form, function, or social geographies of Toronto; they were "accidental archivists" whose main goal was to photograph the streetcars themselves. But today, their images render visible the ordinary, day-to-day life in the city in a way that no others did. These historic photographs show a Toronto before gentrification, globalisation, and deindustrialization. Each image has been re-photographed to provide fresh insights into a city that is in a constant state of flux.

With gorgeous illustrations, this unique book offers an understanding of how Toronto has changed, and the reasons behind these urban shifts. The visual exploration of historic and contemporary images from different parts of the city helps to explain how the major forces shaping the city affect its form, functions, neighbourhoods, and public spaces.

Industry Reviews

Streetcars and the Shifting Geographies of Toronto is an essential book for the library of anyone - academic or otherwise - interested in the city's history. It offers an engaging but unflinching narrative of Toronto's development over the past fifty years, in all its inequity, and helps us think about the role of transit within the city it moves through. But the Doucets' critical visual analysis of the city's landscape extends well beyond the streetcar, and provides an insightful approach to grappling with the impact of the complex changes brought about by local and global forces.

- Patricia Burke Wood, Professor of Geography, York University

Cities are places and material assemblages, but they are also portals that allow and require us to look across space and time in new and creative ways. This is a brilliant, beautiful book, an eloquent blend of Jane Jacobs, Susan Sontag, Sam Bass Warner, and Annie Leibovitz. Join me in a desire named streetcar, as Brian and Michael Doucet help us navigate the present, past, and future on a key Canadian node of the multidimensional frontiers of planetary urbanization!

- Elvin Wyly, Professor of Geography, University of British Columbia

The secret to understanding Toronto is the streetcars: their rails are the city's backbone and the cars themselves the electric nervous system that propels the city forward. The visual record of the streetcars themselves is a unique and clever frame to see the city through. The Doucets tap into decades of photos guiding us to look for the deeper context in each one. All that, and the streetcars are pretty cool too.

- Shawn Micallef, author of Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto

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