Sarah Yellin at Spacing Toronto writes about an issue with the sharing economy that I literally had not imagined.

What happens when fare collectors start to become wise to over-turnstile Bunz trade activity occurring at Ossington subway station? The station’s central location made it a popular site for trades but eventually, it became too busy, ( Read more... )

Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw reflects on his experience of being a flâneur, and the problems of said.

Introduced to the concept by a friend, there was a time when I was a most dedicated flaneur. Then I drifted away a little, although I introduced a remarkable number of people to the concept ( Read more... )

Via the Map Room Blog I came across an article in The New York Times offering advice to people with problems in territories unknown to them. . Speaking as someone who generally does not have troubles with orienting himself, these and the other pieces of advice offered make sense to me: Having an idea as to where are you going, both beforehand in ( Read more... )

Cody Delistraty's blog post takes a look at the way women has been excluded from the city as random walkers, how the word "flâneur" is gendered masculine in more ways than the obvious one, and how a new generation of women are challenging this.

For centuries, the word ‘flâneur’ has burrowed itself into the historical conversation of what it means ( Read more... )

Torontoist's David Wencer describes how, in the 1930s, shifting conceptions of public space on the roads led to a shift in the view of pedestrians, who were now seen as largely responsible for their own safety.

The Christmas of 1936 was a black one for Toronto. On December 26, newspapers reported on the holiday slaughter: three people killed, at ( Read more... )

Josh O'Kane writes about how his walks throughout Toronto have helped him, originally from New Brunswick, get to know his adopted city. I can testify that this works.

For more than four years, I have walked to and from work. But that’s about to change ( Read more... )

• blogTO notes the growing concentration of chain stores on lower Ossington.
• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly describes her luck in interviewing a New York City firefighter.
• Citizen Science Salon reports on a citizen science game intended to fight against Alzheimer's.
• Language Hat starts from a report about unsold Welsh-language Scrabble games to talk ( Read more... )

3 Quarks Daily linked to Lauren Elkin's article in The Paris Review looking at the experience of women wanderers in cities, the flâneuses, and the ways in which their experiences are guided and limited.

There’s something so attractive about wandering aimlessly through the city, taking it all in (especially if we’re wearing Hermès while we do it). ( Read more... )

I love Kalypso Nicolaïdis' autobiographical essay at Open Democracy about her experience of Manhattan's liberating grid of streets. Beautiful writing, lovely photos.

Freedom is the original promise. Once upon a time, we were born to a thousand paths ( Read more... )

• The BBC notes an attack on a vegan restaurant in Tbilisi by meat-eating nationalists.
• Bloomberg notes a slur by a German populist against a non-white soccer player, reports on Sweden's economic boom, Looks at rail investment in India, and notes Southeast Asia is beating out China as a destination for Japanese investment.
• Bloomberg View looks at ( Read more... )