The Globe and Mail

Upon becoming Mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford killed existing public transit plans, declaring the "war on the car" over. Now a coalition of urbanists and a majority of city council members are turning against Ford's subway-only plan.

Trees are an increasingly important part of the urban infrastructure. However, a lack a awareness about how to plant and nurture large trees in urban environments dooms many trees to lackluster performance and a short life.

New street furniture is being installed in Toronto, but locals are already sick of it. They're called "information pillars" and are supposed to offer helpful directions and info to pedestrians, but critics complain that they're mostly advertisements.

Canadian cities are increasingly investing in cultural centers in their downtowns in order to create attract people and spur investment.

Despite depressed home prices around the U.S., Toronto's condo market is still so hot that the city government is considering getting a piece of the action.

In Vancouver, B.C., Trevor Hancock is helping the city make the connection between the built environment and the health of the citizens.

Fort McMurray is one of Canada's fastest-growing, wealthiest and most expensive cities...with no downtown.

Shifting demographics combined with changes in lifestyle preferences and growing frustration at the limitations of auto-oriented living is leading to a shift away from car use and ownership, some experts say.

Thanks to massive projects fuelled by developers rather than retailers, and official efforts to spur a consumer economy, China is becoming home to massive, deserted malls.

Cities like San Francisco, Portland and New York are facing a problem most people didn't expect: an overabundance of farmers' markets. Vancouver's planners are keeping the numbers trimmed to make sure the current markets don't wither and die.

Toronto architect Reza Aliabadi took a trip into the far northern reaches of Nunavut, Canada's Inuit territory. There, the flatness of the tundra and the stone stacks made by the Inuit inspired him to propose a stacked housing tower.

In order to lighten the footprint of the 2012 Olympics, Britain's architects and event planners are aiming to "reduce, reuse and recycle" venues so that they can be repurposed or taken down when the games are over.

...or, how to say "Yes, in my backyard!" to new development proposals. A new guide developed by the Pivot Legal Society in Vancouver is intended to provide guidance for communities that actually want hard-to-place projects.

Canadian Urban designer Ken Greenberg and American planner Trent Lethco argue that investing in cycling infrastructure improves driving conditions -- for those times that you really need a car.

After decades of neglect, the infrastructure in the Canadian province of Quebec is in such bad condition that drivers are nervous going through tunnels and over bridges.

...except with architects, who are still creating utopian visions. A new book gathers works by 70 such architects and includes a "linear city" thousands of miles long proposed by an Italian architecture firm.

Small-scale, temporary interventions in urban space have brought the concept of "pop-up" projects into the civic space of cities.

Consultants hired by the City of Toronto are recommending dramatic cuts to public transit, including contracting out some routes and eliminating a late-night bus service popular with shift workers.

A group of mayor in the metropolitan Vancouver area have proposed an increase in the gas tax to develop a fund for a long-stalled transit project.

The dividing lines in the cities of today are not so much about neighborhoods, but rather the relative health of those neighborhoods, according to this piece from The Globe and Mail.