The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Can Smarter Urban Design Make Toronto Affordable Again?

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Toronto’s affordability crisis is decades in the making, shaped by planning decisions that continue to price people out. Anne Golden and Ken Greenberg, co-editors of Saving Toronto: 10 City Builders Tell Us How, examine how the city got here. Then, Antonio Gómez-Palacio looks at whether smarter urban design could still make Toronto liveable and affordable again.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Look, it's a question people have been asking for decades. So why does it feel more urgent now? Maybe because of things like traffic congestion, suburban sprawl, transit, crumbling infrastructure, and of course, there's a housing crisis. And those all have ripple effects on the rest of the province. Experts often point to one core issue. Toronto doesn't really get to call the shots. It has to accept decisions made by Queens Park in Ottawa, and the city has very few options for raising more money without raising taxes.

So, what will it take to turn things around? And are we willing to make those decisions? This is the rundown. Toronto is facing a long list of challenges, and those challenges go back, way back. But experts say it's not too late to change course and revitalize the challenge. the city. Anne Golden is a public policy analyst and co-editor of the upcoming book, Saving Toronto, 10 city builders tell us how. And co-editor, Ken Greenberg, is an urban designer and principal at Greenberg Consultants. Great to have you both. Ken, great to have you here in studio, and great to have you on the line. And I'm going to start with you. Your book opens with the line.

Toronto is in trouble. Is Toronto no longer a city that works? It is in trouble. It's, you know, we used to be seen as a kind of New York run by the Swiss. And now we're seen as a city that you can't get anywhere that you want to get to. You can't afford to live here. And everything seems to be breaking down. Now, of course, that's an overgeneralization. But it is a city that's got huge problems.

Infrastructure, the infrastructure deficit, when we wrote the book, it was around 44 to 45. billion dollars estimated. I noticed that FCM now puts it over 60 billion. So you're looking at impact on productivity. You're looking at social costs. So there are a lot of challenges in Toronto. We wrote the book as a wake-up call because we know that we can do better. We have the answers, we think. And this book is intended to get people to realize we need to change our direction. All right, with that, I want to read a blurb from the book's introduction. You both write, In times of great uncertainty when things go awry, cities are the fundamental repositories of culture, identity, and innovation, places where faith is kept, where spirit is kindled, and where values

that we cherished are preserved. It is our belief that certain events in this particular troubled time have only upped the ante around the challenges we are identifying and the urgent need for solutions. The success of Toronto as a city and city region becomes even more important as a bulwark of Canadian distinctiveness. As our cities go, so goes the nation. Ken, what specific challenges are you talking about here? Well, the ante has been upped by the situation we find ourselves in with the U.S. for sure. And there is a challenge to our way of life, to everything that Toronto represents. So just take our basic slogan.

Diversity is our strength. We are probably with all of the difficulties that we experience, and they're real, we're living in a country that doesn't have an anti-immigrant party, which every European country does, and certainly the US is being governed by an anti-immigrant party. We are living in a system where we have universal health care. where we are trying to provide education, public education, for the whole population, we're absorbing people at an astonishing rate,

perhaps even too much, and now we're trying to pull back on that a little bit. But we have a challenge. We are the resistance, in a sense, to what's happening in many other parts of the world, particularly south of the border. And given the problems that Anne has cited, and we both believed that we came to after 10 years.

We had done the course originally 10 years ago. We thought this would really be an opportune time to do a basic check to see where we are and what we can do and how we respond to the challenge. And how can we draw on our human capital, on the resources that we have, on our talent, on our ingenuity, So the book paints a dire picture of where we are,

and at the same time is meant to inspire. Okay. You talk about human capital, so I have to ask this, because our viewers are not just here in the city of Toronto. We have viewers on, in every corner of this province. And I have to ask, why should people outside of Toronto be concerned about the city's struggles? We need a two-fold answer to that, Jan. First, Toronto is very important to the province.

Economically, we're close to half of our GDP in Ontario, and we're 20% of the country's gross domestic product. So it matters to this country that Toronto thrive, but also the issues that we're describing, reliance on urban sprawl as a way to manage growth, neglecting our infrastructure to the point that we actually, right now, the way we're financed and the way we're governed, have no capacity to actually close that gap.

The challenges in all of the services, we can't provide the services because partly how we're structured, partly how we're governed, partly because of the physical architecture, it applies to all cities in Canada, more so to the larger cities in some ways, but not, you know, I spent a lot of my time up in Barry, and I've spoken there too.

They have the same challenges. And they're related to governance, finance, and above all, in my view, land use and transportation planning and the failure to integrate the two. And I want to stick with you. I want to get a better sense of how we got here. As you mentioned, you paint a sort of a dire picture here with the rest of the contributors.

Did it start with the megacity? How far do we need to go back before we start kind of finding the kind of, you know, points of paint? It's a good question. And the mega city, for sure, was a major problem. That was done shortly after I had the opportunity to do the report on the future governance of Toronto, and it went in the exact opposite direction. So it's not the only reason.

For sure, I'll start with this point that Toronto's the fastest growing city in North America and has been for a few years, certainly the last two years. Not counting, yeah, actually the fastest growing city in North America. How do we manage growth? We manage growth by sprawl. building within existing urban borders, even though there's room, both for employment growth and for people to live. So by doing that, we're creating a system that we can, as cities that we can't support. The problem with megacity was that it was both too big and too small. It was too big

to be accountable to the people who live there. And at the same time, it's too small to do the regional planning for the environment, for land use and transportation planning, and for, I would say, services in particular like policing. So it's the wrong size. And so what you have is a province now stepping in and micromanaging. And that is the main problem right now. Most of the issues that we're dealing with today stem from, A, the governance, B, the finance that the we are a cap in hand always to the levels of government with no growth source of revenue of our own and thirdly that we have now eliminated the current government has eliminated all of the smart planning policies of the McGinty of the McGinty government which in fact was moving us in the

right direction and was much praised for that but now all of that is gone and so we've got a lot of work to do but as Ken says we have the energy talent and ideas to do it if there was the willingness And that's our hope that this will contribute to the change in the climate of opinion, both for the public and for politicians. Let's pick up on the idea of micromanaging. I hope I don't get the phrase wrong here, but it's the feds who have the money, the provinces that have the power,

and the cities that have the problems. Help us understand, Ken, why do cities, Canadian cities, need more autonomy? There's a concept called subsidiarity. And it means you take decision-making down to the lowest competent level. And of course, we live in a system where we have multiple layers. We have municipal, we have provincial, we have federal. They all have different roles. And I think what's been happening now is our provincial government with Premier Ford

really would like to make itself the mayor of Toronto and the mayor of every city in the province and reach down and make decisions that local communities should be able to make. So cutting the council in half in the middle of an election, for example, was an extreme example. But what's going on now is really dangerous. The Supreme Court is actually hearing a case about Ontario Place.

And the gist of the case is, can the provincial government exempt itself from all of its own laws? And I just heard this morning that an additional example of that is the Premier wants to remove all of the environmental considerations, all the environmental laws in place over the issue of the expansion of the island airport to accommodate jets. And what happens when you do that is you lose the ability for social cohesion, for people to believe that they have some say to shape their own destiny. and for a city of over 3 million people to not be able to have planning legislation that's effective, to not feel that major environmental concerns

can be dealt with scientifically, not just based on political whims of the day, that things like heritage can be entirely dispensed with. This is really problematic, and when people don't feel that government is not, listening to them or they have anywhere to go, then they become cynical, they become fatalistic, and you'll hear people say, I don't care who gets elected, they're all going to do the same thing anyway, and it's not going to help me. And I think it's really important for cities

and towns, I would apply this to smaller areas, to have, you know, that phrase in the American Revolution, no taxation without representation, and the Boston Tea Party. Well, were there not We're in a situation where vanity projects that we have nothing to say about are getting approved for untold billions of dollars. And we have a provincial government that's saying we don't have to follow our own laws. I want to add another layer of government. Ken had brought it up first. And let's talk about the U.S. administration.

When I started reading this book, I thought, you know, we would be talking a lot about Toronto's issues, but I heard Donald Trump or read Donald Trump's name a few times in the book. And I am curious, what effect is the threat from the current U.S. administration having on cities like Toronto? Well, in terms of the culture and the kinds of decisions that are being made, I just want to build on one point. Ken is absolutely right. It undermines trust.

Without trust, people cannot work together to make decisions. And that's absolutely critical. Now, what happened to two things with the Trump, and we've written about this. For one thing, I believe that the culture emanating from the current leadership in America has emboldened the kind of decisions that I've referenced, like overuse of MZOs, ministerial zoning orders, economic zones. In other words, giving ministers or cabinet undue power. But the second thing is, on a very specific note, all of the chaos around tariffs very much affects Ontario from its economic standpoint.

On the one hand, we're looking at a global picture of AI doing, we know not what, with the job picture, but likely not good. And at the same time, you've got tariffs really hurting business, and in particular small businesses, which are the dominant form of business. And so both in terms of the economic context and in terms of the political cultural context, what's happening south of the border is really affecting us. And, you know, part of Canadian resilience must be a focus on the cities. To go back to the point you said, Jahan, as go cities, so go our nations. Ken, I want you to add on to that. But I do have to, I want to push back a little bit with these special economic zones.

Is there not some benefit to the economy when we see this? I know that there's concerns about, you know, laws and environmental impacts, but overall this is to get the economy going in some regards. Is there not a... No, absolutely. And we have the same thing at the federal level. We have a similar bill. But the question is, what do you do with the bill?

It's kind of like the notwithstanding clause in our Constitution. You don't want to have people just... overriding everything and putting very useful legislation aside and taking away the ability. For example, extending the runways and the noise and the frequency of the jets, just to stick with that example, is going to extraordinarily disrupt Toronto Harbor. And I don't think people realize that Toronto Harbor as a place of recreation, as a place of enjoyment of nature, or the islands. And at the other end, it's going to extend all the way over to Ontario Place. So there should be an opportunity for people to see what is being proposed and to look at issues like the impact on the environment.

And the same applies, for example, in northern communities in Ontario. Yes, the ring of fire perhaps, but you want to understand what the implications will be. So these things, the pendulum can swing way too far. But I want to add to Anne's point, when we started writing this book, Trump 2.0 hadn't happened. And we were merrily going along looking at Toronto through a somewhat secure lens in the sense that, you know, we had sovereignty over our city, and then all of a sudden it wasn't just Canada that was being threatened.

It was Toronto. It was a city that was being threatened in so many ways. And one of the origins of our problem, and I find we have to keep relating this to geopolitics, is that we were so reliant on the U.S. as a reliable partner in all kinds of areas. So, for example, all kinds of companies in Toronto were not making the innovations. They were not seeking relationships around the world, which we're doing now.

They were not promoting local talent, and whether it was in the arts or culture or in business. And now we are being forced, like it or not, and I think it's actually a good thing. I think the curtain has been pulled aside. We know what the reality is, and this can incentivize us to look to ourselves in a much more profound way. So that theme kind of crept into the book, and once in there, you couldn't not see it. All right. I want to change gears a little bit. I want to talk about, you bring up the curtains.

You write in your chapter this lovely scene at Regent Park, a film festival. And I want to talk a little bit about some of the winds that the city of Toronto has gotten so far. So I'm going to stick with you, what recent projects in Toronto give you hope towards a positive change in this. So I'm going to take one project that where every one of the eight themes, and by the way, we chose the smartest people we could find who knew far more than we did about all these subjects. That was the whole premise of the book.

Every one of the eight themes works together. And that's Oquin Minasing and Bidasegay Park in the Portland's. So governance, you have the three levels of government collaborating for over 20 years with changes of administration at every level. Funding, this project was well funded from the start and has come in on time and on budget and has continued to get additional funding. Environment. It's making a huge contribution to flood mitigation and to creating a green area in the heart of the city. housing, mixed income housing, mobility, social cohesion. It touches all the bases.

And what it demonstrates, and that was one of the reasons I brought it up in the last chapter, we know how to do this. We know how to do it as well as anybody in the world when we put our minds to it and when we have the right resources. Ken, Anne, we're gonna have to leave it there. I really appreciate insights on this. Hopefully Toronto can learn a few things from this book.

I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks very much. A lot of people feel priced out of Toronto and other big cities. So, can we redesign cities to make life more affordable? Antonio Gomez Palacio is a partner and chair at Dialogue, a multidisciplinary design practice, and he joins us in studio. How are you doing, sir?

I'm doing very well, Jam. It's great to have you now. I want to talk about affordability and how it should be addressed. You believe it should be done holistically. Break that down first. Why do you think that is? Sure. You know, I look at it even in the way that my wife and I made decisions over the course of our lives.

And certainly in the way that most families and kitchen tables are having the discussion. We don't look at it in silos, right? You're trying to make a whole series of bills, you know, ends meet at the end of the So you're trying to pay the rent or the mortgage, you're trying to pay for transportation, for food, and all of these other aspects altogether. So whereas absolutely we need to be looking at affordability of housing, we're also simultaneously have an affordable transportation crisis. We have a crisis on affordability on a number of different fronts.

So ideally, we're as policymakers, as city builders, as governments, We actually break out of those silos and start to think about all of the different aspects that affect affordability in the household. So break that down for me. Let's talk in practical terms. What does that look like? So the average Canadian over their entire lifespan spends 29% of their entire disposable income on their house. At a certain point, that could be 60, 70% when you have a mortgage, but, you know, different times. But they spend 19% on their car. They spend 11% on just the utilities and running the house. So if I as an architect or as a city builder can design a place where somebody doesn't need to own a car or own the second car, right, and the utility bills can be diminished, I will have a very direct impact on household income.

And all of a sudden, what might have been an unaffordable house becomes affordable. So families, as I say, aren't making decisions in silo. So why would we as city builders start fracturing all the ways in which we think? Help us use sort of how cities have been built before help us inform how we can sort of build better in this case. Absolutely. And here is where we actually have some great examples. Frankly, most of the cities where our grandparents and great grandparents came from, right, were walkable. They were able to walk to school. How many kids today walked to school, right?

They went to the groceries and they lived in very compact and succinct life forms, right? And cities. After the Second World War, we invented machines and we had cars and we started to build roads. And there was this sense that we could accumulate stuff, right? And we could build our way into all kinds of very luxurious lifestyles. Not surprisingly, that has resulted in unsustainable cities, right? We can't sustain that level of infrastructure. And for households, it's become unaffordable. So we need to bring the pendulum back, right, to more compact, more mixed use, more walkable, so that we can have great quality of life and great lifestyles without the need to build so much infrastructure and without the need to accumulate so much stuff.

Is there a city right now in this country or in this province that you look at that is doing it right? That is doing it like how you are wanting cities to approach things. Absolutely. And many of them have the good bones. We're in Toronto right now and there's some great bones in there. And when my wife and I arrived here 28 years ago, we didn't have two pennies to rub together. So we were having to make the tough decisions that many people are making.

And after a few years, my son, you know, we were expecting my son coming along. And we discovered that the only way in which we could afford the house where we wanted to live was if we committed not to owning a car for 10 years. And we've been a car-free household for 28 years. And, you know, how much money we have saved. But that was a balancing act. And different families are making different decisions all the time. And we were able to make a great life in Toronto,

and we picked where we lived and in these aspects to be able to have that lifestyle. Different people will make different choices. And the city, and this is a great thing about cities, can afford to create options for people. The trick is in other parts of the city as well, people don't have options. Public transit is not really an option.

right? Being able to walk your kid to school is not really an option. So there's great corners in the city and there's areas that we could definitely improve upon. I want to have a better understanding of what have governments gotten wrong over the years? When we talk about sort of, you know, urban sprawl and building better cities, you know, over the past couple years, we've heard a lot about, you know, the green belt and wanting to develop those places. Those can be costly, as we know with sort of having to build the infrastructure from the ground up. But what have governments gotten wrong over the years from your view? In some instances, expediency has gotten in the way of good long-term planning.

Good cities are planned on a hundred year, on a thousand-year type of horizons. Why? Because people made decisions 100, 200 years ago, that we're living with the consequences of today. So for example, carving out chunks of the green belt in order to supply more housing, if that comes along with the need to build a tremendous amount of infrastructure to supply that housing out in those areas, and then it creates a lifestyle where people need to drive long distances in order to get there, we may create the illusion of providing affordable housing in the short term. In reality, we're just expanding on a very extreme. expensive form of city building and a very expensive lifestyle for people.

So, yes, many governments have gotten it very wrong in many instances. We're also now building around transit centers. We're building in some key areas. So in the midst of all the wrong, there's also some great things that are taking place. Obviously, in the midst of all of this, we do have a housing crisis. we do have a cost of living crisis. I want to have a better understanding, how could your approach have an immediate impact?

Because I think that's, you know, when we talk about having this long-term plan, but people do want results now. It doesn't happen necessarily like that. But how could your approach have an immediate impact on people's lives and finances? Yeah, so we need to change the policy. We need to change the way in which we think about cities.

We need to be thinking about it in a comprehensive way. And at the same time, we need to help families who are trying to balance all of these things out. Right? So if we're trying to do affordable housing, which we absolutely need to do, and at the same time,

we're building some affordable means of transportation and creating access to affordable recreation and services in these kinds of things, if we can just make a 5% dent in each one of those and a 10% dent, then we're tackling what those bills that show up at the kitchen table from a variety of different perspectives. So one particular family, we may not be able to tackle the housing.

But if we've tackled the transportation or access to healthy food, right, or creating other aspects, it means that by approaching the problem from a multi-prong perspective, we have a much greater ability to have an immediate effect on families. Antonio, we are going to have to leave it there. This is not the first time or the last time that we're going to have you on the program, of course. You are going to be joining us throughout the rest of the season to talk a little bit more about what design can do for us in this province. Jan, it was a pleasure and thanks for tackling such an urgent issue.

I'm Jay-N. Thanks for watching The Rundown. What do you like or not like about what we're doing so far? Send us your feedback at tvo.org slash rundown feedback or you can always leave us a comment on YouTube. Until then, I'll see you tomorrow. Thank you.