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Title: If you like Toronto...
Review: Former Toronto mayor John Sewell switches from anecdotal experience (as in his excellent Up Against City Hall) to raw research for this book, an exhaustive look at urban planning in Toronto. Filled with fascinating diagrams of almost-built structures like the Toronto Pyramid and diagonal streets disecting Toronto's grid-like downtown, Sewell discusses many planning projects, both implemented and rejected. In-depth looks at Don Mills ("Canada's first corporate suburb") and St. Jamestown (a superblock requiring extensive demolition) overshadow discussion of the Eaton Centre proposal and the Spadina Expressway, significant projects that got scaled back in the end, and covered in much more detail in other books. For someone who does so much writing about Toronto (Sewell writes a weekly column on Toronto politics for eye Magazine), it's surprising that this is only his third book.
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