We meet Globe & Mail architecture critic Alex Bozikovic in the new Love Park on Toronto's waterfront, to talk about good public space design, bad maintenance practices, and the legacy of legendary landscape architect Claude Cormier.

We talk to playwright Michael Healey about "The Master Plan," a play about the doomed futuristic neighbourhood Google and Waterfront Toronto tried to build on the lakeshore.

And, as a preview of our latest Spacing issue "Once Upon a Time in Toronto," we talk to author/playwright/screenwriter Catherine Hernandez about why she writes about Scarborough, and the pain of having to leave the neighbourhood that inspires you.

Last season, we talked to a group of people from the Kensington Market Community Land Trust (KMCLT) in Toronto as part of a range of options for non-market housing. Over a year later, we check in with the state of land trusts across the country: where are they, what are their impact, and what do they need to succeed and even scale upward to other communities?

Susannah Bunce, associate professor at the University of Toronto's Department of Human Geography, has been researching the KMCLT. She has insight into how land trusts can grow and succeed, and the role they play in combatting displacement:

It removes land from the speculative market and holds land, in trust, by the non-profit organization for the purposes of keeping housing and land prices at a lower level for community benefit. That principle of community land trust organizing and the model itself is fundamental to combatting gentrification.

Nat Pace is network director for the Canadian Network of Community Land Trusts, and provides a look at trusts across the country, in communities large and small, urban and remote, and the role they play in increasing equity:

Right now in Canada, we have quite a few examples of equity-deserving communities using the model. There's a very interesting cluster in Nova Scotia of African-Nova Scotian communities who are looking to develop their own localized community land trusts as a way to create land bases for their communities, and also reclaim land titles that have been lost.

What can land trusts do to provide affordable housing and increase equity in this country?

This Spring, Spacing Radio had the opportunity to take the show on the road to the International Transport Forum in Leipzig, Germany. Now that the whole "who will be the mayor of Toronto" thing is settled, we bring you some highlights from the Forum.

Heather Thompson, CEO of the Institute for Transportation and and Development Policy, talks about the importance of smaller-order, local transit like buses.

Ann Frye of consultant firm Ann Frye Ltd. talks about striking a balance between accessibility and rethinking mobility.

And ITF Secretary-General Young Tae Kim talks about tackling transport emissions and traffic congestion holistically.

Finally, Spacing contributors Heather Breeze and Conrad Speckert talk about their "Single Stair Solution," which is also found in the latest "Fire!" issue of the magazine.

The days of the "mom-and-pop" landlord are largely behind us. Now, housing units are being snapped up or developed by large corporate entities and private equity firms. It can be hard to figure out who  actually owns a building. Homes being treated like major sources of capital, instead of places for people to live.

This is a major factor in the housing crisis, pushes people who are renting out of their homes and neighbourhoods, and changes the physical and social fabric of communities.

Erika Sagert, policy manager for the BC Non-Profit Housing Association, has been trying to identify just how many people are affected by this financialization of housing:

"It's really hard to be a renter in Canada. The numbers, in terms of sheer volume, really stand out. We talk a lot about proportion, so we're looking at one third of renter households in Canada are spending more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities. The number that stands out to me is 1.6 million rental households."

When it comes to the types of private equity shaping the rental market, and their effect on Black and other marginalized communities, Toronto Metropolitan University's Dr. Nemoy Lewis and research assistant Dimitri Panou have been tracking just that. As Dr. Lewis says:

"When we think about the term 'displacement,' it gives us the idea that we can just go down the street and move into the next apartment. But that next apartment might be owned by... a different financialized landlord who are also engaged in the same practice. So, as such, these landlords are causing folks to be expelled and banished from major urban centres."

Finally, Cloé St-Hilaire, PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo, is researching financialized rentals in Montreal, who owns what, and who is impacted the most:

"We saw there was a strong positive correlation between the percentage of financialized landlords and the percentage of households that were living in high-density areas, and there was also a strong correlation with renters' housing stress. So the more the renters were housing-stressed in the census tract, the more there was a propensity of having financialized landlords."

What do we do when big capital has taken over the landlord business?

The June 26th mayoral by-election is coming up fast. We've seen plenty of debate, a crowded field of candidates, and increased voter engagement. What's next?

Spacing senior editor John Lorinc, Toronto Star city hall reporter Alyshah Hasham, and Ontario reporter for The Narwhal Fatima Syed join us to talk about duelling housing platforms, the environment, the big, Doug Ford-shaped question mark, and more.

Evictions can completely upend your life. At best, you have to begin the search for a new home in an increasingly expensive and competitive housing market. At worst, you can't find an affordable replacement. It's a scary situation, even in the best circumstances.

In this episode, we get into why evictions happen, how frequently, tenant rights, and "bad faith" evictions.

First, we speak to Adam Mongrain, director of housing policy with the Quebec advocacy group Vivre en Ville about an online rental registry, which would provide renters and governments about changes in rental prices, and prevent unfair price hikes.

Next, Julie Mah is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, Scarborough, who has done a lot of work on gentrification and urban displacement, and tells us about how that can cause evictions.

Finally, Alexandra Flynn, associate professor at the University of British Columbia's Allard School of Law talks about the high eviction rate in B.C. municipalities, changes to the provinces "Residential Tenancy Act," the housing as a human right, including for those living in encampments.

Why do evictions happen, and what can we do to prevent them? We get into it.

Now that John Tory has officially stepped down as mayor, the field of candidates hoping to replace him is a big one. With roughly 50 candidates on the ballot so far, there's a lot to make sense of.

To help weigh the merits of some of the major candidates, and the ideas proposed so far, we talk to Spacing Senior Editor John Lorinc and Toronto Metropolitan University Associate Professor Cheryl Thompson about what stands out in the race so far.

And the new Spacing Magazine is available now, and it's all about the Ontario Line — the new subway meant to connect the downtown to the northeast of the city. Civil engineer and University of Toronto Associate Professor Shoshanna Saxe tells us about her latest Spacing contribution about how to get the most value-for-money from the new subway line.

The term "Smart Cities" has been kicking around for about a decade now. When we began The Future Fix series, that term was headline news. Everyone, including multiple levels of governments, was being asked to imagine a new kind of urban space, where data and technology were woven into the very fabric of the neighbourhood. Since then, the Smart Cities conversation has evolved, important questions have been asked, a global pandemic happened, and we have more examples, from communities across Canada, about what works, and what to avoid.

John Lorinc is a Spacing senior editor and author of the book "Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias." He's been researching data and tech as it relates to cities and urban politics and planning for years now, and his book earned the Writer's Trust of Canada Balsilie Prize for Public Policy.

“Because of the pandemic and because so much of our lives had to go online for this period of time, and in many ways stay online, a lot of the ideas around Smart Cities and this hyperconnectivity and this use of big data became actually part of the way our cities our cities function. Except we stopped calling it 'Smart Cities'.”

Martin Canning is executive director of government innovation at Evergreen. He tells us about what he's learned about data and technology projects in communities across the countries, through his work with the Community Solutions Network, and what makes a "Smart" project successful.

"There's a dark side and there's a light side, and I'll stick to the light side, when we're thinking about the future and where technology is often driving us, sometimes pulling us. But when it comes to cities, and public sector markets, and government innovation and community innovation in Canada and around the world, what I see [...] is not just an appetite, but a culture that is opening to allow for multi-sectoral partnership like we haven't seen before."

Listen to the episode to hear more about the future of "future fixes."

The Future Fix is a partnership between Spacing and Evergreen for the Community Solutions Network: a program of Future Cities Canada. As the program lead, Evergreen is working with Open North and partners to help communities of all sizes across Canada navigate the smart cities landscape. The Community Solutions Network is supported with funding provided by Infrastructure Canada.

Not all technology has to be disruptive, it may actually be most useful as an extension of our ways of life, instead of as a replacement. In the arctic, the Inuit have extensive traditional knowledge of traversing sea ice for hunting, gathering supplies, and travelling between communities. SmartICE is a social enterprise which uses technology to build on this traditional knowledge and map the ever-changing sea ice, so people can make informed decisions about how and where to travel.

Andrew Arreak is SmartICE Regional Operations Lead for Qikiqtaaluk Region, and explains the benefit this technology provides to northern communities.

“Every year the ice conditions are different... if we knew what was coming in terms of ice conditions, I don't think we would need a SmartICE at all up in the north. It is a great adapting tool that we are able to use so we can provide the information for our local people.  Since I've started working there has been less people falling through the ice, less search and rescue callouts, and people are more confident on how long they should be out at certain times of year before the ice starts to break.”

The Future Fix is a partnership between Spacing and Evergreen for the Community Solutions Network: a program of Future Cities Canada. As the program lead, Evergreen is working with Open North and partners to help communities of all sizes across Canada navigate the smart cities landscape. The Community Solutions Network is supported with funding provided by Infrastructure Canada.

We're back for 2023, and there is... a lot to catch up on.

To begin, Emma McIntosh, Ontario reporter for The Narwhal, guides us through Doug Ford's Greenbelt plan. What will the long term effects be? Who stands to benefit? Did certain developers catch wind of the changes to land that was formerly protected?

Then, Ontario Place for All co-founder Norm Di Pasquale tells us about the growing criticism of plans to turn Ontario Place into a privatized tourist destination.