From Publishers Weekly
Toronto is "like San Francisco upside down," says Fulford, a columnist for the Globe and Mail and a disciple of noted urban sociologist Jane Jacobs. Built on steep, wooded ravines, the city was until recently a colorless provincial town, despite its varied topography. Within Fulford's lifetime, and thanks to both the successes and failures of central planners, Toronto has become a cosmopolitan center. Fulford describes ferocious struggles by its various ethnic communities to retain their different identities in the face of attempts to homogenize them, and he cites efforts to preserve the natural wilderness that has made present-day Toronto "a city within a park rather than a park within a city." Horrendous errors in architectural and planning decisions notwithstanding, Fulford claims it is now a city of vitality and beauty and feels that Toronto, in its haphazard, contentious development, has become one of North America's most livable cities. His book provides a witty, incisive study in urban development.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Toronto is one of the truly sparkling communities on our continent. This sparkling book tells how this has come about."
–John Kenneth Galbraith
"Accidental City is a joy…not just for Torontonians but for anyone interested in modern city life."
–
Quill & Quire
"Fulford, the foremost cultural journalist in the country [exhibits] his eye for the significant anecdote and the telling quotation, his awareness of the broad social and cultural context, his sense of irony, his unerring ability to puncture myth and pretension, and above all the grace and with of his prose."
–Philip Marchand
, Toronto StarFrom the Hardcover edition.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
