A sketch, for a future project

Toronto’s Island has provided your Urban Geographer with immense inspiration regarding Urban Ecology and its manifestation in Toronto.

It seems that this deeply wild Island has enabled an equivalently deep urbanity in the city across the Bay. To illustrate this: Chicago is a nearby Great Lakes city that does not have an island. Its water front integrates nature and the city very well. In Toronto on the other hand, we have a waterfront that is a great concrete barrier to the lake, remedied by an extremely natural beach a few kilometres further south.

Of course, the spaces aren’t pure. There’s a little city in the Island and a little Island in the city. (There’s also a little Island in all Torontonians, and a little Toronto in all Islanders).

Remarkably, the geography of the Islands and Toronto provides a clear illustration of this phenomenon…