"People and government travelling together": community organization, urban planning and the politics of post-war reconstruction in Toronto 1943-1945.

"People and government travelling together": community organization, urban planning and the politics of post-war reconstruction in Toronto 1943-1945. Abstract: Most bistories of urban planning urban planning:see city planning. urban planningPrograms pursued as a means of improving the urban environment and achieving certain social and economic objectives. , urban politics, and thedevelopment of the welfare state have largely neglected both theexistence and the importance of citizen participation in any periodprior to the 1960s. The establishment of the Toronto ReconstructionCouncil/Civic Advisory Council in 1943, and the Community CouncilCo-ordinating Committee (4C's) in 1947, however, illustrates theimportance of popular involvement in city and social planning during acrucial period in the history of Toronto The Toronto area was home to a number of First Nations groups who lived on the shore of Lake Ontario. At the time of European contact, the Huron tribes were living in the vicinity of Toronto. and Canada as a whole.Organized by the local state both the Reconstruction Council and the4C's tried to harness the tremendous surge of local activism andsocial idealism engendered by Torontonians' own attempts to tacklethe social problems caused by a decade and a half of depression and war,as well as by their hopes for post-war reconstruction. Intended in manyways to manufacture consent for civic reconstruction plans, the agendaof these two organizations was often captive to the demands made byordinary Torontonians out of necessity and self-interest. This article examines Toronto's unique experiment to harnesscitizen and community participation in aid of social and urban planningschemes. It argues that the rise and subsequent fall of the communityorganization movement represented a crucial turning point turning incitizen participation in urban planning politics. The formation of theTRC/CAC and the 4C's represented a plastic moment in Toronto urbanplanning politics when the ideals of local democracy and citizenparticipation seemed achievable. However, the community organizationmovement foundered on the very divisions it hoped to overcome: class,ethnicity, and most importantly Adv. 1. most importantly - above and beyond all other consideration; "above all, you must be independent"above all, most especially political. Ultimately the failure ofthese two organizations to incorporate genuine citizen participation insocial and urban planning schemes, as the case of the Regent Park Coordinates: Alternate uses: Regent's Park (disambiguation)Regent Park is a neighbourhood located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. slumclearance slum clearance:see housing; city planning. and public housing project illustrates, haunted city planning city planning,process of planning for the improvement of urban centers in order to provide healthy and safe living conditions, efficient transport and communication, adequate public facilities, and aesthetic surroundings. politics for the next two decades. Resume: La plupart des histoires de la planification urbaine, de lapolitique urbaine, et du developpement de l'etat providence ont engrande partie neglige l'existence et l'importance de laparticipation de citoyen a n'importe quelle periode avant lesannees 60. L'etablissement de Toronto Reconstruction Council/CivicAdvisory Council en 1943, et de Community Council Co-ordinatingCommittee (4C's) en 1947, cependant, illustrer importance populaireparticipation pour les arrangements sociaux et urbains de planificationpendant un crucial periode dans histoire de Toronto et Canada dansl' ensemble. Organise par l'etat local le TRC/CAC et le4C's a essaye d'armer la montee subite enorme del'activisme local et l'idealisme social engendre parTorontonians propres tentatives d'aborder les problemes sociaux acause par une decennie et une moitie de depression et de guerre, aussibien que par leurs espoirs pour la reconstruction d'apres-guerre.Destine des��tine?tr.v. des��tined, des��tin��ing, des��tines1. To determine beforehand; preordain: a foolish scheme destined to fail; a film destined to become a classic.2. de beaucoup beau��coup? also boo��coo or boo��koo Chiefly Southern U.S.adj.Many; much: beaucoup money.n. pl. de voies de fabriquer le consentement pour des plansciviques de reconstruction, l'ordre du jour du jour?adj.1. Prepared for a given day: The soup du jour is cream of potato.2. Most recent; current: the trend du jour. de ces deux organismesetait souvent captif au des demandes des moyens citoyens. Cet article examine la seule experience de Toronto pour armer laparticipation de citoyen et de communaute a l'aide des arrangementssociaux et urbains de planification. Il argue du fait quel'elevation et la chute ulterieure du mouvement d'organisationde la communaute ont represente un tournant crucial dans laparticipation de citoyen a la politique urbaine de planification. Laformation le TRC/CAC et le 4C's a represente un moment en plastique plas��tique?n.See plastic explosive.[French, from Latin plasticus, plastic, of modeling; see plastic.]Noun 1. dans la politique urbaine de planification de Toronto de le moment oules ideaux de la participation locale de democratie et de citoyen ontsemble realisables. Cependant, le mouvement d'organisation de lacommunaute s'est effondu sur les divisions memes qu'il aespere surmonter: classe, appartenance ethnique, et d'une maniereprimordiale politique. Finalement le manque man��qu��?adj.Unfulfilled or frustrated in the realization of one's ambitions or capabilities: an artist manqu��; a writer manqu��. de ces deux organismesd'incorporer la participation veritable de citoyen aux arrangementssociaux et urbains de planification, comme cas du degagement de taudisde parc de Regent et du projet de logement public illustre, hanterait lapolitique de planification urbaine pour les deux decennies suivantes. "The winning of war did not solve the problems of peace. Infact the problems of peace-time living are greater now than before thewar," (1) proclaimed Hugo Wolter, the city's newly appointedCommunity Counsellor. A period of temporary unity of purpose forTorontonians, the war years led into post-war reconstruction, which onlyseemed to produce division and conflict. Beset by the problems of severehousing shortages, juvenile delinquency juvenile delinquency,legal term for behavior of children and adolescents that in adults would be judged criminal under law. In the United States, definitions and age limits of juveniles vary, the maximum age being set at 14 years in some states and as high as 21 , labour strife, the`spectre' of communism, and the integration of European immigrants(known derogatorily de��rog��a��to��ry?adj.1. Disparaging; belittling: a derogatory comment.2. Tending to detract or diminish. as "Displaced Persons") from war-tornEurope, Toronto appeared to Wolter a city under siege. Wolter deemedthese problems to be so acute that he claimed the city was "a housedivided against itself." Torontonians could not overcome theseproblems, Wolter claimed, without re-examining their mid-Victorianpolitical culture which discouraged individual or local initiative. Onlyby rekindling a spirit of community in which "government and peopletravelled together" did Wolter believe that Toronto could solve itsproblems. Wolter realized this would be a difficult task, but what hecould not foresee was that his attempts to "rekindle re��kin��dle?tr.v. re��kin��dled, re��kin��dling, re��kin��dles1. To relight (a fire).2. To revive or renew: rekindled an old interest in the sciences. communityspirit" would soon be added to the list problems facing the city.(2) Wolter arrived in Toronto when politics were more open to citizenparticipation and community organizations than it ever had been. TheCity Council's establishment of both the Toronto ReconstructionCouncil (renamed the Civic Advisory Council in 1948) in 1943, and theReconstruction Council's creation of the Community CouncilCo-ordinating Committee (4C's) in 1947, illustrates this growingmovement towards popular involvement in social and urban planning. Overthe previous decade and a half Torontonians had exhibited a tremendousoutpouring of local activism and social idealism engendered by their ownattempts to tackle the social problems caused by the Depression and theWar, as well as by their hopes for post-war reconstruction. TheReconstruction Council and the 4C's hoped to harness these forcesin support of civic reconstruction plans. In doing so, the local statewas not only following imperatives to manage conflict or to manufactureconsent, but also found itself responding to the claims that citizensmade out of necessity and self-interest. During this crucial period ofreconstruction the very definition of community, as well as the commandof its institutions, became a central arena of social and politicalcontestations. The following pages examine the intersection between communityorganization and urban planning during this pivotal period of post-warreconstruction in Toronto. The Toronto Reconstruction Council and itsattempts to incorporate citizen participation in its elaboration of a"social' Master Plan for post-war Toronto is important for tworeasons. First, the Reconstruction Council's agenda reveals howcentral the politics of city planning was to the construction of thewelfare state in post-war Canada. By focussing solely on federal andprovincial governments many scholars have overlooked the fact that thepolitics of post-war reconstruction was concerned as much with localmatters involving housing, zoning, rent controls, slum clearance, andthe regulation of public space as it was with national programs, such ascollective bargaining collective bargaining,in labor relations, procedure whereby an employer or employers agree to discuss the conditions of work by bargaining with representatives of the employees, usually a labor union. legislation and unemployment benefits. (3)Inherent in the politics of urban post-war reconstruction were keybattles between physical planning and comprehensive social planning, andbetween centralized, scientific rational planning which would supposedlyserve the interests of the greater community, and more defensive,`populist' neighbourhood-based planning which would preserveToronto as a `city of neighbourhoods.' The successes and failuresof trying to integrate community organization and civic planning in theimmediate post-war years were conditioned by these approaches toplanning in "the community's interest." Second, it reveals that citizen participation in the politics ofurban planning was not limited to the upheavals of the 1960s. Aside fromShirley Tillotson's examination of citizen participation in therecreation movement in Brantford Ontario, and Gale Wills's study ofsocial work in Toronto, the history of community organization and itsties to citizen participation in welfare state provision remainswoefully woe��fulalso wo��ful ?adj.1. Affected by or full of woe; mournful.2. Causing or involving woe.3. Deplorably bad or wretched: unexplored. (4) Many of the same issues, ideas, sentiments, andeven personalities, which occupied community organizations during the1960s can be traced back to the movement during the post-war period. AsJill Wade similarly argues in her discussion of Vancouver's socialhousing movement of the first half of this century, this `rupture inhistorical memory' left the activists of the 1960s largely unawareof previous crises, older struggles, previous achievements, andimportant allies. (5) Indeed, the rise and subsequent fall of citizen participation as acentral aspect of the Reconstruction Council's program of acomprehensive "social" Master Plan represented a turning pointin participation of `the people' in urban planning. Both thepromises of post-war reconstruction and the tremendous social upheavals,of which Wolter spoke, spurred communities into action while compellingthe local state to manage those activities. However, as Wolter woulddiscover, his attempts to reawaken Verb 1. reawaken - awaken once againawaken, wake up, waken, rouse, wake, arouse - cause to become awake or conscious; "He was roused by the drunken men in the street"; "Please wake me at 6 AM." the `principle of community'unleashed forces that established interests in Toronto were not preparedto accommodate. Ironically, the same interests, that employed Wolter toharness citizen participation in support of corporate communityinterests, ultimately discredited his project as a communist ploy. Thisfailure to incorporate genuine citizen participation in social and urbanplanning schemes, as the case of Regent Park illustrates, cast a longshadow in city planning politics. Not until the late 1960s wouldcommunity organizations re-emerge as a powerful force in city planningpolitics; this time they made their voices heard by bringing the entirepost-war program of urban renewal to a standstill. The Ideology of Community and Community Organization Despite its prevalent use in historical and sociological literaturea definition of community remains highly elusive. However problematic,the definition of community taken in the following paper focuses on agiven territory or space as encapsulating the common needs and desiresof those who live or work within the area's geographicalboundaries. Residents of particular areas often identify issuesaffecting their lives and organize around common interests or sharedconcerns which are spatially based. Much of this is related to theterritorial organization of the state, upon whom citizens make demandsand receive services. A geographical definition of community also has"a common sense usage that provides a sense of identity, belongingand purpose for people whose lives are otherwise characterized byisolation and alienation." (6) It was also the way Toronto plannersand the Reconstruction Council came to define and identify specificcommunities and their problems. Of course defining the geographicalboundaries of `community' is highly problematic, as theReconstruction Council and its Community Councilor coun��cil��oralso coun��cil��lor ?n.A member of a council, as one convened to advise a governor. See Usage Note at council.coun Hugo Wolter readilydiscovered. The elusive nature of `community' is particularly importantconsidering its ideological properties. Groups on both the left andright sides of the political spectrum have been concerned about thedeleterious effects of the disappearance of community caused by the riseof the modern industrial metropolis. Conservative advocates of communityorganization believed that class tensions could be assuaged byrefocusing the energies of working-class communities towardsneighbourhood improvement, which would instill in��stillv.To pour in drop by drop.instil��lation n. a sense of civicconsciousness capable of transcending class boundaries. This would beachieved primarily through education; wealthy neighbourhoods would learn`how the other half lived' as well as the need to improve thoseconditions, while the inhabitants of the slums would come to appreciatethe leadership and beneficence beneficence (b·neˑ·fi·s of the more upstanding members of thecommunity. Under elite leadership, individual communities were expectedto voluntarily improve the conditions in their neighbourhood, withoutthe need for state intervention or state expenditures. However, localinterests were to be at all times subordinated to the interests of thelarger civic community. The organic unity believed to have existed inpremodern pre��mod��ern?adj.Existing or coming before a modern period or time: the feudal system of premodern Japan.cities, which it was hoped could be reconstructed anew in themodern city, was not to be threatened by parochial self assertion. Thishas been a fundamental principle of community organization, which hascharacterized such diverse schemes as settlement houses, Model citiesand citizen participation. (7) Community organization, however, was more than a means of socialcontrol. The idea of community organizations as the foundation of a moreparticipative democratic political culture has been the bedrock ofdemocratic socialism since the nineteenth-century. Like their moreconservative counterparts, many radical social activists shared thenotion that the idea of community could overcome socially divisiveidentities based on class, ethnicity and race. However, more radicalsocial activists also organized communities to challenge hegemonicgroups and their control over state agendas. Such social activistsrealized that "community issues," such as the provision andcontrol over housing, social services social servicesNoun, plwelfare services provided by local authorities or a state agency for people with particular social needssocial servicesnpl → servicios mpl sociales, and recreational facilities areoften of great importance to workers, and have proven to bespring-boards to class politics rather than an antidote to radicalism.Many also realized that the inclusion of community concerns has alsopermitted greater scope of activism on the part of women. In short, manysocial activists believed that the welfare state could be made to servethe interests of its clients only if citizens were actively involved inits decision-making structures. For these reasons, the definition ofcommunity, and the control of its institutions, are central to classstruggles in capitalist society. (8) The ideas at the heart of community organization are also at theheart of the ideology of planning. Urban planning, much like communityorganization, seeks to restore to the urban environment (physical andsocial) order and harmony, and to lessen the effects of capitalaccumulation Most generally, the accumulation of capital refers simply to the gathering or amassment of objects of value; the increase in wealth; or the creation of wealth. Capital can be generally defined as assets invested for profit. on the uneven development of the urban landscape. Indeed,the central concept of planning is to balance competing forces toproduce a rational sociospatial ordering of the built environment.Planners, then, believed that they acted as delegates of the citizenryas a whole, and not on behalf of the whims and desires of individuals orgroups. Like community organizers, they also believed that a centralaspect of their job was to educate citizens to the principles ofplanning so that the people could be enlightened as to their trueinterests. But education through participation was a slow process forwhich the urgency of the problems of the unplanned city could not wait.Moreover, there were no guarantees that the parochial interests ofindividual citizens and communities could be overcome. Planners, byvirtue of their expertise knew the correct path, and because theyoperated from `general principles' their solutions could bedepended upon to represent the public good. As a result, planners oftenpresented themselves as `progressive' defenders of the community.However, although planners professed an overarching o��ver��arch��ing?adj.1. Forming an arch overhead or above: overarching branches.2. Extending over or throughout: "I am not sure whether the missing ingredient . . . concern for anorderly physical environment that applied to both rich and poorneighbourhoods, their ideas of disorder and irrationality oftenreflected a bias against the perceived disorderliness of the lower andworking classes, along with a belief that patterns of social behaviourwere directly linked to the condition of the physical environment. Theseattitudes belonged not only to social conservatives, but pervadedplanning thought at both ends of the political spectrum. (9) Community Planning in Toronto 1930-1950 Toronto's urban reform movement had a long and, compared toother Canadian cities, relatively successful history. Campaigns forcomprehensive city planning, improved housing standards and socialhousing schemes can be traced back to the turn of the century dialoguesamong enlightened manufacturers, middle class reformers and sociallyminded trade union leaders. In the `Progressive' era, only Torontoreformers succeeded in implementing two modest limited-dividend housingprojects. During the Depression, the squalid squal��id?adj.1. Dirty and wretched, as from poverty or lack of care. See Synonyms at dirty.2. Morally repulsive; sordid: "the squalid atmosphere of intrigue, betrayal, and counterbetrayal"conditions of the centralcity, especially the Cabbagetown area, led to a new bible for socialhousing activists -- the report of the OntarioLieutenant-Governor's Committee on Housing Conditions housing conditionsnpl → condiciones fpl de habitabilidadhousing conditionsnpl → conditions fpl de logement (popularlyknown as the Bruce Report The Bruce Report is the commonly given name to two reports of the Glasgow Corporation (the former local authority area for the Scottish city), the First Planning Report, which was published in the closing stages of the Second World War in March, 1945 and the ) -- which advocated sweeping slum clearanceplans followed by publicly built low-rental housing. Renewed interest inthe housing question also led to the establishment of Canada'sfirst Standard of Housing By-law under which nearly 10,000 houses wererepaired and renovated by 1939. Yet, as Toronto voters revealed in theirrejection of a municipally funded scheme for slum clearance and publichousing during the 1938 municipal elections, increased interest inhousing and planning issues was not sufficient to bring the chiefobjective of the Bruce Report to fruition. (10) Despite this setback Toronto's planning and social housingmovement gained momentum during war for two reasons. First, during thewar the trend everywhere was to look to wartime planning as a means tolaunch a vast program of peace-time reconstruction. Planning had largelylost its ideological stigma and became technical and pragmatic in itsoutlook. This was the vision of a managerial state Managerial state is a paleoconservative concept used in critiquing modern social democracy in Western countries. The term takes a pejorative context as a manifestation of Western decline. , in which planningwas simply the means of achieving specific goals. As home to manystrains of Canadian reform movements, Toronto was also caught up in thewidespread belief that post-war prosperity lay in the powers ofscientific and centralized planning. (11) The severe housing crisis fostered by fifteen years of Depressionand war was the second impetus behind the urgent demands for a plannedcity. The thousands of workers who flocked to the city's warindustries often lived doubled up in central city houses and apartments,while others inhabited abandoned stores, trailers, and even tents in thecity's parks and ravines. Though Toronto was a chief engine in theCanadian war economy, the city received almost no help from the Federalgovernment's Wartime Housing Program, which built small temporaryhouses to alleviate the housing shortages for war-workers and theirfamilies. Concern for the housing conditions of Torontonians, especiallythose of servicemen's families, reached a fever pitch fever pitchn.A state of extreme agitation or excitement.fever pitchNouna state of intense excitementNoun 1. by 1944 asHousing Registry lists over-flowed and evictions mounted. Faced with theprospects of homelessness, many Torontonians took matters into their ownhands by forcibly forc��i��ble?adj.1. Effected against resistance through the use of force: The police used forcible restraint in order to subdue the assailant.2. Characterized by force; powerful. halting evictions and initiating rent strikes.Demobilization de��mo��bil��ize?tr.v. de��mo��bil��ized, de��mo��bil��iz��ing, de��mo��bil��iz��es1. To discharge from military service or use.2. To disband (troops). in 1945 only added to the crisis. Though the late 1940ssocial service agencies reported that poor and cramped housingconditions were responsible for family breakdowns and increased rates ofjuvenile delinquency. Equally shocking was the fact that poor housingconditions had escaped the boundaries of Toronto's slums. Unlikethe housing conditions of the 1930s, families endured such squalor squal��or?n.A filthy and wretched condition or quality.[Latin squlor, from squ ,claimed one report, not because better housing was out of their reach,"but through an absence of anything better." (12) The CityPlanning Board's 1944 Annual Report confirmed these fears claimingthat 50% of the city's seventy-eight neighbourhoods were in seriousstages of decline and another two percent were in a serious andunredeemable condition of "blight." Torontonians would have toact now to save their city. To this end the city council established the two main planningbodies that would determine the shape of post-war Toronto: The CityPlanning Board (CPB CPBsee cardiopulmonary bypass.CPBCardiopulmonary bypass. See Port-Access cardiopulmonary bypass. ) in 1942 and the Toronto Reconstruction Council(TRC TRCNoun(in South Africa) Truth and Reconciliation Commission: a commission which encourages people who committed human rights abuses or acts of terror during the apartheid era to reveal the truth about their crimes in return for immunity from prosecution ) in 1943. Both planning bodies represented an amalgam of Tory andPopulist planning ideas. Tory planning placed value in the ideas oforder, rationality, centralization cen��tral��ize?v. cen��tral��ized, cen��tral��iz��ing, cen��tral��iz��esv.tr.1. To draw into or toward a center; consolidate.2. , and hierarchy in decision making.Tory ideology imagined the community as a corporate entity within whichone could determine a common public interest. Moreover, because planningwas deemed to be in the `public interest' planning was anon-political means to restore order to the city. Populist planningideology extolled the virtues of common citizens and sought to protectthem from the experts, the interests, big government, big business, andbig labour. Order and rationality were less important than providingaccess points for public input into the political system. Populist ideaswere voiced primarily by city councillors who remained suspicious of thePlanning Board Noun 1. planning board - a board appointed to advise the chief administratoradvisory boardgovernance, governing body, organisation, administration, brass, establishment, organization - the persons (or committees or departments etc. and the Reconstruction Council, which they saw asupsurping their role to represent the interests of constituents. (13)However, as the case of Toronto illustrates, "Tory" and"populist" ideas should not be seen as mutually exclusive Adj. 1. mutually exclusive - unable to be both true at the same timecontradictoryincompatible - not compatible; "incompatible personalities"; "incompatible colors" orinherently conflicting categories, but rather as tendencies present atthe very heart of planning ideology. The difficulties faced by planners,politicians, and citizen activists alike resulted from their attempts tobalance the ideals of democratic citizenship and participation withthose of order and rationality. The establishment of the City Planning Board, the first in Canada,represented the culmination of the previous forty years of urbanplanning and reform. Formed with popular support, including endorsementfrom the Association of Women Electors, the Board of Trade and both citylabour councils, the Planning Board was established as aquasi-independent board with only an advisory relationship with the CityCouncil. The beliefs in pluralist and non-partisan citizen participationin the planning process were incorporated into the structure of theBoard, which was composed of eight members, six of whom represented`community interests' such as labour, women, and business, whilethe remaining two positions were held by the mayor and one alderman ALDERMAN. An officer, generally appointed or elected in towns corporate, or cities, possessing various powers in different places. 2. The aldermen of the cities of Pennsylvania, possess all the powers and jurisdictions civil and criminal of justices of the nominated yearly by the city council. The Board was restructured andformally instituted as a department of city government in 1946 after thepassage of the Ontario Planning Act. (14) The newly instituted planningboard stressed that its ideas and plans would be developed in theinterests of the whole city and for the economic and social benefit ofall: Heretofore, City Planning has been considered by many Torontocitizens either as a measure to improve traffic and transportation or tobeautify our streets, in terms of a rigid plan. This inevitably drawsthe attention of those citizens who may consider themselves adverselyaffected, to the damage they may possible suffer, rather than to thefuture benefits to the city as a whole. The public should be informedthat a city plan does not aim at localized improvements only, but theimprovement of the whole city for the economic and social benefit of all... (15) Not wasting any time getting down to business the Planning Boardspent its first two years composing a Master Plan for the city. Releasedin its 1944 Annual Report, the CPB's Master Plan for the City ofToronto is a key document in understanding urban planning in Toronto.The plan represented the culmination of idealist i��de��al��ist?n.1. One whose conduct is influenced by ideals that often conflict with practical considerations.2. One who is unrealistic and impractical; a visionary.3. and modernist planningideas of the last half century, drawing particularly on the ideas ofEbenezer Howard's Garden City, Patrick Geddes Sir Patrick Geddes (1854 - 1932) was a Scottish biologist and botanist, known also as an innovative thinker in the fields of urban planning and education. He was responsible for introducing the concept of "region" to architecture and planning and is also known to have coined the social surveyapproach, and Clarence Perry's notion of the self contained`neighbourhood unit.' (16) The chief innovation of the 1944 reportwas the CPB division of the city into 78 neighbourhoods and itsclassification of neighbourhoods according to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. 5 types -- sound,vulnerable, declining, blighted and slums. The Planning Board defined a neighbourhood as "a more or lesshomogeneous area large enough to function as a social unit and not toosmall to stand on its own feet, with well-defined boundaries such asmain roads, railway, ravines, etc., and in which the economic and socialstatus of the residents [was] fairly uniform or in which one racialgroup predominate[d], and there [was] a similarity in age, quality andarchitectural character of the houses." (17) According to thePlanning Board's definition an ideal or `sound' neighbourhoodwas one characterized by low densities, modern and/or well-kept housesand grounds, little or no through traffic, an abundance of modernwell-located parks, schools, churches and shops, and an activeneighbourhood association. Clearly what the planners had in mind was theclassic suburb that would soon come to dominate the postwar urbanlandscape. The Planning Board, however, found only 11 of Toronto's78 neighbourhoods met these conditions. Most of these neighbourhoodswere located in the newer and more affluent areas of the city'sNorth-End, the fashionable Beaches district, and High Park. The rest ofthe city was either vulnerable to decline (32%), already in decline(50%), or slums (2%) ripe for clearance and redevelopment. In contrastto sound neighbourhoods, these areas were generally located south of theCanadian Pacific Railway's North Toronto North Toronto is the northern section of the old, pre-amalgamation City of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It occupies a geographically central location within the current "megacity" boundaries. line and werecharacterized by high population density, small narrow lots, excessivecurb parking, heavy through traffic, inadequate park facilities,obsolete house architecture, second-rate shopping facilities,old-fashioned schools and intrusions of non-conforming land uses. Inshort, these neighbourhoods broke every rule of modernist city planning. According to the report, the history of Toronto'sneighbourhoods "ha[d] been one of progressive decline, which in itsfinal stage, has resulted in what have been generally termed blightedareas." (18) Such decline was in some ways inevitable due to age,and new trends. However, in Toronto the Board recognized that declinehad set in despite the modernity of the houses, services and communityfacilities. The reasons for the decline of residential standards werevaried and complex, but undoubtedly linked to the intensification ofdensities and lack of improvements caused by fifteen years of depressionand war. The conversion of many single family homes from owner occupancyto rental occupancy, often through mortgage default, threatenedToronto's cherished image as a `city of homes.' (19) Indeed,the tremendous increase in the number of Torontonians living in renteddwellings during the Depression and the war led the Planning Board towarn in the preface of its 1945 Report that unless proper planningmeasures were introduced, single family dwellings would disappear fromthe central city to be replaced by apartments. It also reminded them ofthe detrimental effects on family life that would ensue from such adevelopment. (20) The planners, then, were not simply prejudiced againstcentral city neighbourhoods because they were old. (21) Rather there wassomething even more objectionable behind their classification of Torontoneighbourhoods -- the "character" of the residents. As theBoard observed: The decline in residential character has been coincident with thechanges in the character of residents which takes place following ortowards the end of the period of initial occupancy and ownership, andthat the incidence of such changes is greatest in those areas which areoccupied by families in the upper middle class ... no decline would takeplace were the original class of residents willing and content to remainpermanently in the neighbourhood and to maintain and improve theirproperties instead of abandoning them. (22) The comment reflected both the planners' misunderstanding ofthe housing needs and traditional living places of working-classTorontonians, as well as concern over the effect middle- and upper-classflight to the suburbs had on the moral and social environment of thecity. (23) Nonetheless, the answer to saving these neighbourhoods from sinkinginto slums was not wholesale redevelopment; only blighted and slum areaswould be forced to suffer such a program. Rather, the planners advocateda judicious mix of public enforcement of by-law provisions, theextension and upgrading of parks, recreation, and school facilities andthe re-routing of traffic onto main traffic corridors. But the bulk ofthe responsibility was to rest with individual property owners to keeptheir properties in proper repair and to modernize them, and to keepwatch on conditions within their neighbourhood. To do this, plannersadvocated that the residents form community associations. (24) To ensure the Master Plan would come to fruition the city councilestablished the Toronto Reconstruction Council in December 1943 to studyand report on the needs of the city in the immediate post-war period.Composed of more than 65 member organizations and almost 1000individuals the TRC represented a broad cross section of the city.Although the organization was dominated by benevolent institutions,prominent businessmen, and Rosedale charity ladies, there wassignificant representation from labour and left social reform groupsincluding the two city labour councils, the Workers' EducationalAssociation, and the communist-led Housewives' ConsumerAssociation. Moreover, the Housing committee was led by prominent CCFerssuch P.A. Deacon and Humphrey Carver who were responsible for draftingthe party's housing and town planning town planning:see city planning. platforms. (25) The TRC hopedto draw upon the great outpouring of community action during the war. Atthe same time, it tried to organize and direct opinion in support ofgovernment-inspired post-war reconstruction projects. In doing so ithoped to expand the `social basis of consent' by dispelling the"pessimistic and defeatist de��feat��ism?n.Acceptance of or resignation to the prospect of defeat.de��featist adj. & n.Noun 1. attitude of Torontonians about post-warpossibilities," and to "promote individual initiative in theprogram of post-war reconstruction." (26) The TRC's attempt to reassert reassertVerb1. to state or declare again2. reassert oneself to become significant or noticeable again: reality had reasserted itselfVerb 1. control over the planning agendawas also an attempt to circumvent the rising support for more radicalCCF CCFabbr.Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of Canada and Communist-inspired plans. While in many respects Torontoremained politically conservative over this period, working-classradicals and reformers began to chip away at the foundations of ToryToronto. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s the CCF and the Communist Party Communist party, in ChinaCommunist party,in China, ruling party of the world's most populous nation since 1949 and most important Communist party in the world since the disintegration of the USSR in 1991. (renamed the Labour Progressive Party (LPP LPP Legitimate Peripheral Participation (community of practice)LPP Liberian People's Party (Liberia)LPP Leak Point PressureLPP Land Partnership PlanLPP Lean Premixed Prevaporized ) during the war) madesuccessful inroads inroadsNoun, plmake inroads into to start affecting or reducing: my gambling has made great inroads into my savingsinroadsnpl to make inroads into [+ on Toronto politics by organizing communities aroundissues of unemployment, housing and relief payments. By 1943 the CCF andLPP used their community organizations to elect a total of four aldermento City Council. After the crushing defeat of the CCF slate in the 1944civic elections the Communists became the dominant voice ofworking-class Torontonians throughout the 1940s capturing the centralcity wards 4, 5 and 6, and sent Stewart Smith Stewart Smith may be the name of: Stewart Smith, graphic designer Stewart Smith, musician — Delirious? Stewart Smith, politician — Communist Party of Canada Stewart Smith, Australian free software developer to the Board of Control in1945 and 1946. At the provincial level the CCF and LPP dominated Torontowinning a majority of the area's ridings in 1943 and all but 6 of18 Toronto area seats again in 1948. Much of the success of the left inToronto could be traced to its emphasis on comprehensive plans forpost-war reconstruction. The desire of the local state to expand the social basis of consentwas most evident in the composition of the council. Taking its cue fromthe experience of the labour and social unrest which followeddemobilization after World War I, organized labour and veterans weregranted greater representation on the council than social service andbusiness organizations. In addition, the council made special provisionfor women and for youth representation. In short, the TRC was anexercise in community-based corporatism corporatismTheory and practice of organizing the whole of society into corporate entities subordinate to the state. According to the theory, employers and employees would be organized into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political . Nonetheless, the TRC importancecannot be underestimated as it was evidence of the remarkablepermeability of the local state in the 1940s. For this reason, communityactivists in Toronto were much more successful, and their struggles muchless confrontational, than similar urban-based movements across thecountry. (27) While the Planning Board focussed on the ordering of the builtenvironment, the TRC's mandate focussed on the social aspects ofcity planning. As such, the TRC was composed of a number ofsub-committees to deal with everything from demobilization of veteransto employment and post-war works. Considering the scope and gravity ofthe housing problem throughout the 1940s in Toronto, this was the chieffocus of the council's energies and reports. (28) Housing andtown-planning issues were not simply problems of bricks and mortar A store (shop, supermarket, department store, etc.) in the real world. Contrast with clicks and mortar. butwere seen by many groups in the community as the means to circumventpoverty and unemployment that might otherwise return in peacetime.Though the financing and creation of public policy for housing and urbanrenewal were expected to come from the senior levels of government,municipal authorities looked upon housing and town-planning schemes astheir fundamental task in post-war reconstruction. Large-scale works toprovide new traffic arteries and slum clearance were central to thereconstruction and modernization of Canadian cities. The future ofCanada's cities, including Toronto, "depended in large measureon the effectiveness of measures taken to stop the decline and begin therestoration and redevelopment of the main residential areas." (29)The TRC was adamant that urban planning in the post-war years, unlikethat of the previous four decades, should emphasize social concernsrather than `showy' projects such as civic centres, war memorialsor grand boulevards. Moreover, the chairman of the Public Relations public relations,activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most Committee said of the TRC: "any report submitted as representingthe post-war plans for the City of Toronto should be devoid of selfishplanning, that it should be acceptable and popular with the people ofCanada generally, as Toronto's situation reflects the situation ofthe Dominion as a whole." (30) In theory the TRC's strength lay in its representation of abroad cross-section of the community through its members andorganizations represented on the Council. Nonetheless, there existed atension within the TRC between providing expertise in the drafting ofsocial policy and representing and engendering community action andapproval. Part of the problem stemmed from the fact that the TRC playeditself up as offering "the views of well-informed citizens atlittle or no expense to local government. Harnessing the best minds inthe private sector and academia to the tasks of post-war planning."(31) As a result, the TRC increasingly functioned as a series of mini"Royal Commissions" composed of a small self-perpetuatinggroup of technicians and activists. Members claimed that this was due tothe fact that many of the problems the Council was called upon toinvestigate and solve needed expert opinion rather than citizen opinion.There was also the difficulty of implementing democratic procedure insuch a large and multifarious organization. Yet, according to EricHardy, head of the Bureau of Municipal Research and an active councilmember, actual democratic participation in the Reconstruction Councilwas less important than maintaining the image of democraticparticipation. (32) Nonetheless, many key Reconstruction Council members were eager toexperiment with new approaches to community organization and citizenparticipation in social planning. As Gale Wills notes in her study ofsocial work in Toronto during this period, both the Toronto WelfareCouncil and the University of Toronto's School of Social Work weremoving toward more decentralized and direct-action approaches to socialwork and social planning. Many of the key personalities involved in theTRC came from these two organizations. Henry Cassidy, the director ofthe School of Social Work was vice-chair of the Reconstruction Council.Other important TRC members included Charles E. Hendry, and Murray Ross,two of North America's leading experts on community organizationwho later became members of the Community Council Co-ordinatingCommittee. Albert Rose Albert Rose (New York City, 30 March 1910 %ndash; 26 July 1990) was an American physicist, who made major contributions to TV camera tubes such as the Orthicon, Image Orthicon, and Vidicon. []He received an A.B. degree and a Ph.D. , also a faculty member at the School of SocialWork, was the research director at both the Welfare Council and laterthe Reconstruction Council. Rose, in particular, was a key advocate ofcitizen participation in urban planning and would become a key player inToronto's urban renewal planning and politics over the next threedecades. (33) Social workers' and housing reformers' emphasison an active program of engendering community support for urban planningand social-housing projects lay in the belief that former city planningprojects had failed because they neglected to stimulate the interest andparticipation of `the average citizen.' They were determined thatthis would not happen again. (34) These ideas were not limited to Toronto social workers andreformers, but were shared by members of Canada's fledgling urbanplanning community who together formed the Community PlanningAssociation of Canada (CPAC CPAC Conservative Political Action ConferenceCPAC Civilian Personnel Advisory CenterCPAC Cable Public Affairs Channel (Canadian TV station)CPAC Center for Process Analytical ChemistryCPAC Conservative Political Action Committee ) in 1945 to promote public education andparticipation in urban planning and social housing issues. The CPACemphasized that it was not a body of experts which planned forcommunities. Rather the building of good communities, it claimed, restedon its efforts in making community planning "a people'smovement There have been a number of groups called the People's Movement or similar. Antigua and Barbuda - People's Movement, People's Progressive Movement Argentina - Feuguino People's Movement, Neuquino People's Movement Aruba - People's Electoral Movement ." (35) Neighbourhoods, they believed, were the"nursery of citizen participation in public affairs Those public information, command information, and community relations activities directed toward both the external and internal publics with interest in the Department of Defense. Also called PA. See also command information; community relations; public information. .""City dwellers," argued Humphrey Carver, Canada's leadingadvocate of urban planning and a prominent member of the TRC'shousing committee, "[were] in need of reassurance that [their]views and predilections are taken into account in shaping [their]increasingly complicated environment. To enlist the cooperation ofcitizen groups and to convince them of the importance of their activehelp in plotting the future course of their community would be anecessary precursor to any effective planning action." Carverwarned planners and government officials to avoid the temptations ofimmediate results by "bulldozing the people of the community fortheir own good." (36) Central to the ideas of community-planning advocates was theassumption that communities existed and that their interests could bedetermined. However, many believed communities and the ethic ofcommunity were rapidly disappearing in the modern metropolis. As E.G.Faludi, author of the City's Master Plan and Canada's premiertown planner town plannern → urbanista m/ftown plannern → urbaniste m/ftown plannertown n → lamented: Today the neighbourhood as a locality has all but disappeared inurban America. One of the most unfortunate consequences of excessiveurbanization has been the loss of community interests which form thebasis of the neighbourhood. While our system of government is based onthe assumption that people living in the same locality have interest incommon, and that they may be relied upon to act together for the commonwelfare, this assumption, unfortunately, is invalid for large cities.Mobility, lack of home ownership, and distance, the distinguishing marksof large urban centres, all have contributed to the disappearance of theneighbourhood as an entity possessing social values. (37) Many observers directly linked this loss of "neighbourhoodvalues" to the physical, economic and moral deterioration of thecity, which was most evident in its slums and blighted areas. Community organization through the planning process was the mosteffective way to promote this organic view of the city among communityresidents. The job was not simply to get them involved in thedevelopment and management of their own community, but to see that theirown particular interests were linked to a greater community interest. Asone commentator said about the Planning Board's exhibition of theCity's Master Plan at the Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is an art museum on the eastern edge of Toronto's downtown Chinatown district, on Dundas Street West between McCaul Street and Beverley Street. : All [visitors] showed a very great interest in their ownneighbourhood -- of course, they wanted to know what the plan would meanto their home and their street -- and the interest was just as great, ifnot greater on the part of people who lived in slum and blighted areasas it was among those from healthy parts, though they were verysensitive about the conditions in which they lived. ... The communitycouncil movement is another expression of the same thing, groups oflocal people getting together and trying to improve their neighbourhood.Such movements properly directed will have at least three results. Firstof all, something of the old community spirit of the 19th century willbe recaptured. Secondly, the replanning of the community will be fromthe neighbourhood up, by the people themselves and not superimposed su��per��im��pose?tr.v. su��per��im��posed, su��per��im��pos��ing, su��per��im��pos��es1. To lay or place (something) on or over something else.2. fromon top by a bunch of technicians and specialists. And thirdly, suchneighbourhood groups once they begin to get active to improve theirneighbourhood, they will speedily discover that the solution of some oftheir problems or the cause of some of their troubles lie outside theirimmediate neighbourhood and hence they will be forced, whether they wantto or not, to take an interest in the wider area, of the whole city andultimately of the whole region. ... If neighbourhood councils wereformed within each of the seventy neighbourhoods ... I think we wouldsoon find that the interest of each of these groups would not beconfined to its own neighbourhood or district. Before long we would havesuch a wave of public opinion sweeping across the city that our electedrepresentatives would lose no time in seeing that machinery and fundsare provided for proper planning and adequate housing. (38) Members of the Reconstruction Council agreed with these sentiments.They hoped that the formation of a committee to co-ordinate theactivities of community groups would effectively mobilize the latentenergies of civic consciousness in the city in the promotion ofmunicipal government projects. Reconstruction Council members believedthat the wartime activities of Torontonians were ample proof of theirdesire to organize collectively to improve their city. The principaltask of a coordinating committee would be to bridge the gap between thevoluntary community service of Torontonians and the local municipalgovernment, especially the newly formed Planning Board. Indeed, thecommittee saw its role as a promoter of the Planning Board's MasterPlan and sought to acquaint the public with the Plan and "interpretit to them." (39) Moreover, in a period of waning public andpolitical support for the Reconstruction Council, its members sawcommunity councils as the "missing link" without which Councilprojects would never be undertaken. (40) By June 1947 the Reconstruction Council brought such a plan tofruition with the foundation of an official Community CouncilCo-ordinating Committee, known by its members as the "4Cs".The Committee, headed by prominent Conservative politician George H.Hees, drew largely upon social service and social work organizationssuch as the YMCA YMCAin full Young Men's Christian AssociationNonsectarian, nonpolitical Christian lay movement that aims to develop high standards of Christian character among its members. , the Red Cross and the Junior League. The close tiesbetween community organization and urban planning were underlined by theinclusion of Bessie Luffman, a member of the newly formed HousingAuthority of Toronto which would oversee the construction and managementof Canada's first slum clearance and public housing project, RegentPark. Mrs. W.N. Robertson a member of the CPAC, and Professor C. E.Hendry who also served on the Reconstruction Council's HousingCommittee, were also prominent members of the 4C's. However,despite the rhetoric of "organizing people to take part in theaffairs of their community of the city as a whole" (41) only onemember of the committee, Mrs. E.W Coleman, Secretary of the BeachesCommunity Council, came from the so-called `grassroots.' (42) The first task of the newly formed committee was the hiring of aCounsellor who would mobilize and, more importantly, coordinatecommunity organizations in Toronto. The committee selected Hugo Wolterwhom the City hired in September of 1947 for the initial term of oneyear. Wolter, an American, with a long history of welfare and communityorganizing The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. , had recently served as an assistant project director at theGila River Relocation project in Arizona where he was responsible forthe administration of social and community services for Japaneseevacuees Resident or transient persons who have been ordered or authorized to move by competent authorities, and whose movement and accommodation are planned, organized and controlled by such authorities. . Wolter was an archetypal ar��che��type?n.1. An original model or type after which other similar things are patterned; a prototype: "'Frankenstein' . . . 'Dracula' . . . 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' . . . modern liberal who believed wholly inthe benefits of pluralist democracy A pluralist democracy describes a political system where there is more than one centre of power. Democracies are by definition pluaralist as democracies allow freedom of association although pluralism exists in many societies where democracy has not yet developed. . He envisaged his role as ultimatelyencouraging all social constituencies, including labour, youth, andethnic groups, to become auxiliaries to state programs. Wolter ferventlybelieved that democratic processes would yield democratic results. Heinsisted, that all elements of the community had the right to be heard,and once they won the right to state their case they could make those inpower responsive to their needs. As he stated in his introductory pressrelease: Community councils are a means of organizing the people to takepart in the affairs of their communities and of the city as a whole. ...Through them citizens become the active associates of the Board ofControl, the Municipal Council and the administrators of the citydepartments. Through them local problem situations are placed directlyinto the hands of citizens who are intimately concerned in securingsatisfactory solutions. A tremendous amount of official time is saved bysolving problems in the areas in which they arise. Community councilsare not a cure-all but they are a definite step in including theordinary citizen in the responsibility of government. The phrase"The city must do something" changes to "We must dosomething." (43) Wolter attempted to overcome what he called the"top-down" approach to community planning by stressing to moreestablished interests that local citizens must be allowed to "takethe stage ... as actors." (44) Wolter poured his heart intoassisting ordinary Torontonians to become active citizens. Within thefirst 6 months of his appointment he attend over 300 meetings, worked 12to 14 hour days including week-ends, and travelled more than 1000 milesper month by car spreading his message of local democracy. (45) The work of Wolter and the Community Council Co-ordinatingCommittee provides a rare glimpse into what still remains the shadowynature of community organization in 1940s Toronto. Community councilsgrew out of the experience of depression and wartime Toronto fromdiverse sources including Air Raid Patrol groups, local political andservice clubs, and `Tidy Block Associations' affiliated with theannual Beautify Toronto campaigns. Others revived dormant ratepayer rate��pay��er?n.One that pays rates: utility ratepayers.ratepayerNouna person who pays local rates on a buildingNoun 1. associations in Rosedale, the Annex, and Oriole Park This article is about stadiums that once existed in Baltimore, Maryland. For the current Baltimore stadium, see Oriole Park at Camden Yards. For the "Oriole Park" located in Sydney, Australia, see Oriole Park (Sydney). , where the lattercarried on a protracted pro��tract?tr.v. pro��tract��ed, pro��tract��ing, pro��tracts1. To draw out or lengthen in time; prolong: disputants who needlessly protracted the negotiations.2. , but unsuccessful, campaign to half the buildingof the Toronto Transit Commission's subway yards in theneighbourhood. The housing crisis, especially concern over evictions,led to the formation of various community and civic groups including theCommunist-inspired Toronto District Emergency Housing Committee and theHomes Protective Association of York Township may refer to: York Township, Minnesota York Township, Ohio (10 townships) York Township, Pennsylvania . Working-class residents,in co-operation with the Toronto Welfare Council, organizedneighbourhood councils to provide recreational facilities and programsfor young people to head off the growing `gang problem' whichplagued Toronto throughout the 1940s. This issue was especiallyimportant in the Junction and Riverdale area neighbourhoods, but also inthe central city slums such as Moss Park Moss Park is a neighbourhood in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.According to the official city definition the neighbourhood is bounded by Jarvis Street to the west, Carlton Street to the north, and Front Street and Eastern Avenue to the south. , Ward 4 South, and theEmergency Housing Projects (converted army barracks which housed thosedisplaced by the city's wartime and post-war housing shortage)where parks and playgrounds were scarce. It was also very important tocity officials who believed that delinquency was no longer due toconditions in individual families but "primarily a problem ofneighbourhood relationships, standards and traditions." Organizingarea residents to combat the conditions in neighbourhoods thatcontributed to delinquency was necessary unless new residents would"inherit the evil conditions of the area." (46) Upon coming to the position Wolter surveyed the landscape ofcommunity and neighbourhood organizations in Toronto. He found 37community organizations in existence loosely representing the interestsof over 150,000 people in the city and surrounding area. Much like thePlanning Board's 1944 Neighbourhood Plan, Wolter classified theseassociations according to their feasibility of forming part of thelarger community council -- active, moribund moribund/mor��i��bund/ (mor��i-bund) in a dying state. mor��i��bundn.At the point of death; dying.mor and "AreaProjects." Active groups were those which could easily andimmediately be incorporated into a central community council. For themost part these groups came from the newer and more affluent`sound' neighbourhoods in the North of the city such as Rosedale,North Toronto and Forest Hill. However, also included in this group werea significant number of community organizations from working-classneighbourhoods in the city's west-end including the Perth-RoyceCommunity Council, Maybank St. Clair Community Council, the WestonCommunity Council, and the Fairbanks Community Council. Wolter alsoidentified a number of associations that were active, but due mostly tothe presence of partisan politics, needed some assistance before theycould be incorporated into the central committee. Once again these maybe said to correspond to the vulnerable and declining areas of the cityareas such as Parkdale and Riverdale. Finally, there were those areasdesperately in need of community organization but that could only bedeveloped as an "Area Project" staffed and organized by socialworkers. These areas corresponded to the blighted and slum areasoutlined in Planning Board reports -- Regent Park, the city'snotorious "Ward" district; and the Emergency Housing projects.Wolter focussed a great deal of his time and energy organizing communitycouncils with these latter groups, and his experiences with thesecommunities and their associations led him to understand the problemsconfounding community organization and co-ordination in Toronto. (47) As Wolter soon discovered, the largest problem plaguing the"unity of the neighbourhoods" was the deep political divisionsthat had emerged in Toronto over the previous two decades. Manycommunity organizations developed out of local political associations,especially those of the CCF and LPP. At the same time, local communitygroups not only found themselves part of the battleground between thesetwo rivals, but they also ran up against a growing, vicious anti-redhysteria, which painted almost all grassroots activism as subversive.Many Torontonians thus became wary of community associations, constantlyworried that such organizations were either communist-inspired orfostered by City Hall to "put one over on [us]." (48) The growing polarization of community politics in Toronto providedWolter with an interesting set of paradoxes. Wolter believed that partof his duties was to lead an activist role of community organizationwhich would support the voices of labour, youth and ethnic groups indefence of their rights. Wolter believed that these groups, which madeup nearly seventy percent of the population, had not been "granteda feeling of mutual importance." Yet, he also believed that unlessorganized on a constructive basis (i.e. into community organisations)such elements might be pushed "into the hands of subversive forces... because in their opinion `anything would be better than what wehave.' " (49) Communists, Wolter believed, had made deepinroads among these groups precisely because they made these people feelimportant. The only way to block such action Wolter continued, "isto work with these groups at all times and to incorporate theirsuggestions into the day-to-day policies in the neighbourhoods, thecities and the nation." In short, Wolter believed that defeatingthe communists at their own game was his most difficult, but mostimportant task. "As he related to Mayor Hiram McCallum: "I ammore concerned over the methods of the Communist group than I am overputting the Beanery Gang in jail." (50) Wolter, however, was a reluctant `cold warrior Cold warrior is a phrase used to describe the men and women involved in the shaping and executing of American and Soviet policy during the Cold War.Since the end of the Cold War, the term has sometimes been used pejoratively to imply that a person's views are obsolete. .' Though hebelieved that organizing communities acting on their own behalf wouldsubvert communism's appeal, he rejected community organization as ablunt instrument Blunt instrument is a legal description of a weapon used to hit someone, which does not have a sharp or penetrating point or edge. Their effect is usually blunt force trauma, to stun, or to break bones. They sometimes kill. of social control. For Wolter grass-roots communityorganization was subversive, but democracy at its fullest development.Unfortunately, many members of the Reconstruction Council and CityCouncil actively opposed his vision of democracy. As Wolter lamented: More than a year ago I reported to you that I felt it necessary toexpand our Committee and to get the cooperation of three groups inparticular ... labor-management, ethnic and nationality, and youth. Ifelt that if these could be brought to an understanding of theimportance of neighbourhood organization, mobilized and coached, theywould join to become the most active force not only in theirneighbourhood organization, but in the promotion of democracy as well.... I realized that such a combination, once organized even in a singleneighborhood, was in danger of a communist coup. In order to safeguardthis type of social engineering, I suggested the Universal Declarationof Human Rights Universal Declaration of Human RightsDeclaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. Drafted by a committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, it was adopted without dissent but with eight abstentions. adopted by the United Nations General Assembly as afundamental guide for all thought and action. It seemed to contain theelements of local autonomy as well as to be a safe-guard of humanrights. You will be interested to know that I was contacted by variouscommunist front Communist Front was originally the term used by the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), and then later by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) to label Comintern organizations found to be under the groups and promised various kinds of help; so that itbecame necessary to make frequent trips to the police and check withthose in charge of keeping tabs on subversive activities. The moment Iopenly and publicly advocated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,I received a series of annoying and threatening telephone callsattempting to find out whether I had any relatives living in the RussianZone of Germany! Some of you thought that I was going far afield inreferring to the Delcaration as a basis for community organization. (51) This lack of support from City Council and established leaders andorganizations subverted much of Wolter's already fragile authority. Nowhere was this paradox more evident than in re-organizing thetenants of the Emergency Housing projects. As early as the summer of1947 residents at each camp formed community councils to lobby CityCouncil to secure better living conditions living conditionsnpl → condiciones fpl de vidaliving conditionsnpl → conditions fpl de vieliving conditionsliving , including school andrecreational facilities for the hundreds of children housed in eachcamp. After meeting opposition and delay, as well as a 25% increase inrent from City Hall, the residents under the direction of the LPP, theHousewives' Consumer Association, and the Toronto Labour Council(CCL 1. CCL - Coral Common LISP.2. CCL - Computer Control Language. English-like query language based on COLINGO, for IBM 1401 and IBM 1410. ) united under the Citizens' Emergency Housing Council. Led bythe diminutive, but fierce Dorothy Marchment, the CEHC demanded that thecity provide adequate recreational facilities, bring the apartments upto minimum health standards, prevent evictions, and reduce rents becauseof the rising cost of living. (52) Throughout their ten-year operation the Emergency Housing projectsrepresented a constant source of aggravation Any circumstances surrounding the commission of a crime that increase its seriousness or add to its injurious consequences.Such circumstances are not essential elements of the crime but go above and beyond them. for the city, not tomention a constant drain on city finances. The City fathers believedthat despite the conditions at the camps, the City provided good serviceto the residents. Besides, the camps were only ever meant to betemporary shelter for evictees and their families. Instead ofcomplaining, residents should have spent their energies looking for newaccommodation. Nonetheless, to head off the rising discontent within thecamps the City asked Wolter and the Community Council Committee tointervene and provide new leadership to the tenants. Given the mountingtensions between the City and the tenants Wolter and the CommunityCouncil Committee were trapped in a very awkward position. For one, thetenants viewed Wolter, as an employee of the City, and his legion ofsocial workers with a great deal of suspicion, which made it extremelydifficult to gain their confidence. At the same time, Wolter knew why hehad been directed by the City Council to the camps: to weed out themalcontents from the tenant councils. Adopting the Residents'Associations' point of view thus made Wolter rather unpopular withCity Councillors. (53) Yet on the whole, Wolter and his associates weremore likely to agree with the City's opinion of the residents andtheir associations. According to Wolter, the residents were so"demoralized de��mor��al��ize?tr.v. de��mor��al��ized, de��mor��al��iz��ing, de��mor��al��iz��es1. To undermine the confidence or morale of; dishearten: an inconsistent policy that demoralized the staff. " that they needed to be instructed in thebenefits of co-operation and in doing things for themselves. Too often,he claimed, "special concessions were requested by residentswithout the ordinary citizen's desire to do things with the peopleof his neighbourhood." (54) Considering the spontaneous rise of thecommunity groups within the camps, residents needed little instructionin doing things for themselves. The real problem was that the labourcouncil and the communists had beaten Wolter to the punch in organizingthe tenants. Indeed, Wolter reported that his chief task was to"keep the residents from communistic com��mu��nis��tic?adj.Of, characteristic of, or inclined to communism.commu��nis tendencies." (55) The problem of political divisions that complicated Wolter'sattempt to organize the Emergency Housing projects was not limited tothat milieu. Political divisions plagued the community council movementacross the city. Community organizations in Perth Royce, St.Clair-Maybank, the Beaches Community Council, Fairbanks, and Ward 3North in York township all had strong ties to local CCF organizations.In particular, political divisions in West Toronto This article is about the defunct federal riding of West Toronto (1867-1903). For the historical village, town, and city of West Toronto (1884-1908), see The Junction.West Toronto were the chiefbarrier to the unity of existing neighbourhood councils in the area. Astrong CCF organization in the Beaches area caused conservativepolitical, business and social clubs to withdraw from the BeachesCommunity Council to form the Ward 8 Central Executive Committee. Theorganization opposed labour representation on the committee, arguingthat workers could not act independently of their unions. That the Ward8 Committee referred to the Beaches Community Council as "thatbunch of CCF cranks" is perhaps more revealing as to thecouncil's exclusion of working-class organizations. Communityorganizations in Wards 4 and 5 were also dominated by the political left(communists) who used this base to elect city aldermen and provincialMPPs throughout the 1940s. The strong communist presence inhome-and-school associations and ratepayer organizations represented athreat to established interests in the city. Communist dominance ofthese inner-city wards fostered the establishment of counterorganizations such as the Brown Home and School association in thenorthern part of Ward 3, established under the leadership of the WomenElectors Association to combat juvenile delinquency and "left-wingelements." (56) Political and ethnic divisions, however, were most acute in thevery heart of the inner city -- Ward 4 South. The area bounded by Queen,College, Spadina and Bathurst streets had become the new centre ofToronto's notorious "Ward." Wolter's intensive studyof the community revealed a number of processes underway in this innercity community, but which were representative of the massive post-wartransformations affecting the entire Toronto region. A long time centre of the Jewish settlement in Toronto, Ward 4South was a community in flux in the immediate post-war period. Thecommunity was strongly divided along national, religious, age andpolitical lines. Over sixty percent of the residents of the areasurveyed wished to leave, mostly for the suburbs. Most of these wereyoung people, who cited the lack of recreational facilities as well ascrowded conditions as reasons for their desired exodus. After the warthe area continued to act as a magnet for immigrants, this time drawingEuropean immigrants, in particular Ukrainians and Poles. The newcomersformed their own ethnic and political organizations, often in defianceof long-established ones. As a result, tense relations developed betweenand among Jews, Poles and Ukrainians. Political tensions intensifiedbetween more right-wing immigrants and Communists, whose offices werelocated on Cecil Street Cecil John Charles Street, MC, OBE, (1884 - January 1965) was a prolific English writer of detective novels. He produced two long series; one under the name of John Rhode featuring the forensic scientist Dr Priestley, and another under the name of Miles Burton in the heart of the community. To counterbalancethe influence of the communists Wolter attempted to organize moreconservative and even right-wing members of various ethnic groups in thearea into an Inter-Ethnic Citizens council, devoted to"inter-racial understanding and appreciation." Wolter hopedthat this move would beat the communists at their own game. As he statedto Mayor McCallum: "the unity of the neighbourhoods is somethingwhich the Communists fear most and in my opinion is a most effectiveweapon against them." (57) In addition, the integration of ethnicgroups through the community council would help assimilate these groupsinto Toronto society. The presence of these national groups who chose to"take care of their own" instead of looking to the city, wascommendable, but it did create a community problem. Moreover, Wolterdeemed these organizations as "undemocratic" because theysubordinated citizenship to "other interests." (58) Finally,the integration of ethnic groups in the area through the communitycouncil would aid the city planning department which was looking toredevelop re��de��vel��op?v. re��de��vel��oped, re��de��vel��op��ing, re��de��vel��opsv.tr.1. To develop (something) again.2. the area into high density apartments and commercialdevelopments. (59) Ethnic and political antagonisms were not limited to the slums ofWard 4, but also frustrated attempts to organize a community council inthe more stable neighbourhoods of West Toronto. West Toronto, however,was far from a homogenous homogenous - homogeneous community. Differences in economic status,voting behaviour and social attitudes marked the boundaries between therelatively affluent Anglo Saxon south and the more working-class andheterogenous (spelling) heterogenous - It's spelled heterogeneous. national and ethnic population of the Junction area to thenorth. Mutual antagonism existed between the two areas as the moreaffluent residents of the south looked upon the residents of theJunction as `foreigners'. The firmly middle-class south also feltwell served and saw little need for community organization, especiallyin concert with their northern neighbours. The residents of theJunction, in contrast, were more receptive to the idea of communityorganization to combat juvenile delinquency and provide betterrecreational facilities. Marked support for Sunday recreation andliberal ideas towards alcohol consumption also set Junction residentsapart from their more puritanical High Park neighbours. Yet even giventhe presence of vibrant neighbourhood organizations, such as the PerthRoyce Community Council, most people in the area did not participatesocially on the basis of common residence. (60) Regent Park and Community Planning as Citizen Movement: Milestoneor Millstone millstoneEither of two flat, round stones used for grinding grain to make flour. The stationary bottom stone is carved with shallow grooved channels that radiate from the centre. The upper stone rotates horizontally, and has a central hole through which grain is poured. ? (61) On October 29, 1948, as clouds threatened rain, Mayor McCallumdedicated the cornerstone of the Regent Park Housing Project, cappingalmost fifteen years of concerted action for public low-rental housing.Members of City Council and the newly formed Housing Authority took mostof the bows while a small audience of volunteer lay and professionalmembers who had fought long and hard for this project stood quietly inthe background. Also hidden in the background, among the "motleyarray of dilapidated sheds, flat roofs and clotheslines" wereRegent Park residents themselves who silently watched the death of theirneighbourhood, mere spectators to an event which for better or worsewould transform their neighbourhood and their lives. (62) As the centrepiece of Toronto's post-war reconstruction plans,the clearance and reconstruction of Regent Park represented the bestchance to put the ideals of democratic community planning into action.Clearing Cabbagetown's ramshackle houses for public housing hadbeen a long time goal of Toronto's social reform movement. RegentPark was perhaps the closest thing that Toronto had to a classic slum.As numerous studies revealed, Cabbagetown's houses were grosslyovercrowded o��ver��crowd?v. o��ver��crowd��ed, o��ver��crowd��ing, o��ver��crowdsv.tr.To cause to be excessively crowded: a system of consolidation that only overcrowded the classrooms. , lacked basic amenities such as central heat and indoorplumbing, were vermin vermin/ver��min/ (ver��min)1. an external animal parasite.2. such parasites collectively.ver��minousver��minn. pl. infested in��fest?tr.v. in��fest��ed, in��fest��ing, in��fests1. To inhabit or overrun in numbers or quantities large enough to be harmful, threatening, or obnoxious: , and many were in need of major internaland external repairs. Inadequate living conditions were also linked tothe high rates of `deviancy' and delinquency of area residents.According to the Bruce Report, Cabbagetown was "a disgrace to thecity." (63) Regent Park, then, was more than just a project ofsocial reform: it was an experiment in proper community planning. AsHumphrey Carver explained to Canadian Welfare Council and ReconstructionCouncil president R.E.G. Davis: In the Conference I endeavoured to express what I believed to bethe attitude of the Welfare Council towards Community Planning. Iparticularly took the opportunity of saying that a great deal ofplanning would be quite unrealistic until new legislation had providedfor low-rental subsidized housing Subsidized housing (aka social housing) is government supported accommodation for people with low to moderate incomes. To meet these goals many governments promote the construction of affordable housing. ; the Canadian Welfare Council believedthat only through the introduction of such measures would properCommunity Planning be able to embrace all ... levels of the population.(64) Here was a chance to implement the latest theories of urbanplanning in concert with those who experienced the unplanned city at itsworst -- slum dwellers. The most prominent `citizen' organization involved in thecampaign to rebuild Regent Park was the Citizen's Housing andPlanning Association (CHPA CHPA Consumer Healthcare Products Association (formerly Nonprescription Drug Manufacturers Association)CHPA Combined Heat and Power Association (UK)CHPA Corporate Housing Providers Association ). The association came together during 1944to place pressure on the municipal and federal governments to takeimmediate steps to solve the wartime housing crisis and start on aproject of slum clearance and public housing in Regent Park. Themastermind behind the CHPA was W. Harold Clark, the head of the TorontoBranch of Canada Trust CT Financial Services Inc. was a financial services holding company that was founded in London, Ontario and later had its headquarters in Toronto, Ontario and operated in Canada through subsidiaries including Canada Trustco Mortgage Company and The Canada Trust Company . Like the TRC the CHPA represented a broad crosssection of Toronto society including social welfare and philanthropicorganizations, professional town planners and architects such as futureCMHC CMHCcommunity mental health center. policy planner Humphrey Carver, highly influential social workerssuch as Albert Rose and Stuart Jaffary, Rosedale ladies, and labourorganizations. Despite the number of distinguished luminaries in theassociation, working-class organizations, especially the CommunistParty, composed a significant portion of the membership and played keyroles in the organization. The presence of so many prominent socialdemocrats and communists in the CHPA worried its members who feared thattheir moderate plans for social housing would be branded a communistplot. Indeed, the RCMP eventually investigated Clark as a suspectedCommunist. (65) In many ways the CHPA represented the paradoxical nature of citizenparticipation as envisaged by planning enthusiasts. Many CHPA members,such as Carver, Rose and Clark believed that the primary objective ofthe association was to "conduct an educational program which wouldacquaint the citizens of the community with housing and planningproblems and to make specific recommendations for the improvement andultimate solution of those problems." (66) The CHPA believed thatit could educate people as to proper housing and planning programs andthen "plump to get them." (67) In short, they believed thatdespite the urgency of slum clearance and the necessity of publichousing, area residents had to be included in these crucial decisionswhich affected their lives. Yet, at the same time the many experts andactivists in the organization claimed to know the solutions. Rather thanlistening to the community, its job was to struggle against publicinertia and to interpret the planners' ideas to the people. In thisit was successful when it convinced both City Council and Torontoniansto finance and build Regent Park out of local taxes. (68) Despite the CHPA's victory for what would be Canada'sfirst public low-rental housing project, area residents remained wary ofthe project to be constructed for their "benefit." Ever sincethe first groups of town planners, architects, clergymen, and publicspirited people roamed the streets of Cabbagetown in the 1930s, arearesidents remained sceptical, if not hostile, to plans to clear theirarea of its so-called slums. These fears resurfaced during the post-warcampaign for Regent Park. The crux of residents' dissatisfactionwith the scheme lay with the city's inadequate compensation to areahome owners. (69) Equally significant was the residents' complaintthat they had been left out of the decision making. The CommunityCouncil Co-ordinating Committee did nothing to help area residentsorganize around the most important issue affecting their neighbourhood.Instead, the Council left the area under the jurisdiction of the TorontoWelfare Council, which was working with local residents to combatjuvenile delinquency and improve morals in the neighbourhood. (70) Itwas as if community organizers and social housing activists believedthat the issue of the actual plans for the neighbourhood had alreadybeen decided by the Bruce Report, the 1943 Master Plan, and subsequentreports from city planners. (71) Community workers assumed that theresidents of Cabbagetown accepted the idea that the road to theirsalvation lay in the demolition of their neighbourhood and itsresurrection as a public housing project. Even then they believed thatRegent Park would create a "community problem" because arearesidents would still need to be shown how to "take advantage ofthe opportunities the new housing will give them[!]" (72) Regent Park residents clearly illustrated to community organizersthat they were not so apathetic ap��a��thet��icadj.Lacking interest or concern; indifferent.apa��thet , and not willing to idly accept thepearls of wisdom handed down to them by city planners. Area residentsformed a ratepayer organization which hounded City Hall throughout theplanning, clearance and reconstruction stages. During the entire periodof planning and construction, despite their numerous depositions to CityCouncil, the residents of Regent Park received almost no explanation ofthe city's plans, or the project's progress. No publicmeetings were held with residents to discuss the rent scale oreligibility for tenancy in the housing project. Despite pleas from arearesidents and certain members of the planning community, there was noprovision made on the Housing Authority for community representation. Asa result, area residents remained interested yet sceptical of theproject. Briefs submitted to City Council by area residents claimed that"80% of the residents were opposed to the scheme if there was anyway they could avoid it." (73) City politicians and members of theCHPA scoffed at the dissatisfaction of area residents. Yet a reportprepared by the newly formed Toronto Housing Authority revealed thatarea residents referred to Regent Park as "the project rather thanour project." (74) Residents felt so helpless in directing changesto their neighbourhood that they turned to more antagonistic tactics tovoice their concerns about the project. Instead of turning to thecommunity council movement residents turned to more traditional forms ofsupport including their local CCF MPP (Massively Parallel Processing or Massively Parallel Processor) A multiprocessing architecture that uses up to thousands of processors. Some might contend that a computer system with 64 or more CPUs is a massively parallel processor. , William Dennison William Dennison may refer to: Sir William Thomas Denison (1804–1871) William Dennison (Ohio governor) (1815–1882) William Dennison (Canadian politician) (1905–1981) , and to the twocity labour councils, to represent their interests. The Toronto &Lakeshore Labour Council (CLC (The Computer Language Company Inc.) The publisher of this Encyclopedia. See About this product. ) was the only organization thatconsistently came to the aid of area residents throughout the entireprocess, and perhaps only because Sylvester ("Ves") Perry, aRegent Park resident and member of the ratepayer's organization,was also a prominent member of the United Packinghouse Workers'union. (75) Dissatisfied with the City's approach to urban renewalPerry campaigned, unsuccessfully, for Ward 2 alderman in 1948 and 1949to represent the interests of Cabbagetown residents facingexpropriation The taking of private property for public use or in the public interest. The taking of U.S. industry situated in a foreign country, by a foreign government.Expropriation is the act of a government taking private property; Eminent Domain is the legal term describing the . Regent Park may have been a success for the socialhousing movement, but as Albert Rose and Alison Hopwood, two prominentmembers of the Reconstruction Council and CHPA believed, as anexperiment in democratic community planning, the project was more a`millstone' than a `milestone.' (76) Conclusion: Late in 1949 Hugo Wolter dourly dour?adj. dour��er, dour��est1. Marked by sternness or harshness; forbidding: a dour, self-sacrificing life.2. reflected on the state of communityorganization in Toronto. He claimed that, unlike his experience in theUnited States United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. , there was no idea of "people and governmenttravelling together" in all phases of community life. Thisassessment discounted the well-springs of grassroots organization whichhe found in Toronto, while overstating his American experiences. (77)Indeed, the Civic Advisory Council, the successor to the ReconstructionCouncil, reviewed the program after its first year and declared it atremendous success. Hoping to place the experiment on more solid groundthe Advisory Council recommended that the Welfare Council takeresponsibility for the project. The problem with community organizationin Toronto was not so much apathy in the "grassroots," butrather distrust of local autonomy from above. Here Wolter'sassessments were clear. As he outlined in his report, much of theinitiative and sense of responsibility for neighbourhood action camefrom those considered "beyond the pale" of Toronto society,which only seemed to make dominant cultural groups more determined tothwart grassroots neighbourhood action. Moreover, there was littlesupport from city politicians who viewed neighbourhood organizations asthreats to their power. That social service organizations were at thecentre of the community council movement also created problems forgrassroots community organizing. These organizations represented fewpeople in the community, both in terms of numbers and in terms ofdiffering social, ethnic and age groups. They also generated a greatdeal of suspicion among neighbourhood residents who felt that they wereout to "make good [citizens] of us." Yet, social servicegroups were extremely reluctant to broaden the councils to give a realvoice to ethnic, youth and labour interests. As Wolter lamented,grassroots action was stymied at every opportunity, not necessarily byoutright opposition but by lack of support from established communityinterests. Their attitude was that every thing which ought to be donewas being done. Their ideas in regard to how people and organizationsshould conduct themselves were deeply ingrained in Toronto's Torypolitical culture. Attempts to push social and cultural developmentcontrary to local traditions were labelled `Red.' Theanti-communist hysteria that characterized Toronto's post-warpolitical landscape ultimately discredited the whole idea of communityorganization. As a result, Toronto's bold experiment with communityorganization lapsed after 1949 when the Community Chest refused to fundthe project on a more permanent basis as part of the WelfareCouncil's social planning activities. (78) The failure of community organization also reflected a generalmovement away from comprehensive social planning which plagued theReconstruction Council. By 1950 the TRC, now renamed the Civic AdvisoryCouncil, was but a mere shell of its former self. Popular membership,participation and support for the council fell precipitously. Part ofthis was due to the shift in the focus of the Council's work fromthe immediate problems of peace-time reconversion ReconversionA method used by individuals to minimize the tax burden of converting by recharacterizing Roth IRA-converted amounts back to a Traditional IRA and then converting these assets back to a Roth IRA again. to more long-rangeplanning concerns, such as the fiscal and constitutional issuessurrounding the creation of Metropolitan Toronto Metro Council redirects here. For the legislative body of Nashville, Tennessee, see Metropolitan Council (Davidson County). For a governmental body in Minnesota, see Metropolitan Council. . Further hampering itscredibility as an organization representative of broad community opinionwas City Hall's increased control over the council's agenda.After years of struggling to maintain its funding and its independencefrom City Hall, the CAC See Consumer Advisory Council. disbanded in January 1953 when its membersrefused to allow it to become an adjunct of the city clerk'soffice. (79) The legacy of community organization in 1940s Toronto, then, is anambivalent one. The need for communities to organize, and the localstate's need to organize communities arose out the urgent socialproblems of Toronto's neighbourhoods fostered by two decades ofdepression and war. The tremendous social upheavals created by thehousing crisis, suburbanisation, immigration immigration,entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. , and the rise of thepolitical left spurred communities into action while compelling thestate to control those activities. However, attempts by the state toreawaken the `principle of community,' unleashed forces with whichit could not nor did not want to deal. In essence, the work of theReconstruction Council and its Community Council Co-ordinating Committeeembodied the fundamental contradictions of a welfare state, whichsimultaneously seeks to enhance social welfare, to develop the power ofindividuals, to exert control over the play of remote socio-economicforces, while seeking to regulate people's actions and ideas,adapting them to the requirements of the state and capital. (80) The conditions which fostered the rise of community organizations,however, were also responsible for their decline. Community-basedorganizations have always tended to be oriented to single issues and fewhave continuous histories of activism. Despite widespread anxiety aboutthe condition of Toronto's neighbourhoods, community organizationrested on limited and shifting foundations. It was not only that thesocial idealism fostered by the hopes of democratic planning had beensignificantly dampened by the widespread anti-communism that dominatedpost-war Toronto. More important, community activism both rose and fellbecause of the instability of Toronto's neighbourhoods. Manyworking-class and lower middle-class inner-city neighbourhoodsdisintegrated under the pressures of post-war suburbanisation, whichextracted their most stable and most active members leaving theseneighbourhoods to newly arrived immigrants, single mothers, welfarerecipients and other members of the city's casual working class. Asone social worker operating in the Ward 4 neighbourhood of AlexandraPark Alexandra Park is the name of many parks: EnglandAlexandra Park, Hastings Alexandra Park, Ipswich Alexandra Park, London Alexandra Park, Manchester Alexandra Park, Nottingham Alexandra Park, Oldham Scotland , a `slum' slated for urban renewal in the late 1950s,lamented: "There were once [local] leaders in this neighbourhood.... But the old established leaders who were concerned about theconditions of their homes and surroundings have gone." (81) Indeed,the tremendous movement of population into and out of the city after1945 did much to undermine communal solidarities, or indeed, any singlecoherent vision of the social structure. Finally, the TRC's vision of comprehensive social planningfailed because of its inability to articulate a clear vision ofcommunity. Who ultimately decided what was in the best interests of thecommunity or communities of Toronto? The inability to reconcilecompeting visions of community was most clearly evident in thereconstruction of Regent Park, which represented both the crowning gloryof Toronto's post-war reconstruction program, as well as itsultimate failure. Many Torontonians undoubtedly benefited from theprovision of housing where rent was geared to income, but as manysocial-housing advocates feared, the "bulldozing" of thecommunity and the interests of its residents ultimately discredited thewhole program of urban renewal. Indeed, planners ignored local interestsat their own peril, for Cabbagetown residents ultimately had the finalsay twenty years TWENTY YEARS. The lapse of twenty years raises a presumption of certain facts, and after such a time, the party against whom the presumption has been raised, will be required to prove a negative to establish his rights. 2. later when community organizations in Don Vale andTreffan Court, remembering Regent Park, brought the city's and thefederal government's urban renewal program to its knees. Kevin Brushett is a PhD candidate in the Department of History,Queen's University. He is currently completing his dissertation onthe popular politics of slum housing and urban renewal in post World WarII Toronto (1945-1968). Paul Ferley is currently Assistant Chief Economist The Chief Economist is a single position job class having primary responsibility for the development, coordination, and production of economic and financial analysis. It is distinguished from the other economist positions by the broader scope of responsibility encompassing the of the Bank ofMontreal “BMO” redirects here. For the mathematics competition, see British Mathematical Olympiad.Bank of Montreal/Banque de Montr��al (TSX:BMO, NYSE:BMO) is Canada's fourth largest bank[1], and is classified as a Domestic Chartered Bank (Schedule I). . He has a graduate degree in economics from Queen'sUniversity in Kingston and an undergraduate degree “First degree” redirects here. For the BBC television series, see First Degree.An undergraduate degree (sometimes called a first degree or simply a degree in economics from theUniversity of Manitoba LocationThe main Fort Garry campus is a complex on the Red River in south Winnipeg. It has an area of 2.74 square kilometres. More than 60 major buildings support the teaching and research programs of the university. . He also has the undergraduate degree, Bachelorof Environmental Studies A Bachelor of Environmental Studies is an undergraduate bachelor's degree awarded for courses taken in the study of environmental studies or related disciplines, such as geography, urban planning, environmental resource studies, or architecture. , Faculty of Architecture, from the Universityof Manitoba. John Hagopian is an independent researcher whose articles havepreviously appeared in Labour/Le Travail TRAVAIL. The act of child-bearing. 2. A woman is said to be in her travail from the time the pains of child-bearing commence until her delivery. 5 Pick. 63; 6 Greenl. R. 460. 3. , Histoire Sociale/SocialHistory, Urban History Review, Ontario History, and the annual journalof the Waterloo Historical Society. Kevin Brushett est un candidat de PhD. dans le departement del'histoire, l'universite Queen's. Il termine actuel sadissertation sur la politique populaire du logement de taudis et durenouvellement urbain de Toronto dans les annees apres la deuxiemeguerre mondiale (1945-1968). Paul Ferley est actuellement economiste en chef adjoint Ad´jointn. 1. An adjunct; a helper. a la Banquede Montreal. Il detient une maitrise en economique de l'universiteQueen's a Kingston et un baccalaureat en economique del'Universite du Manitoba. Il est aussi bachelier en etudesenvironnementales, de la Faculte d'architecture del'Universite du Manitoba. John Hagopian est un chercheur independant dont les articles ontdeja paru dans les publications suivantes: Labour - Le travail; Histoiresociale - Social History; Revue d'histoire urbaine - Urban HistoryReview; Ontario History, et dans la revue annuelle de la WaterlooHistorical Society. (1) . City of Toronto Archives (hereafter CTA) RG 249, TorontoReconstruction Council/Civic Advisory Council, Box 5, file 11, CommunityCouncil Co-ordinating Committee, Press release, 6 October, 1947. (2) . CTA, RG 249, Box 11, file 7, "Report of CommunityResearch Conference, December 7, 1948," 28-29. (3) . A recent correction to this oversight is James Struthers, TheLimits of Affluence: Welfare in Ontario 1920-1970 (Toronto, 1994), whichreminds us that the local state was very much involved in the deliveryand planning of welfare services. (4) . S. Tillotson, "Citizen Participation in the WelfareState: An Experiment, 1945-1957," in Canadian Historical Review(hereafter CHR CHRcanine hypoxic rhabdomyolysis. ) 75, 4, 1994, 511-542; G. Wills, A Marriage ofConvenience: Business and Social Work in Toronto, 1918-1957 (Toronto,1995). (5) . J. Wade, Houses for All: The Struggle for Social Housing inVancouver, 1919-50 (Vancouver, 1994), 2. As an example of this rupturein `historical memory' Martin Loney, former president of theCanadian Union of Students The Canadian Union of Students (CUS) was an association that linked student unions at Canadian universities during the 1960s and 1970s. At one time a low-key organization for sharing expertise and jointly sponsoring services, it became increasingly political, suffering a major loss , seemed oblivious to any history of citizenparticipation before the 1960s in his article, "A Political Economyof Citizen Participation," in L. Panitch, ed. The Canadian State:Political Economy and Political Power (Toronto, 1977). (6) . See, S. Dasgupta (ed.), The Community in Canada: Rural andUrban (Lanham, 1996), Introduction passim PASSIM - A simulation language based on Pascal.["PASSIM: A Discrete-Event Simulation Package for Pascal", D.H Uyeno et al, Simulation 35(6):183-190 (Dec 1980)]. ; quote from J. Muller with G.Walker and R. Ng, "Problematizing Community Organization and theState," in Community Organization and the Canadian State (Toronto,1991), 14-15. (7) . D. Harvey, The Urbanization of Capital (Baltimore, 1985),179-80; and W. Magnusson, "Community Organization and LocalSelf-Government Local self-government is a form of public administration, such that the inhabitants of a certain territory form a community that is recognized by the central government and has a specific legal status. ," in Politics and Government in Urban Canada:Selected Readings, ed. L. Feldman 4th edition (Toronto, 1981), 61-86. (8) . See V. Gosse, "To Organize in Every Neighbourhood, inEvery Home: The Gender Politics of American Communists between theWars" Radical History Review 50 (1991), 209-252; P. Schulz, TheEast York East YorkBorough (pop., 2001: 115,185), southeastern Ontario, Canada. With the cities of North York, Toronto, Scarborough, York, and Etobicoke, it forms the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. Workers Association: A Response to the Great Depression(Toronto, 1975), S. Prentice, "Militant Mothers in Domestic Times:Toronto's Post-War Child-Care Struggle," (PhD. Dissertation,York University York University,at North York, Ont., Canada; nondenominational; coeducational; founded 1959 as an affiliate of the Univ. of Toronto, became independent 1965. , 1993); E. Hobsbawm, "Labour in the GreatCity," New Left Review, 166 (Nov.-Dec. 1987), 39-51; M. Castells,The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban SocialMovements This is a partial list of social movements. Abahlali baseMjondolo - South African shack dwellers' movement Animal rights movement Anti-consumerism Anti-war movement Anti-globalization movement Brights movement Civil rights movement (Berkeley, 1983). R. Harris, "Residential Segregation andClass Formation in the Capitalist City: A Review and Directions forResearch," Canadian Geographer 28 (Summer 1984), 33-39. (9) . D. Harvey, "On Planning and the Ideology ofPlanning," in Readings in Planning Theory ed. S. Campbell and S.Fainstein, (Cambridge, 1996), 186-88; and S. Fainstein and N. Fainstein,"City Planning and Political Values: An Updated View," inibid., 268. Even the Communist Party believed in these main tenets ofmodernist urban planning see "FOR YOUNGER READERS: `WE SHALL PLANOUR CITY,' " Canadian Tribune, January 16, 1943, 14. (10) . See J. Lemon, Toronto Since 1918: An Illustrated History(Toronto, 1985), 65-68; J. Bacher, Keeping to the Marketplace: TheEvolution of Canadian Housing Policy (Kingston and Montreal, 1993),73-75; and H. Carver, Compassionate Landscape (Toronto, 1974), 51-57. (11) . D. Owram, The Government Generation: Intellectuals and theState, 1900-1945 (Toronto, 1986). (12) . City of Toronto, Report of the City Council's Survey onHousing Conditions in Toronto, 1942-43, 9. (13) . P. W. Moore "Zoning and Planning: The TorontoExperience, 1904-1970," eds. G. Stelter and A. Artibise, A UseableUrban Past: Planning and Politics in the Modern Canadian City, (CarltonLibrary #119, Toronto, 1979), 316. (14) . City of Toronto Planning Board, A History of Planning inToronto, 1959. See also P. Moore, "Zoning and Planning ...,"326-27. (15) . CPB, Annual Report 1942, 7. (16) . See J. Sewell, The Shape of the City: Toronto Struggles WithModern Planning (Toronto, 1993); and G. Hodge, Planning CanadianCommunities: An Introduction to the Principles, Practice andParticipants (Toronto, 1986). (17) . CPB, Annual Report, 1944, 13. (18) . CPB, Annual Report, 1944, 15. (19) . Toronto had always prided itself as being a city of singlefamily dwellings with a high degree of owner-occupied units. Jesse EdgarMiddleton, an early historian of Toronto, spoke of the "Torontohabit of buying a house," a phenomenon that was popular with thecity's workers as it was with its middle and upper classes. J.Middleton cited in M. Piva, The Condition of the Toronto Working-Class,1900-1918 (Carleton University Carleton University,at Ottawa, Ont., Canada; nonsectarian; coeducational; founded 1942 as Carleton College. It achieved university status in 1957. It has faculties of arts, social sciences, science, engineering, and graduate studies, as well as the Centre for Press, 1980), 125. See also M. Choko chokoNounpl -kos Austral & NZ the pear-shaped fruit of a tropical American vine, eaten as a vegetable [Brazilian Indian] andR. Harris, "The Local Culture of Property: A Comparative History ofHousing in Montreal and Toronto," Annals of the Association ofAmerican Geographers The Association of American Geographers (AAG) is an educational and scientific society aimed at advancing the understanding of, study of, and importance of geography and related fields. , 80 (1), 1990, 73-95; and R. Harris, "The EndJustified the Means: Boarding and Rooming in a City of Homes,1890-1951," Journal of Social History (Winter 1992), 331-353. (20) . CPB, Annual Report 1945, Preface. (21) . G. Fraser, Fighting Back: Urban Renewal in Treffan Court(Toronto; Hakkert, 1972, 57. (22) . CPB, Annual Report, 1944, 16. (23) . National Archives of Canada(hereafter NA), MG 28 I 14,Community Planning Association of Canada (hereafter CPAC), vol. 1, file17. R.E.G. Davis, Presidential Address to the 1947 CPAC Conference. Inthe speech Davis described the middle class flight to the suburbs as badfor them spiritually and a financial drain on the city. (24) . CPB, Annual Report, 1944, 18-19. (25) . See League for Social Reconstruction The League for Social Reconstruction was a circle of Canadian socialist intellectuals formed in 1931 by academics advocating radical social and economic reforms and political education as a response to the Great Depression.Its leading members were F.R. , Research Committee,Social Planning for Canada (Reprint of 1935 ed., Toronto, 1975), 451-63. (26) . CTA, RG 249, Box 1, file 11, Public Relations CommitteeMinutes, Feb. 13, 1944. Comments by G.F. Davies. See also the commentsof J.G. Johnston, ibid., March 17, 1944. (27) . S. Prentice, "Militant Mothers in Domestic Times:Toronto's Post-War Child Care Struggle," 86-93; and J. Wade,Houses for All, Ch. 5 passim. (28) . See H. Carver and A. Adamson, How Much Housing Does GreaterToronto Need? (Toronto, 1946). H. Carver and A. Adamson, Who Can Pay forHousing (Toronto, 1946); and H. Carver and A. Hopwood, Rents for RegentPark (Toronto, 1947). (29) . CTA, RG 32 (City of Toronto Planning Board, hereafter CPB)Series B1, Box 7, file 3, Tracey LeMay Papers, Memo on NeighbourhoodImprovement (submitted by Councillor Stewart Smith). (30) . CTA, RG 249, Box 1, file 11, Public Relations CommitteeMinutes March 17, 1944; and RG 249, Box 1, file 8, Community WelfareCommittee Minutes, October 11, 1944. For a history of Toronto'splanning movement see P. Moore, "Zoning and Planning: The TorontoExperience, 1904-1970," 317-326; and J. Lemon, "Plans forEarly 20th Century Toronto: Lost in Management," Urban HistoryReview Vol. XVIII, No. 1 (June, 1989). (31) . CTA, RG 249, Box 3, file 1, Dodger Re CAC Objectives andActivities, n.d. (32) . CTA, RG 249, Box 1, File 5, Executive Committee Minutes,June 15, 1948. (33) . Gale Wills, A Marriage of Convenience, 118-119. (34) . CTA, SC 61, WH Clark Papers, Box 1, file 1, Transcript ofbroadcast "Toronto Tomorrow," (CJBC CJBC Central Jersey Blood Center ), August 1, 1945. (35) . NA, MG 28 I 14, vol. 1, file 2, Executive correspondence,R.E.G. Davis to A. Armstrong, 2 September, 1947. (36) . NA, MG 28 I 14, vol. 1, file 18, "Report of the 1946Conference," 9-10. (37) . NA, MG 28 I 14, vol. 1, file 21, "Report of the AnnualMeeting 1947," 19. (38) . CTA, SC 61, Box 1, file 1, Transcript of broadcast CJBCAugust 1, 1945. Emphasis mine. (39) . CTA, RG 249, Box 1, file 14, Community Council CommitteeMinutes, December 3, 1947. (40) . CTA, RG 249, Box 6, file 1, "Report of The CommunityCounsellor to the Community Council Committee of the Civic AdvisoryCouncil, City of Toronto," September 1949, 21. (41) . CTA, RG 16 (City of Toronto Property Department), Box 10,file 61, "Community Councils and a Community Counsellor",October 1947. (42) . Civic Advisory Council (formerly the Toronto ReconstructionCouncil), "Report of the Community Council Committee, September 18,1947 - March 31, 1948," (April 1948), 1. The other Council membersincluded: Mrs. J. Alex Edmison - Junior League Rev. C.J. Frank, Holy Trinity Anglican Church Dr. C was a fictional scientist from the TV series Cro. She and her companion, Mike, went to the Arctic and thawed out a mammoth, who could talk. That mammoth now tells stories of life in the stone age with his friend, Cro, and his fellow mammoths. .C. Goldring - Superintendent - Toronto Board of Education Mr. Russell Harvey - Toronto Labour Council Mr. George Hees Prof. C.E. Hendry - School of Social Work, University of Toronto Research at the University of Toronto has been responsible for the world's first electronic heart pacemaker, artificial larynx, single-lung transplant, nerve transplant, artificial pancreas, chemical laser, G-suit, the first practical electron microscope, the first cloning of T-cells, Commissioner W.J. Love Mrs. H.L. Luffman - Housing Authority of Toronto Mr. C Mr C (aka Mr. Chuggs, born Richard West on January 2 1964) is a British DJ, musician and rapper. Best known for fronting The Shamen during their most commercially successful era, Mr C is also an acclaimed house music DJ and co-owner/co-founder of London's The End nightclub .F. Plewman - represented by Mr. Fred Vance - Red CrossSociety Mrs. W.N. Robertson - Community Planning Association of Toronto Mr. Murray Ross - YMCA Mr. H. Arnold Ward - YMCA (43) . CTA, RG 249, Box 5, file 11, Community Council Co-ordinatingCommittee, Press Release, October 6, 1947. Emphasis in original. (44) . CTA, RG 249, Box 5, file 10, Press release Mayors OfficeSeptember 17, 1947; and "Report of the Community Counsellor to theCommunity Council Committee of the Civic Advisory Committee, City ofToronto, Ont," (September 1949), passim. (45) . Report of the Community Counsellor ...," 3-4. (46) . See Toronto Welfare Council, "A Plan for the Reductionof Juvenile Delinquency in Toronto," November 15, 1943, Minutes ofthe Toronto City Council The Toronto City Council is the governing body of the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Members represent wards throughout the city, and are known as councillors. 1943, Appendix C, 97. (47) . CTA, RG 249, Box 3, file 2, Survey Of Community Councils AndAssociations: Re Future Of The Position Of Community Counsellor. (48) . "Report of the Community Counsellor ...," 13, 15. (49) . CTA, RG 249, Box 6, file 1, "Report of The CommunityCounsellor To The Community Council Committee Of The Civic AdvisoryCouncil, City Of Toronto," September 1949, 17-18. (50) . CTA, RG 007 A1 (Mayor's Papers - Correspondence), Box59, file 1, Wolter to Mayor McCallum, March 1, 1949. (51) . CTA, RG 249, Box 6, file 1, "Report of The CommunityCounsellor To The Community Council Committee Of The Civic AdvisoryCouncil, City Of Toronto," September 1949, 13-14. (52) . CTA, RG 002, (Board of Control - Correspondence), #3200 -Memo from Toronto and District Emergency Housing Committee, August 29,1947. (53) . CTA, RG 249, Box 1, File 3, Joint Committee on the Future ofthe Position of Community Counsellor, June 6, 1949, 4. (54) . CTA, RG 249, Box 6, File 1, Draft Report of CommunityCounsellor, September 1949. (55) . Ibid. (56) . CTA, RG 249, Box 3, file 2, "Survey of CommunityCouncils and Associations - re Future of the Position of CommunityCounsellor," n.d. (57) . CTA, RG 007 A1, Box 59, file 1, H. Wolter to H. McCallum,March 1, 1949. (58) . Ibid. (59) . CTA, RG 249, Box 6, file 1, "Summary andRecommendations of Ward IV South Study," 1949. (60) . G. Gordon Brown, Report on a Community Study of West TorontoJune 3, 1949. (61) . A. Rose and A. Hopwood, "Regent Park: Milestone orMillstone," Canadian Forum Vol 29, no. 340, (May 1949), 34-36. (62) . A. Rose, Regent Park: A Study in Slum Clearance (Toronto,1958), 81-82. (63) . Ontario, Report of the Lieutenant Governor's Committeeon Housing Conditions in Toronto (Toronto, 1934), 33. See also H.Garner, "Toronto's Cabbagetown," in Forum: Canadian Lifeand Letters, 1920-1970 - Selections from THE CANADIAN FORUM, eds. J.L.Granatstein and P. Stevens (Toronto, 1972), 145-148. (64) . NA, MG 28 I 14 Vol 1, file 1, H. Carver to R.E.G. Davis,June 28, 1946. (65) . H. Carver, Compassionate Landscape, 82-83; and J. Bacher,Keeping to the Marketplace, 23. Of the approximately 90 members of theorganization one quarter had connections to working-class organizations.Communist Party Controller Stewart Smith and local United ElectricalWorkers organizer Ross Russell played a prominent role on the executivecommittee, and regularly spoke on behalf of the organization. Bacherclaims that both Clark and the Communist members of the Association werecareful not to visit each other's houses for fear of discreditingsocial housing as a party plot. John Bacher, Personal Correspondencewith the author, June 10, 1998. (66) . A. Rose, Regent Park, 47. (67) . NA, MG 28 I 14, Volume 1, file 1, Memo, December 4, 1946. (68) . For a full account of the CHPA's role in the battle forRegent Park see A. Rose, Regent Park, 47-60. (69) . CTA, RG 007 A1, Box 36, files 2-4 Various letters from TheRegent Park Ratepayers Association to Mayor H. McCallum and the Board ofControl, May 12, 1947; May 27, May 31, 1948, April 27, May 4, 1949; CTA,RG 002, Records of the City Executive, Board of Control Correspondence1947, Minute # 1151 - May 30, 1947. (70) . See M. Valverde, "Building Anti-Delinquent Communities:Morality, Gender and Generation in the City," in A Diversity ofWomen: Ontario, 1945-1980 J. Parr (ed.), (Toronto: UTP UTP(uridine triphosphate): see uracil. (Unshielded Twisted Pair) See twisted pair. UTP - unshielded twisted pair , 1995), 26-27. (71) . J. Sewell, The Shape of the City, 72. (72) . CTA, RG 249, Box 5, file 10, Suggested letters to Members ofCity Council Dec 29, 1948. (73) . NA, MG 28 I 14, vol. 3 file 1, CPAC, Toronto Branch"The Bulletin," May, 1949. (74) . CTA, RG 007 A1, Box 36, file 3, Housing Authority ofToronto, Final Report - Rent Capacity Study for Regent Park HousingProject (May 31, 1948). (75) . NA, MG 28 I4, (Labour Council of Metropolitan Toronto)Microfilm Reel M2295, Minutes for Jan 28, 1946, February 23, 1949, March14, 1949, April 11, 1949, April 25, 1949, and May 23, 1949. See also"CITY HALL FALLS DOWN ON HOUSING LABOR SAYS CITES REGENT PARKRENTS: TLC TLCtotal lung capacity; thin-layer chromatography. TLCabbr.1. thin-layer chromatography2. - CCL," Toronto Star The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, though its print edition is distributed almost entirely within Ontario. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd., a division of Star Media Group, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation. , March 1, 1949, 9; and "MAYORDENIES 15 FAMILIES IN REGENT PARK TOLD TO MOVE," Toronto Star,March 5, 1949; CTA, RG 007 A1, Box 33, File 10, Mayor H. McCallum to MCotterill, March 4, 1949; and M. Cotterill to Mayor H. McCallum, March8, 1949. (76) . See Minutes of the Toronto District Labour Council February28 to May 23, 1949. TDLC TDLC Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia (Santiago, Chile)TDLC Twinaxial Data Link Control , Reel M2295. A Rose and A. Hopwood,"Regent Park: Milestone or Millstone," Canadian Forum Volume29, no. 340, (May 1949), 34-36. and A. Rose, Regent Park, 82, 85. (77) . For a history of community organization in the United Statesduring this period see R. Fisher, Let the People Decide: NeighbourhoodOrganizing in America Updated Edition (New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , 1994). (78) . CTA, RG 249, Box 6, file 5, Analysis of the Success andFailures of Community Councils and Associations in Toronto. Gale Willsalso attributes the failure of the community council movement tocorporate forces within the Community Chest who were fearful of a moredecentralized and democratic approach to social planning and welfareprovision. See Marriage of Convenience, 117-118. (79) . CTA, RG 249, Box 1, file 5, Executive Committee Minutes#590, December 29, 1952; and RG 249, Box 3, file 2, W.H. Clark to MayorA. Lamport, January 6, 1953. (80) . G. Walker, "Reproducing Community: The HistoricalDevelopment of Local and Extra-Local Relations," 42. (81) . J. Haddad (Executive Director of St. Christopher St. Christophermedal to protect travelers. [Christian Hist.: NCE, 552]See : Protection House),cited in M. Schiff, "The Long Wait for Redevelopment," Globeand Mail, July 10, 1961.