After the Sprawl? Suburban Pasts and Futures In the Greater Toronto Area

As students of the city, we concern ourselves in large part with urban form, specifically with the ways that cities are built, the consequences of form for urban residents, and alternatives we have for urban growth. In the exhibit After the Sprawl? Suburban Pasts and Futures in the Greater Toronto Area, curator Michael McMahon presents these issues in the context of suburbanization in the Toronto region after World War Two. Its main message is that suburbanization has continuously bred counter-movements, each meant to solve the problem of sprawl, though never succeeding. Visitors are shown that if sprawl is to be managed, viable past efforts at containment and new alternatives must be put into practice. But as the exhibit title itself suggests, the momentum of Toronto’s city-building practices are too entrenched to deal with sprawl effectively, making alternatives appear hopelessly optimistic.