Unplanned Suburbs: Toronto's American Tragedy, 1900 to 1950

by Richard Harrison and Richard Harris

Book Overview

This work looks at the social history of Toronto, showing that its pre-1939 suburbs were socially and ethnically diverse, with a large number of lower-income North American families making their homes on the urban fringe. It looks at the decentralization of blue-collar employment as a reason for working-class families leaving the city. Although there were advantages - a home of one's own, a garden, access to the countryside - the unplanned suburban...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801851424
• ISBN13: 9780801851421
• Release Date: April 1996
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

suburbs for the working class

Like Harris' Creeping Conformity, this book focuses on shantytowns built by homeowners in Toronto's working-class suburbs during the first half of the 20th century; however, this book focuses on Toronto to an even greater extent than does Creeping Conformity, and benefits from a greater level of detail. In 1913, 79% of all households in Toronto's suburbs were headed by blue-collar laborers, as opposed to 59% in Toronto proper. Why were laborers so likely to be suburban homeowners? Because the absence of government regulation meant that people could go out to suburbs and build shacks themselves as cheaply as possible, while the absence of government water/sewer service discouraged more affluent people from doing the same. Also, the slow development of Toronto's transit system meant that suburbs without streetcar service were not tremendously attractive to middle-class buyers. By contrast, by 1951 Toronto's suburbs were actually less blue-collar than the city. What changed? In trying to extend basic services such as water and sewer, suburbs made themselves expensive places to live. For example, between 1925 and 1929 per capita municipal debt almost doubled in York Township, one of Toronto's suburbs; as a result, 27 percent of York taxes went unpaid- and the Great Depression meant even more tax delinquencies, causing some blue-collar suburbanites to lose their homes. Instead of "filtering down" to poorer buyers, their houses "filtered up" to buyers who could afford to pay municipal taxes. And in 1935, Canada's federal Parliament passed the Dominion Housing Act (DHA) to assist the construction industry. The DHA sought to revive the construction industry by subsidizing mortgages. Most DHA mortgage recipients were middle-class homeowners in more affluent suburbs, thus promoting the suburbanization of the middle classes. (80% of DHA loans were made on suburban property).

long overdue examination

The most insightful reading on Canadian social history I have ever read has been this type of academically researched theme woven into a story, and big as the story is ,this book does not disappoint. I am an artist so it was wonderful insight to see some new Harris artwork in context to boot ! A reason for making this book part of my library was personal to intimate. My parents and their playmates spent an idyllic yet somehow gritty self-reliant youth in the Toronto Silverthorne addition. They intermarried, went off to war together, are still today the best of chums.What on earth could have accounted for it? This book goes a way towards an answer that is long overdue. More detailed , separately appendixed maps would tell a better story