this is the u of t cities podcast. broughtto you by the university of toronto brianna: what does sustainability sound like?is it the sound of a coffee cup being recycled? or the sound of someone walking to work insteadof taking the car? nope. sustainability sounds like this. like progress. because it's the only logical way to buildthe streets we drive on, the homes we live in, the ways we get our electricity. days of sustainability as a niche issue arelong gone. now it's construction, it's the economy, it'sthe quality driving development in our city.
this is the u of t cities podcast, i'm briannagoldberg. in the first two episodes of this miniserieswe heard from u of t researchers and entrepreneurs building the future of traffic and transitin toronto - both clear election flashpoints. building a sustainable city has not been akey platform for any of the candidates. and yet, it's there, implicitly, bubblingup behind everything else they're promising. how else could you make a transit plan, agarbage collection scheme, a vision for the city, if not sustainably? today you'll hear from university of torontoexperts whose work is helping to build a more sustainable city, regardless of who gets themost votes on october 27.
later this episode, we'll hear more from richardsommer. he's the dean of u of t's daniels faculty of architecture, landscape and design.in the previous podcast, he shared a new vision for transit hubs in the outer gta. and todaywe'll hear a bit more about why designing an integrated - possibly environmentally responsive-transit plan for toronto is key to the city's success. we'll also check in with professor david wolfe,from u of t's mississauga campus and the munk school of global affairs. he'll explain whytoronto has to get on board with a dramatic re-branding for our economy to stand a chance. but first, we're going to look up, way up,as we get our hands dirty and go a bit green.
my name is liat margolis, i research all sortsof green building technologies like green roofs, green walls and solar energy. green roofs. we're talking about vegetationon tops of condos and towers. a few years ago, the city of toronto made them mandatoryfor all new buildings over a certain size. and so margolis and her team at the danielsfaculty of architecture, landscape and design are testing different versions of them onthe roof of the daniels building on college street. ...to figure out what could optimize thingslike storm-water management, so can we increase the retention capacity of green roofs so thatthey function in storm events and they retain
the water and alleviate things like flooding,can we optimize the evaporative cooling effect to lower ambient temperature and affect energyusage, such as cooling in the summertime with air conditioners. so those are the kinds ofquestions and they operate on a very micro-scale, but they effect macro-issues on a regionaland urban scale in terms of environmental management, and they also have an effect onconstruction standards, guidelines, municipal standards and the construction industry. so it might seem like green roofs are onlyrelevant to a small section of toronto. but once they optimize irrigation schedules, vegetationchoices, and more, these roofs could affect more than flood management or energy use.they might even save the bees.
you have a loss of these ecosystems and diversityof plants and the corollary is a loss of pollinator species, and those are critical to maintainingthe ecosystem, not to mention agricultural production and so on. so we're looking atwhat plants are more attractive, let's say, to certain bee species. what is the reception in the building industryto ideas like this? are they kind of dragged kicking and screaming into green roofs becauseit's a policy that's been made or does it seem like they're actually interested in thefuture of this? absolutely. and i think one of the importantideas to remember is that sustainability and business are not at odds with one another.in other words they absolutely need one another
in order for the whole system to work effectively.if you think about it, any sort of new green technology is an economy, it's manufacturing,it's jobs, it's construction, it's new knowledge. so the green roof economy in north americahas definitely multiplied by quite a bit. same with the solar and clean-tech industry.i think that the industry is very keen on green building technologies. they're veryinterested in finding out what works best because they need to keep up with what's thelatest. they have to remain competitive, they also see sustainability as a marketing opportunity. what might cities look like 10 or 20 yearsfrom now if the kind of green roofs and solar get applied? what might the city of the futurelook like to you?
yesterday i saw this presentation by an architectfrom copenhagen and they did these kind of new configurations allowing traffic to operatein the same manner and yet integrate all sorts of green vegetated components on the ground,on roofs, on the side of the buildings. not only allowing for this kind of new environmentalperformance to be integrated into the urban realm but also all of a sudden opening upthese new public spaces and recreational spaces and a new way of actually experiencing thebuilt environment. so i think a kind of new thinking where natural systems are more integratedas a new planning form, as a new urban method, an architectural method, i see that as notonly a way to mitigate the kind of environmental issues that we're facing today, and i thinkthat's an important distinction to not only
think about climate adaptation, but actuallythe possibly of integrating solutions that could mitigate the effects and reverse thekind of negative impacts on the environment. integrating natural systems into the urbanenvironment is absolutely a tool and a key aspect of how we can actually do that. andat the same time all this opens up opportunities for a kind of new social behavior, a new socialand cultural interaction with our cities. we're somewhat familiar with it because weknow what it's like to be in parks and on waterfronts and so on. but a lot more of that.so i'm sort of imagining a new kind of culture around cities following this kind of integrationmore landscape. that was liat margolis. she's an assistantprofessor at the daniels faculty of architecture,
landscape and design. to learn more, headto news.utoronto.ca . later in the podcast, we'll get a sneak peekat what a successful toronto economy might look like in 10 years - if the city gets braveenough to start playing as part of a regional team. but first, an integrated transit system thatcould help its riders become their best selves. planning for the sustainability of toronto'stransportation and its citizens... part two last episode, we heard from dean richard sommer.he talked about the daniels faculty's joint project with metrolinx, as they imagined anew kind of transit experience for the outer
gta in a book called huburbs: transit andurbanism in the greater toronto hamilton area. but he says that rethinking transit in thecity and its outer reaches is about much more than just moving people from a to b. if you look at great metro systems and greatsystems in other parts of the world, sometimes they are very monumental and singular in theirquality. we haven't even been able to have this discussion in toronto because it's alwayssubways or surface rail without asking any bigger questions about what kind of systemwe're trying to build, who we're building it for, or what the experience of it is like,or what the bigger picture looks like. it's really been a very, very low level debatearound is it light rail, buses or subways.
and i think that's been a bit of a distractionfrom asking what kind of experience do you want to construct for our citizens as theymove through the city, and not just for people in the downtown. sommer is working to imagine a transit planthat could offer a new way of interacting with our world. if you have to change your form of transit3 times to get to work there is already the nervousness about the amount of time it takesand being late and depending on the weather it can really be disheartening on a dailybasis. so one of the things we thought about, to get back to the huburbs project is, developinga more nimble form of transit infrastructure
that might even change the degree of opennessdepending on the season. we have a need to be protected from the weather in the middleof the weather and there's much less of a need for that - there may be a need for shadeand other things in the summer. and so the next step is to find a way fortoronto's transit to strike a balance between pragmatism and possibility. if you grew up in an environment where youonly drove and that's the only way you saw the city, the experience of going somewhereand seeing the city on foot or moving through the city on a bicycle can be a revelation.if a city is able to facilitate your being able to go about your everyday life doing,all the better. not that many are. i think
it has to be in people's self-interest whenthey realize that their life could be improved by cutting down on commuting times or thata better design and coordination of the sites and networks of transit can create a morepleasant experience, not just getting from here to there, but on the way. these are thingsthat in lots of different realms people think about. people think about the shopping experienceand the creation of new retail environments. universities think about the student experienceover the 4 year period. it's not that different from...if you think about a city and for someof its citizens may have to travel anywhere between 20 minutes to 2 hours, if you actuallymap the itinerary of that person, and think about everything from the spaces you're designingto the quality of the signage to the way in
which the tickets and passes are integrated,that's going to have an impact on people's quality of life. i think one of the struggleswe have in toronto is it would be great if everyone could ride their bike to work orwalk, but it's a big city and really i think is the case that often the least economicallyadvantaged people in society have to travel the farthest to make a living and to get towork. so we have to really be mindful of what their life is like. and as much as we wouldlike to pedestrianize everything or make the downtown even more lively than it is, that'sthe bigger challenge, which is that for people to succeed they need to be able to move throughthe city and they need to be able to move through the city in a way which is not deadeningto their spirit, if you will.
so take everything that you are thinking aboutwith your modelling research and everything you've learned in huburb study and everythingthat you just think about being the dean of an architecture school, and think of the portcredit traveler 10 years from now, 15 years from now, if all of your hopes come true,what will their transit reality look like? it's a very simply thing. toronto is stilla little bit too convenient to drive in and to move through toronto in a car. so our ambitionhas to be to make the experience, and it's not just a matter of a convenience, but theexperience and the quality of commuting into the city through transit something which isa better experience than driving. so one can read, one can shop, one can exercise, onecan socialize. some you can do which is enriching
rather than seen as a sacrifice. that was richard sommer. he's an architectand dean of the daniels faculty of architecture, landscape and design. you can read more, andfind a link to his interview in the previous episode, at news.utoronto.ca. liat margolis' green roofs - sound great,and cost money. dean sommer's revolutionized, utopian transit system - sounds great, andis bound to cost a lot of money. so how exactly would we pay for this enlightened,sustainable future city of toronto? david wolfe is a professor political scienceat u of t's mississauga campus. he's also part of the innovation policy lab, the programon globalization and regional innovation systems
based at the munk school of global affairs. a lot of his work has looked at how industrialclusters drive economies. ontario's former industry giants like automotive manufacturing,and even blackberry, are teetering... and wolfe is working to help toronto - and theregion around it - think about new ways to build jobs and companies and policies fora sustainable economy. he says it's all about the digital. and it'sgoing to mean giving up toronto's independent identity - a little bit, anyway - as we joinforces with other cities further west along the 401. there's software being developed in waterloothat can contribute to the growth of the financial
services industry in the downtown businesscore in toronto. there are hardware wireless skills at mcmaster university in hamiltonthat played an important role in the development of the blackberry. so that both the knowledge-base,the research-base in our universities, post-secondary institutions, the firms are all interconnectedin this region, and we need to begin to think of the region with a much broader perspectivethan we have in the past. so what would it look like if this regionwas able to successfully brand itself? what's the best case scenario? how do you see thatworking? i think there'd be greater recognition forus in north america and globally that we are an integrated region and that as a regioneconomy we have great strengths in a number
of economic sectors, one of the most importantof those is the information technology or digital economy sector. people in waterloohave been pushing for this recognition for awhile. i think toronto has been a littlebit slow to get on the bandwagon. i think a number of people in toronto are startingto see the value in doing this and agree with the importance of branding it. somebody inottawa who publishes a list of the top 300 information technology firms in canada everyyear made a call in the summer that we brand this region ontario's digital corridor. ithink that's as good a name as any, but i'm happy to defer if somebody can come up witha better name or better brand for it. but i think we need to start getting more attentionfrom different levels of government about
how to contribute to growing and integratingthe region more effectively and branding it internationally. i understand why perhaps smaller regions,like we're talking st. catharines, niagara, they of course would be interested to buyinto this integrated branding. but toronto it seems to me would have something to losein that they already have a bit of an established brand. what do you think it will take fortoronto to say i want to be looped in the same concept and the same idea as waterloo/kitchener? toronto's problem is that we have a greatbrand as a city but we don't have a distinctive brand in particular economic or industrialsectors. toronto is widely recognized as a
financial services centre, which it is probablythe 4th largest in north america. we have a great reputation as a centre for creativeindustries, film, television, broadcasting, huge sources of growth and strength in thetoronto region. but we don't have any recognition of toronto as a digital centre. the informationtechnology industry in toronto gets buried and lost in the rest of the broader economy.everyone knows that the university of waterloo has a great computer science department andthat google and microsoft and lots of other companies come to waterloo to recruit fromthere. but nobody knows that the university of toronto's computer science department isactually ranked higher in global rankings that waterloo's, and that our computer sciencedepartment is the highest ranked department
internationally of any department in the university.so i think toronto has every bit as much to gain as waterloo does from participating inthis global branding and raising the profile for toronto as well as the rest of southwesternontario's digital economy in terms of global recognition. how do you get there? how do you change opinions? one of the challenges we have in this regionis we have a multiplicity of economic development and marketing organizations that are all working,sometimes together but often on their own, to market and brand their own parts of theregion. none of them are marketing the region and none of them have put a label on the region,and none of them are going out and representing
the region as a whole on a global scale. ithink it's time for somebody to take the lead. the leadership might have to come from theprovince to bring all of the cities together and help and support them in creating. i knowthere were serious discussions in the province about 2 years ago about doing this. they falteredbecause some of the various organizations didn't want to come to the table and giveup their own little sandboxes. i think it's time for the province, once they sort outall of our transit problems, i think it's time for the provincial government to stepin and bring all the parties in the region together to the table and say what do we needto do to put the digital corridor on the map globally.
what will this region look like maybe 15 or20years from now and what needs to happen in addition to provincial support in this marketingcoming together to make it happen? in my most optimistic moments i think theregion will continue to grow and thrive and prosper. we know that it's very likely therewill be at least a million-and-a-half more residents in the region 15 years from nowbecause we're absorbing at least 100,000 people a year, just into the gta. if you take inhamilton, kitchener, waterloo, guelph, niagara there will probably be at least 2 millionmore. we know we need much better, much more integrated transit across the region to makethat many more people be able to work effectively in the region. but also i would hope if wesucceed in branding it, we will be able to
create much better, higher value-added jobs,higher income generating jobs for all of those people moving into the region and all of thetremendous creativity that we have going on across the university of toronto's variousincubators, the ones at ryerson, ocad university, york university, waterloo, those will be generatingtens if not hundreds of new firms that will be growing and creating employment opportunitiesfor all of our very bright and talented students. that was david wolfe. he teaches at u of t'smississauga campus and through the munk school of global affairs. you can learn more aboutthe university of toronto accelerators he mentioned by heading to news.utoronto.ca. we've featured companies that developed withhelp from u of t accelerators in the two previous
episodes of this podcast. listen back to those episodes to learn moreabout soujourn labs, a company that's building a human-powered car-bike hybrid... and votecompass, offering users an online platform to figure out which mayoral candidate mostclosely aligns with their views. oti lumionics is a very sustainably-drivenstartup that developed with help from u of t's entrepreneurship supports. head over tonews.utoronto.ca to learn more about their business. it makes organic led lighting moreaffordable and efficient for architects, interior designers... and anyone wanting to read abook, using their new consumer-ready oled lamp called aerelight.
from a newly branded digital economy to anenlightened and environmentally responsive transit system, and green roofs and greenwalls and a green city saving us from flooding - as well as possibly saving the bees - thisis the sustainable future of toronto. and it's happening regardless of which candidatetops the polls next week. we at the u of t cities podcast were happyto bring you these stories in third episode of this series. to check out previous episodes featuring interviewsabout artificially intelligent traffic lights, an upstart alternative to the ttc, and thesecret wish of transit-policy expert eric miller... just head over to u of t news atnews.utoronto.ca .
that's also where you can find more news andfeatures on u of t work transforming cities, entrepreneurship, health, education and more. please get in touch with any questions orsuggestions for future episodes. you can tweet us at uoftnews . or send an email to uoftnews@utoronto.ca. next time on the u of t cities podcast we'llbe thinking big as we talk about the role of the city with experts including richardflorida, patricia mccarney, and meric gertler. today we featured music made available onthe free music archive. the artists are cheese n pot-c, tha silent partner and the custodianof records. also, jazzafari, mnag quad and cosmic analog ensemble. you can find theirwork and more at freemusicarchive.org
this program was produced by myself, briannagoldberg, with help from u of t news editor jennifer lanthier. thanks for listening.
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