What do you think?
Rate this book
Frontier City: Toronto on the Verge of Greatness
Toronto is emerging from an identity crisis into a glorious new era.
It began as a series of reports from the civic drama of the 2014 elections. But beyond the municipal circus, writer and commentator Shawn Micallef discovered the much bigger story of a city emerging into greatness. He walked and talked with candidates from all over Greater Toronto, and observed how they energized their communities, never shying away from the problems that exist within them -- poverty, violence, racism, and drugs -- but advocating solutions that bring people together. Shawn Micallef introduces us to those fighting for a more inclusive vision of Toronto and reveals the promise and potential for a city that has been suffering through a severe identity crisis but is now on a steep upturn. Toronto, he says, is set fair to be a new urban model for cities all over the world. Micallef reveals Toronto in all its rich variety. It is hard, he says, to grasp the vast size and scope of Toronto until you spend a few hours walking through unfamiliar neighbourhoods. Each reveals another adjacent to it, and then another, and another. The city goes on and on, into unheralded ravines and oblique views of the downtown skyline. Hiding in all that geography is not only great beauty, but a force for change that's been building for decades as people arrived here from every corner of the globe. Frontier City is a revelatory view of the Toronto of today and an inspiring vision of the Toronto of the near future.
It began as a series of reports from the civic drama of the 2014 elections. But beyond the municipal circus, writer and commentator Shawn Micallef discovered the much bigger story of a city emerging into greatness. He walked and talked with candidates from all over Greater Toronto, and observed how they energized their communities, never shying away from the problems that exist within them -- poverty, violence, racism, and drugs -- but advocating solutions that bring people together. Shawn Micallef introduces us to those fighting for a more inclusive vision of Toronto and reveals the promise and potential for a city that has been suffering through a severe identity crisis but is now on a steep upturn. Toronto, he says, is set fair to be a new urban model for cities all over the world. Micallef reveals Toronto in all its rich variety. It is hard, he says, to grasp the vast size and scope of Toronto until you spend a few hours walking through unfamiliar neighbourhoods. Each reveals another adjacent to it, and then another, and another. The city goes on and on, into unheralded ravines and oblique views of the downtown skyline. Hiding in all that geography is not only great beauty, but a force for change that's been building for decades as people arrived here from every corner of the globe. Frontier City is a revelatory view of the Toronto of today and an inspiring vision of the Toronto of the near future.
261 pages, Hardcover
First published February 7, 2017
8 people are currently reading
255 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
February 6, 2017
Shawn Micallef tours the inverse-U of Toronto, from Etobicoke, up to North York, and around Scarborough with aspiring municipal politicians. And along the way, apart from skewering some sacred cows and self-important ideas, he comes to an interesting observation and controversial insight.
The observation: Toronto's much vaunted multiculturalism lives in the frontiers of the city. It's celebrated in the downtown core, but resides in the seventies tower blocks, works in the scruffy strip malls, and generally has a hard time making its voice heard by those who laud it.
The insight: Rob Ford was a necessary mayor for Toronto. His very mayoralty, for good or ill, blew the lid off of Toronto's comfortable but superficial understanding of itself. His presence forced us to confront the complex, flawed, messy, but burgeoning city that we love.
The observation: Toronto's much vaunted multiculturalism lives in the frontiers of the city. It's celebrated in the downtown core, but resides in the seventies tower blocks, works in the scruffy strip malls, and generally has a hard time making its voice heard by those who laud it.
The insight: Rob Ford was a necessary mayor for Toronto. His very mayoralty, for good or ill, blew the lid off of Toronto's comfortable but superficial understanding of itself. His presence forced us to confront the complex, flawed, messy, but burgeoning city that we love.
Read
November 27, 2025The political science book 📕
I’m a bit fed up of the sciences this year….
Social science on the issue are up in arms and undecided if it's parents coddling there children to much or if it's these technologies that are over stimulating people but the issues are way more prevailing than originally thought as health problems reasoning.
Sleep is 😴💤 a big deal.
Going to bed hungry,
Not being able to pay rent,
Bills,
Not being able to have a family,
Or simple health issues that are all very tied with sleep problems exasperating autoimmune, digestive issues, alcohol or addiction issues, are strongly lit to the 1000% - 2000% profits and the cluster of people who 1/2 tells client workers that they are trying to die.
That assistant suicide is not allowing the mental ill included.
Only keep denying service, one disappears another will replace, unless the tribalism will not allow one of there own to for cost of there keep.
The man who eats in idleness what he has not earned is a thief, and in my eyes the man who lives on an income paid by the state for doing nothing, differs little from the highwayman that lives on those who travel his way.
Outside the pale of society, the solitary, owing nothing to any man, may live as he pleases, but in society either he lives at the cost of others, or he owes them his labour in cost of his keep, there is no exception in this rule. Man in this society is bound to work; rich or poor, weak or strong, every idler to thief.
I proceed along the path which the forces of circumstance compels me to tread, but do not insist that my readers follow me. Long ago they have made up there minds that I am a wander the lands of chimeras, as in wild eye thoughts. When I wander so far from popular beliefs I do not cease to bear them in mind; I examine them, I consider them, not that I may follow them or shun them but that I may weigh them in the balance of reason. When ever that reason compels me to abandon those popular beliefs, I know by experience my readers will not follow my example; I know they will persist in refusing that will to believe what they can not see, they will have youth of imagination of life that orders. They forget that the needs are different, because of a being raised in a different fashion and has been influenced as a wholly different feelings and instructed a whole different manner, that it would be whole stranger to be a pupil than to be what I have supposed it to be.
Emile or on education -Jean Jacques
I’m a bit fed up of the sciences this year….
Social science on the issue are up in arms and undecided if it's parents coddling there children to much or if it's these technologies that are over stimulating people but the issues are way more prevailing than originally thought as health problems reasoning.
Sleep is 😴💤 a big deal.
Going to bed hungry,
Not being able to pay rent,
Bills,
Not being able to have a family,
Or simple health issues that are all very tied with sleep problems exasperating autoimmune, digestive issues, alcohol or addiction issues, are strongly lit to the 1000% - 2000% profits and the cluster of people who 1/2 tells client workers that they are trying to die.
That assistant suicide is not allowing the mental ill included.
Only keep denying service, one disappears another will replace, unless the tribalism will not allow one of there own to for cost of there keep.
The man who eats in idleness what he has not earned is a thief, and in my eyes the man who lives on an income paid by the state for doing nothing, differs little from the highwayman that lives on those who travel his way.
Outside the pale of society, the solitary, owing nothing to any man, may live as he pleases, but in society either he lives at the cost of others, or he owes them his labour in cost of his keep, there is no exception in this rule. Man in this society is bound to work; rich or poor, weak or strong, every idler to thief.
I proceed along the path which the forces of circumstance compels me to tread, but do not insist that my readers follow me. Long ago they have made up there minds that I am a wander the lands of chimeras, as in wild eye thoughts. When I wander so far from popular beliefs I do not cease to bear them in mind; I examine them, I consider them, not that I may follow them or shun them but that I may weigh them in the balance of reason. When ever that reason compels me to abandon those popular beliefs, I know by experience my readers will not follow my example; I know they will persist in refusing that will to believe what they can not see, they will have youth of imagination of life that orders. They forget that the needs are different, because of a being raised in a different fashion and has been influenced as a wholly different feelings and instructed a whole different manner, that it would be whole stranger to be a pupil than to be what I have supposed it to be.
Emile or on education -Jean Jacques
November 3, 2024
I grew up in Scarborough, one of what Shawn Micallef calls an "inner suburb" of Toronto. Scarborough is a place of incredible ethic diversity, as the place where immigrants from China and Sri Lanka and India settle down — but it's also a place that for many decades was neglected, decayed as Scarborough residents grew poorer and poorer while the city grew richer, and suffered from a chronic lack of transit.
Frontier City's core idea is that the internationally famous former mayor, Rob Ford, was not solely a result of suburban voters voting against their own interests. It's also that the richer inner city's intentional neglect of growing poverty and needs of residents of places like Scarborough and Etobicoke was also a contributing factor. Rob Ford was a populist, conservative politician that appealed directly to these voters — suggesting that they wouldn't be left behind. The author isn't a Ford apologist, but he does acknowledge what is indisputable — that poorer residents of the city largely felt they had a voice in city hall with Ford after being "utterly let down by their government" by a "political class that [] could not care less about their quiet struggle". Ford was not the right person for the job, but I think to this day there are no politicians that come close to promising the same sort of attention.
Micallef evokes this idea of two cities within one. The inner city — the richer, shining part of the city most of the world is familiar with — and the concrete suburbs that were typically ethnically diverse, relatively recently amalgamated into the city in 1998. These suburbs were the subject of much academic study over the 1990s and 2000s, which concluded that poverty was growing substantially in the suburbs and that failing social programmes were going to put the city in crisis — "a deep division [] that cannot be whitewashed" by John Tory. Amalgamation left parts of the city behind, but there are few right now that would dare to suggest reversing amalgamation, because it would leave more people behind, with less supports for the people that need them, and less of a voice for those people.
There are some good quotes in the book, but the writing gets awfully monotonous and repetitive over the neighbourhoods Micallef walks through. A lot of the broader citywide problems he talks about are essentially repeated word-for-word multiple times. The structure doesn't change at any point. The writing isn't particularly insightful either, nor is the writing particularly bold. At times, Frontier City outright gets things wrong. It decries the Scarborough subway extension for no discernible reason other than that it was championed by Rob Ford, while neglecting the very real notion that Scarborough residents face the longest commutes in the city. On these fronts it loses two points from me.
3/5
Frontier City's core idea is that the internationally famous former mayor, Rob Ford, was not solely a result of suburban voters voting against their own interests. It's also that the richer inner city's intentional neglect of growing poverty and needs of residents of places like Scarborough and Etobicoke was also a contributing factor. Rob Ford was a populist, conservative politician that appealed directly to these voters — suggesting that they wouldn't be left behind. The author isn't a Ford apologist, but he does acknowledge what is indisputable — that poorer residents of the city largely felt they had a voice in city hall with Ford after being "utterly let down by their government" by a "political class that [] could not care less about their quiet struggle". Ford was not the right person for the job, but I think to this day there are no politicians that come close to promising the same sort of attention.
Micallef evokes this idea of two cities within one. The inner city — the richer, shining part of the city most of the world is familiar with — and the concrete suburbs that were typically ethnically diverse, relatively recently amalgamated into the city in 1998. These suburbs were the subject of much academic study over the 1990s and 2000s, which concluded that poverty was growing substantially in the suburbs and that failing social programmes were going to put the city in crisis — "a deep division [] that cannot be whitewashed" by John Tory. Amalgamation left parts of the city behind, but there are few right now that would dare to suggest reversing amalgamation, because it would leave more people behind, with less supports for the people that need them, and less of a voice for those people.
There are some good quotes in the book, but the writing gets awfully monotonous and repetitive over the neighbourhoods Micallef walks through. A lot of the broader citywide problems he talks about are essentially repeated word-for-word multiple times. The structure doesn't change at any point. The writing isn't particularly insightful either, nor is the writing particularly bold. At times, Frontier City outright gets things wrong. It decries the Scarborough subway extension for no discernible reason other than that it was championed by Rob Ford, while neglecting the very real notion that Scarborough residents face the longest commutes in the city. On these fronts it loses two points from me.
3/5
June 27, 2017
Looking at the rise of the Ford brothers and the partitions that they defined in the city Micaleff a local reporter visits some of the underrepresented regions of the GTA. His writing is clear, clever and defined always with an eye to larger issues at work.
"The island and the ferry back are also the best place to look at the city itself. It's quite a thing to approach on the water: an Oz-like skyline that changes each year as more buildings and skyscrapers are added to the composition in an ever-widening mass of concrete, glass and humanity spreading east and west along the waterfront, with construction cranes indicating more is coming." 6
"The world is watching cities," proclaims the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. C40 is a network of eighty of the world's megacities, including Toronto, committed to addressing climate change. "Cities are where the future happens first," is another of the organization's mantras, one that rings true, because many cities were taking action on climate change before their national governments were. Cities lead, and this will be an urban century...Toronto is a Los Angeles-sized place, forty-four kilometres wide along the lake and sprawling north until Steeles Avenue, where the suburbs, generalized as "the 905," named after the change in area codes outside of the city limits, continue on in what was until recently some of the best farmland in Canada." 9
"A widely read article from April 2014 by Kim-Mai Cutler on TechCrunch, "How Burrowing Owls Led to Vomiting Anarchists," explained the roots of San Francisco's housing crisis as being thirty to forty years of NIMBYism (or Not-In-My-Back-Yardism) that kept the San Francisco peninsula from growing denser to accommodate more people, creating an acute housing shortage." 19
"The college is one of the many nodes around Toronto that have become satellite centres, essentially miniature downtowns regardless of what their built forms look like."50
"The legendary Chicago Democratic Machine, officially know as the Cook County Democratic Party, is perhaps the most famous example of the dark arts of municipal politics." 85
"The ravines are the city's memory, as author and Toronto's current Poet Laureate Anne Michaels has written, the constants that are unconcerned about arbitrary political boundaries and political divides between suburb and downtown. If Toronto ever needs a symbol to rally around, perhaps it should be a ravine because they connect all of it. The ravines, and the racoons in them, should be the city's mascots." 100
"Those cheque-cashing outfits...Spotting them on retail strips is a quick way to gauge the general economic health of any neighbourhood." 113-114
"Like London and Paris, Toronto follows a European pattern in which communities in the inner city are wealthier, and poverty, and its attendant problems, orbit around the inner city, often out of sight." 114
It's a cityscape that an easily lull people into believing they live in a village, an appealing delusion. However, the "village" narrative has been taken to extremes across the city. Toronto has what might be called a village fetish, where neighbourhoods insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that they are indeed a village." 131
"Toronto calls itself a "city of neighbourhoods" (what city isn't this?) and many of its neighbourhoods tack on the word "village" to their names. Some came by the designation honestly because, historically, they were once villages, which were consumed by the growing city-for example, the Village of Swansea-and the identity stuck through the generations, even as it grew beyond village proportions. Local business improvement and neighbourhood association named other "villages" more deliberately, perhaps based on wishful thinking." 132
"The only place that comes close to being an actual village around Toronto is Black Creek Pioneer Village by York University, a reconstituted historical village of buildings moved to the site from around the city." 132
"Over there was La See cafe, which had Toronto's first patio in 1963," 141
"In this genre, the best offering from Toronto is the story of R.C. Harris, the City of Toronto's public works commissioner between 1913 and 1945, a figure with vision who pushed back against parsimonious small thinkers on Toronto's city council and prepared the city to be the great metropolis that it would become." 171
"The island and the ferry back are also the best place to look at the city itself. It's quite a thing to approach on the water: an Oz-like skyline that changes each year as more buildings and skyscrapers are added to the composition in an ever-widening mass of concrete, glass and humanity spreading east and west along the waterfront, with construction cranes indicating more is coming." 6
"The world is watching cities," proclaims the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. C40 is a network of eighty of the world's megacities, including Toronto, committed to addressing climate change. "Cities are where the future happens first," is another of the organization's mantras, one that rings true, because many cities were taking action on climate change before their national governments were. Cities lead, and this will be an urban century...Toronto is a Los Angeles-sized place, forty-four kilometres wide along the lake and sprawling north until Steeles Avenue, where the suburbs, generalized as "the 905," named after the change in area codes outside of the city limits, continue on in what was until recently some of the best farmland in Canada." 9
"A widely read article from April 2014 by Kim-Mai Cutler on TechCrunch, "How Burrowing Owls Led to Vomiting Anarchists," explained the roots of San Francisco's housing crisis as being thirty to forty years of NIMBYism (or Not-In-My-Back-Yardism) that kept the San Francisco peninsula from growing denser to accommodate more people, creating an acute housing shortage." 19
"The college is one of the many nodes around Toronto that have become satellite centres, essentially miniature downtowns regardless of what their built forms look like."50
"The legendary Chicago Democratic Machine, officially know as the Cook County Democratic Party, is perhaps the most famous example of the dark arts of municipal politics." 85
"The ravines are the city's memory, as author and Toronto's current Poet Laureate Anne Michaels has written, the constants that are unconcerned about arbitrary political boundaries and political divides between suburb and downtown. If Toronto ever needs a symbol to rally around, perhaps it should be a ravine because they connect all of it. The ravines, and the racoons in them, should be the city's mascots." 100
"Those cheque-cashing outfits...Spotting them on retail strips is a quick way to gauge the general economic health of any neighbourhood." 113-114
"Like London and Paris, Toronto follows a European pattern in which communities in the inner city are wealthier, and poverty, and its attendant problems, orbit around the inner city, often out of sight." 114
It's a cityscape that an easily lull people into believing they live in a village, an appealing delusion. However, the "village" narrative has been taken to extremes across the city. Toronto has what might be called a village fetish, where neighbourhoods insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that they are indeed a village." 131
"Toronto calls itself a "city of neighbourhoods" (what city isn't this?) and many of its neighbourhoods tack on the word "village" to their names. Some came by the designation honestly because, historically, they were once villages, which were consumed by the growing city-for example, the Village of Swansea-and the identity stuck through the generations, even as it grew beyond village proportions. Local business improvement and neighbourhood association named other "villages" more deliberately, perhaps based on wishful thinking." 132
"The only place that comes close to being an actual village around Toronto is Black Creek Pioneer Village by York University, a reconstituted historical village of buildings moved to the site from around the city." 132
"Over there was La See cafe, which had Toronto's first patio in 1963," 141
"In this genre, the best offering from Toronto is the story of R.C. Harris, the City of Toronto's public works commissioner between 1913 and 1945, a figure with vision who pushed back against parsimonious small thinkers on Toronto's city council and prepared the city to be the great metropolis that it would become." 171
May 10, 2019
Frontier City very much captures a moment in time in a city that that could use more attention, and in particular to the quiet neighbourhoods that many of the residents call home. Shawn Micallef explored various neighbourhoods and wards of Toronto during the 2014 election period to try to gain an understanding of the city. I think Micallef very much succeeded in his ambition and paints a portrait of parts of the city that don't often appear in the news.
The impetus for the book is pretty clear. 2010 saw the election of Rob Ford, a figure that one half the city never truly understood and another portion of it viewed as their champion. While electoral politics may distort the number of supporters and detractors Ford had it is clear that he spoke to some part of the city that felt underrepresented. Micallef sought to explore that side of Toronto.
Micallef does this by visiting wards all over the city of Toronto and meeting with challengers for the city council seats primarily. His survey goes from the Downtown, to Etobicoke, Scarborough, and places in between. Issues raised range from transit, housing, social housing, education, support for culture, parks and waterways, and on and on. It provides fascinating insights into the issues that were percolating at ground level in 2014, and no doubt have many parallels to issues that continue to fester or evolve to this day.
I think this book is valuable in gaining some insight into the "suburb vs. downtown" debate and how it is often more nuanced that it may appear on the surface. As Toronto continues to grow and expand the various neighbourhoods are adapting differently, which in some cases means not as well.
Does a book like this have value years after it is written? Well, as I wrote above I believe it speaks to ongoing issues in the city of Toronto between its diverse neighbourhoods and how it functions (or doesn't) as a city. Afterwards I think it'll act as an important time capsule to understand Toronto as it was in 2014 at a more granular, neighbourhood level. I think the book speaks to issues that are going on in big cities struggling to be big and that likely reflects issues in places like Brampton, Mississauga, Ottawa, Calgary, and so on.
I enjoyed this examination of political life and civic life in Toronto and would recommend it to local political watchers.
The impetus for the book is pretty clear. 2010 saw the election of Rob Ford, a figure that one half the city never truly understood and another portion of it viewed as their champion. While electoral politics may distort the number of supporters and detractors Ford had it is clear that he spoke to some part of the city that felt underrepresented. Micallef sought to explore that side of Toronto.
Micallef does this by visiting wards all over the city of Toronto and meeting with challengers for the city council seats primarily. His survey goes from the Downtown, to Etobicoke, Scarborough, and places in between. Issues raised range from transit, housing, social housing, education, support for culture, parks and waterways, and on and on. It provides fascinating insights into the issues that were percolating at ground level in 2014, and no doubt have many parallels to issues that continue to fester or evolve to this day.
I think this book is valuable in gaining some insight into the "suburb vs. downtown" debate and how it is often more nuanced that it may appear on the surface. As Toronto continues to grow and expand the various neighbourhoods are adapting differently, which in some cases means not as well.
Does a book like this have value years after it is written? Well, as I wrote above I believe it speaks to ongoing issues in the city of Toronto between its diverse neighbourhoods and how it functions (or doesn't) as a city. Afterwards I think it'll act as an important time capsule to understand Toronto as it was in 2014 at a more granular, neighbourhood level. I think the book speaks to issues that are going on in big cities struggling to be big and that likely reflects issues in places like Brampton, Mississauga, Ottawa, Calgary, and so on.
I enjoyed this examination of political life and civic life in Toronto and would recommend it to local political watchers.
March 25, 2018
This is an excellent book for anyone who is interested in Toronto's confused and complicated civic scene. There are excerpts that take the reader back to the time of Rob Ford's reign as the city's burghermeister.
Planning on voting in the upcoming elections, whether municipal or provincial? Read this book in case you have forgotten or are wondering what damage another Ford in power could possibly do. Planning on running as a candidate? Read this book to understand how to communicate to potential voters clearly and succinctly.
I really appreciated Micallef's gift for stories and recall about significant moments in the city's history. This is a book that is suited for those of us who love politics but do not enjoy political double speak.
Planning on voting in the upcoming elections, whether municipal or provincial? Read this book in case you have forgotten or are wondering what damage another Ford in power could possibly do. Planning on running as a candidate? Read this book to understand how to communicate to potential voters clearly and succinctly.
I really appreciated Micallef's gift for stories and recall about significant moments in the city's history. This is a book that is suited for those of us who love politics but do not enjoy political double speak.
May 9, 2022
I love living in Toronto but can’t say I’m super connected to the goings on behind this great city. This book filled in the blanks and was an incredible primer on all the forces that have helped Toronto become world class and all the forces that could send it skittering off the rails. Great political prodding with lots of manifesto-like pleas but a little too much Rob Ford for my liking (that’s our deceased crack-smoking mayor, for those that don’t know.) Also, really interesting structure to the book. Shawn took a walk with everyone who narrowly lost a city counselor seat to see the city through their eyes. Nice book for a new category for me. Made me interested to read similar books about other great cities.
March 17, 2023
I wanted to really enjoy this book. I was hoping it would cast a spell on me and send me to the polls every municipal election. I wanted to feel the surge of localism when I closed it. I think I can better appreciate and relate to the people who run for council, but I think maybe this writing style just isn't my vibe. I wished it was a bit more argumentative, a little more robust, and in depth on some key themes. I do know a thing or two about the Ford family now though and that's new. I wish I was living in the city when Rob Ford was mayor because it sounded like a time to be alive.
Still, gotta support anything of this sort of genre which seeks to elevate everyday people wanting to positively impact their communities.
Also my fellow Maltese writers. Represent.
Still, gotta support anything of this sort of genre which seeks to elevate everyday people wanting to positively impact their communities.
Also my fellow Maltese writers. Represent.
December 21, 2018
It was interesting reading this book after this year's Toronto municipal election; although we're 4 years later and the structure of the government has been changed due to the reduction in the number of Councillors, the issues and results were practically identical to those examined by Shawn Micallef in Frontier City. It's not clear to me that Toronto is on the verge of greatness; it's as likely that we're slipping back into a parochial and near-tribal metropolis. I appreciate the work he did in speaking with political aspirants from unusual backgrounds and his examination of our neighbourhoods and his thoughts on the fabric of Toronto are quite insightful.
January 6, 2018
I greatly enjoyed Micallef's examination of Toronto's recent municipal politics, public transit, construction and parks in Frontier City. In each chapter, he visits a Toronto neighbourhood with a candidate for city council, examining the common concerns that knit Toronto together as a city. I share the author's enthusiasm for Toronto's ravine parks and have often wondered why they do not attract more visitors. The book is filled with thoughtful insights about how Toronto's past continues to shape perceptions of the city and the potential for an exciting future.
September 24, 2023
It may date back to 2016, but Shawn Micallef’s Frontier City: Toronto on the Verge of Greatness—a companionable walk-through of a cross-section of wards, mostly in the company of underdog candidates for municipal office—still has a lot to tell us about where we are now, including on plus ça change issues like housing density, pothole populism, grey-haired NIMBYism, racialized poverty, the transportation culture war, the taking-for-granted of less affluent wards, and the durability of Ford family shenanigans.
July 31, 2018
I enjoyed this book overall - there are descriptions of different neighbourhoods in Toronto that inspire me to do more exploring.
On the other hand, I found the book overly long and repetitive near the end - I also don't think his central thesis as I saw it - that amalgamation was a good thing, even post-Rob Ford - holds together. At least he didn't manage to prove it to me using the anecdotes he shared here.
On the other hand, I found the book overly long and repetitive near the end - I also don't think his central thesis as I saw it - that amalgamation was a good thing, even post-Rob Ford - holds together. At least he didn't manage to prove it to me using the anecdotes he shared here.
August 21, 2017
An insightful look into how city politics can give rise to weird characters and seemingly out-of-step actors. All done through the lens of Rob Ford and his family in Toronto, but with candidates for all kinds of local races.
I feel like I have a much better understanding of Toronto after reading it.
I feel like I have a much better understanding of Toronto after reading it.
August 5, 2018
I'm a bit embarrassed it took me until now to read this, but only a bit, because it remains an extremely relevant book for Toronto's current moment. This is a view of the city most people don't get, an argument that the city is worth fighting for, and an inventory of some of the ways for Toronto to achieve "greatness." A recommend read for anyone who loves Toronto, or who wants to.
July 13, 2017
First and likely only time I'll ever read a book that features my neighbourhood in Scarborough. Excellent overview of often overlooked parts of Toronto, and a hopeful elegy for the future of our city.
December 27, 2019
Excellent notes on urbanism in Toronto, but the politics BORED me to death. Also would be helpful if there were maps and pics to accompany the writing about each Ward & the candidates interviewed etc.
June 7, 2017
Every person who lives in Toronto and who cares about the city should read this excellent book.
September 30, 2017
3.5 a well researched book but he is liberal with the run on sentences
March 8, 2018
A political spin to Micallef's previous psychogeographic experiences.
October 27, 2018
Useful information. A must-read if you live in GTA. Tedious at times.
Read
December 27, 2019the un-tourist Toronto perspective from a "Toronto Star" columnist
November 30, 2020
Informative and interesting, yet at time boring. Would love an update now that Ford is Premier.
Read
January 22, 2025this made me both equal parts nostalgic / proud and happy that i left this dang city
also take a shot every time shawn uses the word "arterial"
also take a shot every time shawn uses the word "arterial"
April 19, 2017
A good read, and a good look at both what Toronto's been through in the past little while and where we might go in the future. Micallef delves into the heart of Ford Nation to give readers a more nuanced look at why people would vote for Rob Ford, and why that inclination could easily surface again. I also enjoyed the profiles of different wards throughout the city, two of which I've lived in, and the frustration that comes from trying to challenge incumbent councillors. I appreciated a bit of history about amalgamation, since I've only lived here eight years. I think Micallef is probably too generous with John Tory in his afterword -- I don't think he's boring and safe; I think he's doing almost as much as Rob Ford to drag Toronto down, just with a more civilized veneer. Anyway. My one other hesitation is that Frontier City wasn't as well written as I was expecting, from a syntax and readability standpoint. But still. Good book!
September 5, 2017
Interesting perspective of the amalgamated city by a down to earth Windsor raised author. It speaks solely to the people who now inhabit the inner city itself, since the citizens that are the subject of this book of course already know who and what they are and need. It is a sad reflection of those inner city residents that this book is even needed--how could they not know already that the residents of the outer reaches of their city are just as decent and deserving citizens as they are. This attitude is what is keeping Toronto from being a great city.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews