Living Streets: Making Room for Life Within Our Cities

When we think about urban public space, we typically imagine parks, plazas or greenways. But by size, a city's most significant category of public space is actually its streets, meaning that they contain the potential to truly define a city’s identity and to forge relationships between our many citizens, businesses, and cultures. Toronto has a vast network of over 5600 km of streets; this seminar will discuss the potential to use these as a platform for action, as an incredible asset that can be used to improve our City. The design of place-based streets can allow us to address deeper social engagement within and across communities, build climate resilience and improving our public health.

As part of the 2024 Evergreen Conference, Senior Associate Dennis Rijkhoff will outline how to set a practical agenda for improved street design through a greater understanding of bringing together policy, planning and urban design, architecture and landscape architecture, and public engagement to strengthen the resiliency of our urban environment. He will also be taking us through various Park(ing) Day activations that will be remounted as part of the conference.