The room at Toronto City Hall was filled to capacity on November 19. Those gathered had an air of expectation as Torontoās chief planner, Jennifer Keesmaat, presented her āPlanning a City for Allā lecture.
Keesmaatās presentation was the last of a series of four lectures called ā,ā sponsored by and designed to encourage and sustain urban ministry.
Urban Remixed is a partnership between the Christian Reformed campus chaplaincy at the University of Toronto (), the for people who are homeless, , and .
Keesmaatās presentation highlighted initiatives Toronto is taking to remedy the social problems caused by poverty and crime. Affordable housing, safe neighborhoods, green areas, and accessible work and marketplaces were some of the subjects she touched on. Keesmaat spoke of her vision for complete communities, seeking to dissolve āareas of high concentration of poverty, isolation and crime.ā
Keesmaat was recently named by ²Ń²¹³¦±ō±š²¹²Ōās magazine as one of the .
Other lectures in the series included āA Theology of the Cityā by CRC campus minister Brian Walsh, āSustainability and the Cityā by University of Toronto professor Ingrid Stefanovic, and āImagination, the Arts, and Homelessness,ā by Phyliss Novak.
CRC Campus Ministryās Wine Before Breakfast, a weekly morning service at the Wycliffe College chapel, has brought together many men and women who are interested in questions of urban life. Walsh explained, āWe need visions of human possibilitiesāurban possibilitiesāthat tell us who we want, or perhaps more pertinently, who we do not want to become. We need to be clear about what we donāt want to become before we can entertain possibilities of an alternative city.ā
About the Author
Jose Lune is the µž²¹²Ō²Ō±š°łās regional news correspondent for classis Toronto.