Canadian Planning and its British Connections

From the outset of modern urban planning’s development as an emerging international movement in the 1890s, a varied group of middle and upper class English-Canadians embraced planning: they formed connections with the international cohort, imported foreign ideas, and disseminated this knowledge across Canada. Yet, despite the importance of such transnational exchanges to Canada’s early planning movement, the current historical narrative does not fully account for the complex nature of English Canadian interactions with this global planning world. Concentrating on the period between 1890 and 1930, this presentation studies English-Canadians as informed and discerning members of the wider planning cohort who imported and rejected outside innovations and expertise based on local needs and concerns. Drawing on material gathered from sixteen British and North American archives, the presentation will consider the channels through which English Canadians acquired and circulated British and other foreign planning innovations, and the role of international planning experts who worked across Canada in the early 20th century.