S4E56: All In with Dylan Reid

Near Toronto's Danforth, Colin Marshall talks to Dylan Reid, senior editor at Spacing magazine, former co-chair of the Toronto Pedestrian Committee, and co-founder of Walk Toronto. They discuss whether the term "pedestrianism" has become as unappealing as the term "classical music"; the nature of the Danforth and its Greek roots; spatial ways to think about one's walks; the quintessentially Torontonian things he's noticed only while walking; the controversial practice of "façadism" and what it offers the city; the slow process by which Toronto offers up its joys, none of which seem apparent across the rest of Canada; what someone eager to grasp Toronto will find when they open Spacing; how to photoblog in a "not obviously beautiful" city; how he got to know Toronto by talking group walks by night, seeing such sights as a still-active slaughterhouse; how the city represents, in some form or another, every current of the modern conversation about developed-world urbanism; how Spacing got its start in the argument around an anti-postering bylaw; walking as the fabric that connects all modes of transportation; what Toronto's lately ever-more-robust downtown population has meant of walking; what makes him ask "Why is this here?" and who he asks for the answer; the fifty objects that symbolize Toronto; the city's relative lack of empty spaces and "dead zones"; what walk to take that can help you most quickly understand Toronto; and why one might visit Toronto Island.