Tower renewal: community development in Toronto's apartment neighbourhood of Thorncliffe Park

Thorncliffe Park is an inner suburban apartment neighbourhood and an “arrival city” for new comers to Canada. It suffers as a failed modernist utopian experiment and route to nowhere. Its status is symptomatic of an overall isolation faced by many failed utopian neighbourhoods around the world. The City of Toronto’s Tower Renewal Program is a bold community development initiative that proposes to break this isolation by turning Toronto’s apartment neighbourhoods into vibrant, socially and economically viable urban communities. This paper focuses on the role of planning policy in promoting community development initiatives. In particular, it focuses on the Tower Renewal Program as a suitable community development initiative in Thorncliffe Park. It contributes to the body of knowledge on community development at Toronto’s “arrival cities”. As a resident of Thorncliffe Park for almost a decade, this research provides the opportunity for me to contribute to the body of knowledge on my beloved former neighbourhood. Key Words: inner suburbs, apartment neighbourhoods, towers-in-the-park, tower renewal, revitalization, community development, planning.