So who is Designing Toronto?
We’re a group of dedicated and passionate urbanistas who want to make community planning and development a more pleasant experience. We started Designing Toronto as a way to talk about how might we do community planning better, how might we spread knowledge about community planning and how might we get community projects off the ground.
Our purpose is to enable people to be better understand urban issues, city design and connect people who care about these things together. We’re all about creating a space for city builders and urban activists to learn more about how to get their projects started. On this blog, we will post issues, ideas and tools that will be helpful in this regard. We hope that this will be a useful resource for all urban activists in the Toronto area.
Contributors
- Howard Tam, MSc.,BASc. is a Strategist, Facilitator and Urban Thinker. He holds a Master’s degree in urban planning from the University of Hong Kong and a Bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of Toronto. As Founder and Principal at the ThinkFresh Group, Howard has consulted with government agencies, non-profits and community groups to develop strategies, create business plans and facilitate community engagement.
- Jan van Deursen, MSc. Ba. Is a researcher from the Netherlands, specialized in affordable housing. He holds a Master’s degree in Urban Geography and together with a research institute he published a white paper exploring policy directions for affordable rental housing in the Netherlands. Jan recently moved to Toronto where he started blogging about these issues. Besides housing, he has a passion for online technological developments, and its capabilities to empower communities.