My friend had to rent a car for the week, so we did a Scarborough food pilgrimage. Every strip mall has deliciousness. These were the highlights.

I’ve been photographing anti-ICE and related yard/window/tree/street signs around Minneapolis. The variety of commercial and especially handmade signs is amazing, as is the urge for people to let their neighbors know they care and are furious in ways big and small. Batch #11

Starting a thread of some of my favourite alley photos I've taken walking around town. #ReferenceImages #EnvironmentReferences

Rise, Sushi and ??? fresh paint in Graffiti Alley with the nice weather coming back. #Graffit #StreetArt #Toronto

The Craven Road community art gallery (Toronto).

Car-shaped bike parking in what would normally be a car’s parking spot

The coffee robot on Richmond at Spadina. A friend who overlooks it says it's sadly rarely used, but the coffee is quite good.

Mayor Chow, Councillor Bravo, and Chief Planner Thorne came by to give Finch their business license. Surreal, delightful, lovely.

When Eating Becomes Spatial: 14 Projects Built Around Shared Meals www.archdaily.com/1037478/when...

For more on the problem of "elite projection" -- the tendency of elites to support transit plans that cater to their own tastes -- see here: humantransit.org/2017/07/the-...

Check out this interview podcast about "Messy Cities" with co-editor @zahraeb.bsky.social by Booked on Planning www.bookedonplanning.com/podcast/epis...

This guy in Grand Rapids, Michigan created a community center that's just a hangout zone with gathering spaces and an informal library and crafting tables and a little gym area—a true "third place" Imagining a world with more of these and I genuinely think it'd have a million downstream benefits

Great conversation about our book "Messy Urbanism" with our co-editor @zahraeb.bsky.social . I love her description of our book as "a tool for noticing". www.bookedonplanning.com/podcast/epis...

Heritage, housing and sustainability! Featuring pre-fab mass timber panel cores and floors, this is WoodGreen Community Services’ 50-unit affordable rental housing redevelopment of the Danforth Baptist Church by Assembly Corp. and architect McCallum Sather in Toronto's North Riverdale neighbourhood.

Mess Might Just be the Secret Weapon That Planners Forgot

This is an important point that's often overlooked. Municipal reorganization doesn't need to be "unitary", for lack of a better word, we can shift to a more polycentric model of overlapping governmental bodies with different mandates and jurisdictions

St-Jacques-Le-Majeur-De-Wolfestown

my local park is full of hundreds of snow sculptures and someone has been adding museum labels

People say that Toronto isn't a whimsical town, but in actual fact, we just have a very, very subtle sense of playfulness.

Free idea for LA28 — here's a great new study that says we could get rid of nearly half of all the pavement in LA County. Depaving literally checks all the boxes in these focus areas. How about that for a Summer Games legacy?

Can Corner Stores Mount A Comeback? Via @bloomberg.com “Toderian champions a finely grained retail model he calls ‘corner convenience’: a small market, cafe/restaurant or service that ideally would be legal on every street corner across the city and suburbs.” #CornerConvenience

🏳️‍🌈 Rainbow Cobblestones in Le Puy-en-Velay, France. Source: @streetartutopia.com

Great review of "Messy Cities" on @planetizen.bsky.social , including a pull quote from @shawnmicallef.bsky.social , plus a podcast discussion about the book with co-editor @zahraeb.bsky.social www.planetizen.com/blogs/136962...

Colourful #snowTO #toronto #x100vi

I am collaborating on Shared Streets with Vancouver colleagues. British Columbia has flexible laws but they haven't done enough to standardize Shared Streets. There is variation in signage and they are still treating each street like a hand-crafted experiment.

Grounded gondolas... 29.419682 -98.48664 Old sky ride gondolas now public seating.

How snow reveals desire lines (gift link): www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/r...

Lovely description of desire lines: "it’s not just that I’d prefer to walk some other way, but I have a deep longing for another way." messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/rend...

Ghosts of municipal discontent... Every so often I still see a Rob Ford sticker... He's a ghost of municipal shame that still haunts the city. While his brother actively torments the province. #StopFord #RobFord #ONPoli #TOPoli #Toronto

Pork chop turn lane closed off with quick concrete barriers and painted asphalt (and snow), at Eglinton and Weston Road. Much safer for pedestrians. Presumably will be rebuilt as full public space eventually.

Mural welcoming people to Mount Dennis neighbourhood outside the new Mount Dennis LRT/GO/UP station.

#streetart. Artiste. Andrew Wallas

Montreal’s downtown pedestrian street on a warm and sunny winter day (-5°C, 23°F)

The weather is heating up & deep snow is very much a limited time offer. So its time for another #RavineRamble Nordic edition, this time following Taylor Creek between Victoria Park Ave & O'Connor Bridge. Come and join along #LoveTheRavines #RavineRambler #DonRover #parksTO #EastCoatKin #winterTO

Last Fare to Clairlea. Toronto - May 2020 An ignominious end to an old Checker Marathon. Rusting away as a lawn ornament / billboard in industrial Scarborough. #LanewayTO #classiccars #abandoned #Alleyway #BlueSkyArtShow #EastCoastKin #UrbanGaze #Toronto

#GraffitiFriday Islington

Abandoned in Roncy. Toronto, Ontario - Jan 2023 Remembering this abandoned beauty in an alleyway behind Roncy. @normal-cr02-metal.bsky.social any idea what happened to her? #LanewayTO #classiccars #abandoned #Alleyway #BlueSkyArtShow #EastCoastKin #UrbanGaze #Toronto

Interesting new program in Toronto: "Park People, a community organization, will be given the green light to match and distribute up to $120,000 of City funds to fund “Friends of” groups that help maintain and program City parks." via @graphicmatt.com newsletter

So satisfying. I wasn’t even doing it myself but watching someone else clear a big puddle. When he made a hole in the ice blocking the catch basin and we saw the little whirlpool start we cheered!

(🧵3/22) Power Lines Drawing #129 (Huntington Woods, MI) Prints are for sale here: marcusmerritt.bigcartel.com/product/powe...

Putting it out there that I'm going to put up some of my original Power Lines Drawings for sale in a few weeks. Not sure yet which ones, so if you've been interested in one, please reach out to me. Prices will vary but I'll post the drawings shown here for $200 marcusjmerritt.com/power-lines-...

If accessibility disappears after a snowstorm then there was never really accessibility to begin with. Winter reveals so much about who our cities prioritize.

Great conversation in @bloomberg.com with "Messy Cities" editors @shebuildscities.bsky.social and @zahraeb.bsky.social about the book and the many meanings of messy urbanism www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Riverdale Park east is where the grownups congregate to toboggan - with anything at hand, including cardboard boxes. Lots of cardboard scattered around.

Knocking off 💤 tonight with a wise sign from under the Wallace Bridge

Today I learned about the Worldwide Sidewalk Joy map. (worldwidesidewalkjoy.com). It’s locations around the globe where you can exchange or pick up free trinkets, puzzles, mugs, toys or books. Or even visit curated free little installations. What a lovely little concept!

Confirming this. It snowed today and my residential street was plowed at least twice over the course of the day. No “X hours/days *after* the snow ends”. Snow clearing is one really clear example where density results in better quality municipal services.

King's College Circle is a sculpture garden right now! I don't recall there being so much playfulness before the landscape redesign.

Toronto studying possible 7 km trail under the Gardiner Expressway www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...