Messy Urbanisms

Interesting! This is on Carlaw at Harcourt, just south of Danforth.

Context for the Gourdon sign posted earlier ...

What looks like a neighbourhood watch sign warning of the unusual protection found in the area.

THIS DIMENSION
PROTECTED
BY HOUSES WHO
WALK LIKE MEN

Not sure where this one is. An acquaintance sent it to me & couldn't remember the location.

Why this Toronto woman hosted a free buffet — on the TTC subway The 25-year-old woman and her friends set up a table and handed out the homemade food Monday night. “While the intent seems harmless enough, this was not an authorized event,”

Why this Toronto woman hosted a free buffet — on the TTC subway www.thestar.com/news/gta/why... via @torontostar

I am also amazed by how many green spots are all over Amsterdam

Gourdon Crossing. Someone has put an absurdist sign up (notice the gourd heads) on an official signpost. I did not call the number. #funnysigns

When there's not enough seating in #publicspace, people look for other places. Preferably somewhere with a backrest (and thus protection from behind), with a view and in the shade (on sunny days). 🧵 (1/3)
#streetphotography
#urbanphotography
#humansofbluesky #urbanism
@sociallifeproject.bsky.social

Front yard gnome garden, with oyster shells, dinosaurs, and other critters.

Yarnbombing progress on the tree’s jail
cell! Register for one of the three upcoming workshops: www.eventbrite.ca/e/1548290381...

Good morning from Rouge Hill in Toronto. Today I will be following the Lake Ontario shoreline eastwards towards Whitby. I'll start here in Scarborough's southeastern corner and jump over the Rouge River. Hoping wildfire smoke dissipates as projected. Let's go. #metroscapes

Public pools could be a simple solution to ever-warming temperatures, Eve Andrews reports. Why are they so neglected? https://theatln.tc/be4W7e5Z

📸: H. Armstrong Roberts / ClassicStock / Getty

100% - it’s a shame the CEO of the Jays wrote to then mayor Tory to get rid of activeTO

The Sesame Street set was deliberately designed to reflect messy and vibrant urban living.

Sidewalks should support social life!

The point of #cities is more than to be able to move about efficiently, but to be able to connect & exchange.

Let's turn upside down the shaping of cities to start with the social life of #sidewalks!
#Streets #Placemaking #PublicSpace
@placemakingx.bsky.social

In the US, orthodox traffic engineering treats the safety of walking and the convenience of walking as opposing goods, then purports to make walking safer by making it less convenient. In fact, however, wherever walking is welcomed and convenient, it is also safer.

Paradise is in the eye of the beholder. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. July 9, 2025. #POTD #POTD2025

Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
July 9, 2025. #POTD #POTD2025

Land of … honey and money? Toronto, Ontario, Canada. July 14, 2025. #POTD #POTD2025

Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
July 14, 2025. #POTD #POTD2025

Large painted 2D carving of blue jays attached to the exterior of a house with painted yellow bricks.

A little free library on the side of the road. Painted in bright green and red with multicoloured letters and a colourful portrait of Albert Einstein on the side.

Large mural of red flowers and stars on the side of a red brick building, tucked behind a metal fire escape.

Brick chimney stack outside Lord Lansdowne Junior Public School with painted decorative ribbons of red, yellow, white and green.

📍 Robert Street #Toronto

#Iamcanadian

Gloucester Circus in Greenwich, London. A row of bollards.

Proposal to lock up the 15-minute city conspiracy theorists in incredibly secure prisons like this one.

safe routes to school and other programs for mobility for kids also have a stealthy and underdiscussed gender component as well. It's typically moms who do the overwhelming amount of child-portaging. i think there's a case to be made that not unlike universe childcare, SRTS is feminist policy

Heritage buildings as podium for new tall buildings.

I've been seeing this "Daniel 5:5" graffiti around and wondered if it was some kind of evangelical thing. But when I looked it up, it is in fact a Biblical passage about ... graffiti! Divine #graffiti. A mysterious hand writing on a wall. This is kind of meta-graffiti - graffiti about graffiti. 🧵

I'm cleaning up my camera roll, and I realize I have a lot of pictures of pavings, an obsession of mine. I will add them to this ongoing thread until I run out of them, I get bored or I forget.

I will try to give some basic info for each of them and rate it.

THE ULTIMATE PAVING THREAD

“This is the cognitive dissonance we live with. Americans love walkable places, as long as they’re elsewhere. We’ll defend parking mandates, zoning codes, and car dependency at home, even while praising the places those rules have made impossible.”

Good read.

A fair crowd of people watching Mariners and Marras singing in front of the new mural on the corner of Linskill Terr and Lindisfarne Terr, North Shields

Nice little afternoon “launching” North Shields’ newest mural with some folk songs and sea shanties, and free corndogs!

I love visiting Philadelphia. 300 years of urbanism > 30-year old fire department and traffic engineering standards. 🤯

"Toronto is a messy city too, not scrubbed clean, and while some might think that’s shabby, there are posters, stickers and sometimes guerrilla art to take in, a sort of reading of local activity." - @shawnmicallef.bsky.social (gift link) www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Thousands of people on the edge of the Seine in Paris.

Thousands of people on the edge of the Seine in Paris.

Thousands of people on the edge of the Seine in Paris.

Thousands of people on the edge of the Seine in Paris.

Fête de la Musique in Paris, aka Music Day, is today. There’s literally music everywhere. The whole city is public life. Including on the edge of the Seine, in a space that used to be a highway for cars. #MusicDay #ParisPlage

We can fit a lot into cities when we rethink cars.

"Messy Cities" is back on the CBC Canadian non-fiction bestsellers list! Now at #6!
www.cbc.ca/books/what-c...