In Flux in the City, Nathaniel and Wesley are on a journey to learn about equitable cities and all the wonderful folks who make our cities worthwhile to live in. They interview leaders, movers, shakers, artists and academics to ask hard-hitting (and enjoyable) questions about the City of Toronto.

Earlier in 2022, Nathaniel and Wes caught up with Daniel Rotsztain, also known as The Urban Geographer to speak about his "urbanist origin story," and converse about activism, art, geography and The UrbanGeog's great big love for the City of Toronto.

We start the episode with the tongue-in-cheek song "Toronto the Good" from 1966 by the Canadian folk band Brothers-in-Law juxtaposing the positive energy we all give the City of Toronto in this episode.

Daniel shares how he got known as the Urban Geographer and shares his love of storytelling. We talk about falling in love with the messy urbanism of the city, Toronto's identity, the CN Tower, cormorants and our "hearts of the city" - otherwise known as places of belonging that we find in this weird and complex metropolis! Join us in listening!

If you are interested in the wonderful Daniel and his awesome artwork and projects make sure to check out the links below to follow links to things we mentioned in this episode alongside his website:

https://hiway401.tumblr.com/

https://artstartsto.com/cartography-17/

https://theurbangeographer.ca/About

If today's episode sounds a bit different, we used a brand new AI tool to master our audio so thanks be to the new AI gods for helping grassroots podcasts like our own sound like a million dollars!

The Flux in the City team are back having a conversation with a wonderful guest on subcultures and queer space in Toronto and beyond.

Wesley Reibeling and Nathaniel Hanula-James interview an up-and-coming researcher on his work on DIY spaces.

Travis Van Wyck is a MSc Planning student at the University of Toronto interested in the intersections between planning, community economies, and the practices of do-it-yourself (DIY) scenes and spaces. His research looks at DIY communities in Toronto, Berlin, and Amsterdam to consider potential avenues for establishing equitable artistic, cultural, and nighttime policies without instrumentalizing, displacing, or marginalizing alternative cultures, scenes, and spaces. In this work, Travis looks to DIY spaces as transformative sites with the capacity to produce non-capitalist subjectivities, imagine post-capitalist futures, and cultivate a renewed, socially-focused understanding of creativity.

Some of Travis' research:

http://www.torontolongwinter.com/diyspace

https://www.schoolofcities.utoronto.ca/2022-2023-urban-graduate-student-fellowship

Travis mentions this space in the later part of the podcast. https://www.deschoolamsterdam.nl/

How, do we build cities, plan cities, and study cities and how can we do that equitably?

On the Flux in the City podcast, Wesley Reibeling and Nathaniel Hanula-James create space to explore themes of equitable cities and participatory art practices in urban environments.

We invited leaders, city planners, artists, movers, shakers and everyone in between about their own experiences in cities, and have frank conversations about creating better futures for all. 

Our first Guest is Zahra Ebrahim. Zahra is a public interest designer, civic entrepreneur, and leader. She is the co-founder and CEO of Monumental, a partnership with Kofi Hope focused on creating fair and just cities and institutions, in support of an equitable recovery from COVID-19. Her professional practice has been focused on shifting power to people who are typically underrepresented in institutions and systems and has done so by designing deep, community-led approaches to policy, infrastructure, and service design. She is an Executive Advisor to Deloitte on human-centred approaches to public sector innovation and a senior advisor to political and public interest initiatives across the country. Prior to this role, she built and led Doblin Canada (Deloitte’s Human-Centred Design practice), focusing on engaging diverse sets of stakeholders to use human-centred design to address complex organizational and industry challenges, largely focused on public sector and civic innovation. Prior to Doblin, Zahra led one of Canada’s first social design studios, archiTEXT, working with communities to co-design towards better social outcomes and leading some of Canada’s most ambitious participatory infrastructure and policy programs. 

Zahra has taught at OCADU, MoMA, and currently teaches at the University of Toronto Scarborough. She has served on the boards of Jane’s Walk, St. Stephen’s Community House, Toronto Biennial, and Canadian Urban Institute, and is the current Chair of the Board for Park People. She serves as an advisor for a range of organizations including Toronto Public Library, Progress Toronto, and Code for Canada. She was recently named Next City’s Vanguard “40 under 40 Civic Leader”, Ascend Canada’s Mentor of the Year, one of “Tomorrow’s Titans” in Toronto Life, and one of WXN’s Top 100 Women in Canadian Business.

These are links to resources, and websites mentioned in today's episode.

• DesignTo Zahra video link: Accountable Space in Design - DesignTO
• Monumental link: Monumental
• Making Space website: Making Space - People Design Co-operative
• Arnstein's Ladder of Citizen Participation
• Antionette Carroll
• Janeswalktoronto.org