Since 2010 Toronto's headlines have been consumed by the outrageous personal foibles and government-slashing, anti-urbanist policies of Mayor Rob Ford. But the heated debate at City Hall has obscured a bigger, decade-long narrative of Toronto's ascending as a mature global city. It raises questions: What role does a mayor play in a city's temperament and self-confidence? Can a terrible mayor make a city better by forcing its citizens to engage? What place is there in our new decentralized, global, open-source world for an autocrat?
Edward Keenan
serves as senior editor and lead columnist at
The Grid
magazine in Toronto, Ontario. An eight-time finalist at the National Magazine Awards, he has written for and edited at
Eye Weekly
,
Spacing
magazine, and
The Walrus
.