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Updated 11/11/2020
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Society & Culture

Society & Culture

Updated weekly
Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

Updated weekly

06/02/2024

Was the Spadina Expressway a crisis averted or a missed opportunity?

The Spadina Expressway was one of five urban highways that were nearly built in Toronto in the 70s. The plan would have bulldozed neighbourhoods so that suburban commuters had a direct route to drive downtown. But campaigners like Bobbi Speck and Jane Jacobs stopped it, saving iconic neighbourhoods like The Annex. Today, Toronto is one of the worst cities in the world for traffic. Should the expressway have been built anyway? We tell the story of the grassroots movement to stop Spadina with the people who were there firsthand. Does the movement perhaps offer tips on how to solve Toronto’s notoriously bad traffic?

06/02/2024

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42 min
25/03/2025

Canada is slipping in global happiness rankings. Should our policymakers care?

Tips to be happier often read like a self-help menu: make friends, meditate, spend time in nature. But governments are increasingly looking at happiness as a collective goal. There’s even a ‘World Happiness Report’ that ranks well-being across nations. A decade ago Canada ranked fifth in the report, but over the last 10 years has slipped to 18th. Garvia speaks with Felix Cheung, who worked as a researcher on the Canadian and World Happiness report, and is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. They discuss why our collective happiness matters, the decline in youth happiness, and how our society can improve everyone’s well-being.

25/03/2025

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23 min
16/04/2024

Will the cost of hosting the FIFA World Cup pay off for Toronto?

The men’s 2026 FIFA World Cup is coming to Canada. Out of 106 games, Toronto will host just six. The city is facing a bill of $380 million or more for things like security and a stadium expansion. Huge sporting events like this are sold as being good for the hosts, boosting tourism and local business while also leaving a legacy of better transit. So does hosting a successful sporting event mean accelerated city building? What kind of legacy makes hosting worthwhile? We’re asking what Toronto has got itself into, by telling the story of two pivotal Olympic Games hosted in Canada, so that we can see what was good, what was bad and what was a boondoggle.

16/04/2024

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43 min
05/03/2024

Halifax is allowing homeless encampments in its parks. Should other cities do the same?

On August 18, 2021, downtown Halifax made international news when the city erupted in a sprawling protest against the removal of illegal homeless shelters from a park. Compared to other Canadian cities, Halifax’s homeless population has tripled in the last three years. Emergency shelters aren’t doing enough. Building new housing takes time. It takes policy changes — and money. Until that’s in place, is leaving people to camp in parks really the best a city can do? We’re telling the story of park encampments, and how the city’s homelessness problem got so bad.

05/03/2024

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40 min
20/02/2024

Does heritage preservation stand in the way of housing?

The Van Horne Mansion was a classic greystone house in Montreal’s Golden Square Mile. It was the home of Sir William Cornelius Van Horne, the man who built the Canadian Pacific Railway. Despite public outcry, the mansion was demolished in 1973. This lit a fire amongst conservationists, thus initiating the heritage conservation movement in Canada. Today, heritage conservation is an important part of city planning. But what tradeoffs can we afford as the housing crisis in cities across the country gets more dire? We’re telling the story of the Van Horne mansion and its legacy in heritage conservation, asking: Who decides what to preserve, and who are we preserving it for?

20/02/2024

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44 min
SEASON 4 TRAILER

Coming soon: Season 4 of City Space

Who decides what progress means to a city? In the new season of City Space, join host Irene Galea as she delves into the stories of changing cities and how they're holding on to their identities in the face of 21st century problems. Season 4 will tell stories of progress and preservation — and look for common ground in city spaces across Canada.

S4 Trailer

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2 min
23/05/2024

A conversation with Justin Trudeau on Canada’s housing crisis

Earlier this month, the City Space team met Prime Minister Trudeau for a sit-down interview to get his thoughts on the biggest challenges facing our cities: housing affordability, a labour shortage, population growth and the need for densification. Trudeau and the Federal Liberals unveiled a new housing policy in April of this year, a plan that they say will help solve the housing affordability crisis in Canada. As the prime minister says, the plan is certainly ambitious. It marks a significant departure in the federal government’s approach to housing, one that will require them to be much more direct and hands-on. But what took so long? We’re asking why his government has struggled to make a meaningful difference on housing affordability and availability in this country.

23/05/2024

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33 min
15/04/2025

Solving mini city mysteries

This week on City Space, our team attempts to unravel a few puzzling urban enigmas. Can anything be a street name? Does a patch of grass qualify as a park? What does this unique house reveal about the development of the area? Irene and our producers guide you through different neighborhoods as they try to solve the mini-mysteries that define a city - in this case, Toronto. The hows and whys (or why nots) of urban design and city planning.

15/04/2025

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35 min
22/11/2018

Bunz CEO Sascha Mojtahedi: Cryptocurrency, Dating and Having Skin in the Game

What once was a secret Facebook group has now grown into a multi-platform, online-bartering movement. In this episode, the CEO of popular trading platform Bunz talks about the future of bartering and Bunz' new cryptocurrency BTZ.

22/11/2018

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32 min
15/11/2018

Spartan Bioscience’s Paul Lem: DNA Testing, Med School and Marvel Comics

Meet the CEO and founder who wants to revolutionize health care by giving patients access to affordable, on-demand DNA results. In this episode, Paul talks about the secrets hiding in your DNA, his past career as a doctor and his love for comic books.

15/11/2018

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33 min

In-depth audio journalism from Canada's national media organization, from daily analysis of the most important stories of the day, to in-depth commentary and investigative series.