As Canada’s demand for housing and infrastructure continues to grow, contemporary approaches to construction and demolition pose major social, cultural, and environmental challenges. The prevailing approach to redeveloping a site is one of re-establishing a tabula rasa—indiscriminately tearing down old structures to make way for new ones. This practice has led to a general disregard for the cultural and material value of existing buildings and colossal wastefulness in terms of resource consumption and associated carbon emissions and ecological impacts. Proposed redevelopments at key sites like the Ontario Science Centre and Ontario Place have sparked debate over public space, heritage, and privatisation, where political expediency and real estate economics seem to outweigh all other notions of value.

The demolition of landmarks and culturally significant buildings represents only the most visible and widely spoken examples of a demolition practice that seems endemic in a city like Toronto. A study of the City’s demolition permit data reveals that over 60% of permits issued are for single-family homes in unassuming post-war neighbourhoods, like York, North York, Don Mills, and Etobicoke. The ‘Yellowbelt’ is quietly undergoing a rapid transformation—where modest post-war homes are typically replaced by ever-larger single family residences, with only a few multi-unit developments adding density.