Toronto Star

At the moment of its triumph, suburbia is starting to show signs of collapse. Having remade the face of North America, the tide now seems to be turning against the 'burbs. The downfall won't be quick, but already the unthinkable is starting to happen. As Christopher Leinberger argues in an article in the current Atlantic, "a structural change is underway in the housing market." The author and urban planner insists that the troubles go well beyond the U.S. subprime crisis, that in fact they are evidence of a shift that will fundamentally alter the social and economic map of the continent. In short, Leinberger charts the return to the city that began late in the last century and has been picking up speed ever since. Toronto is a good example; just look at the condo boom, now in its third decade, and the rising price of housing in neighbourhoods that until the 1970s, '80s and '90s, were assiduously avoided by the middle class, areas such as Cabbagetown, Riverdale and now Parkdale. Canada has not experienced a subprime catastrophe, so perhaps we are an even better example of the city's new popularity. There are objective reasons – escalating cost of gasoline, heating oil and natural gas – but there's more.