Regent

Abstract: This paper addresses the planning and re‐planning of Regent Park, Canada’s first large‐scale public housing development Located just outside the commercial and tourist core of Toronto, Regent Park was planned and built in the 1940s and 1950s through a ‘slum clearance’ initiative aimed at safeguarding the morality of its residents Though it was widely celebrated at first, the project – like many similar developments across North America – was soon deemed a complete failure, and its image as a dilapidated and criminogenic anachronism has intensified over the past six decades In 2002, the City of Toronto established a ‘participatory planning’ process to elicit the input of Regent Park residents in a plan to radically transform the neighbourhood – the result is a five‐step ‘revitalisation’ effort through which Regent Park is being bulldozed and replaced with a mixed‐use, mixed income community of public housing, market housing, retail space and amenities The revitalisation plan is touted as a just, democr