logo
episode-header-image
May 2024
27m 3s

The city-changing magic of wandering aro...

TORONTO STAR
About this episode

Guest: Shawn Micallef, contributing columnist and author of “Stroll: Pyschogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto”

In 2010, journalist Shawn Micallef first published his book of observations, suggestions and civic history gleaned from years of wandering around the city and paying close attention to what he saw. In the 14-years since, as Micallef became a freelance columnist for The Star, the book has been a perennial local favourite, running through several press runs. This week, a new, updated edition launches, for which he re-walked all of the terrain and revised to note how the city has changed in small and large ways. From the ravines to and entirely new neighbourhood, he talks about what one can learn about a city, and how you can grow to both love it and demand change from it, just by strolling around.

What would you like to hear on Toronto Star podcasts? Let us know in this survey and you can enter to win a $100 gift card.

Up next
Oct 7
Inside Canada's biggest dark web drug bust
Guest: Omar Mosleh, Toronto Star reporter The RCMP says it has dismantled one of the largest dark web drug networks in Canadian history, a GTA-based group called RoadRunna that was allegedly shipping about 400 packages of drugs a week across Canada, including through Canada Post. ... Show More
20m 24s
Oct 3
We look at the Jays ALDS matchup against the New York Yankees, plus we discuss the Blue Jays season with a special superfan and we open up the mailbag
In honour of the Blue Jays playoff run starting tomorrow, we’re sharing an episode from our sister podcast Deep Left Field. Guest: RUSH frontman and Blue Jays fanatic Geddy Lee The Blue Jays are on the eve of their American League division series against the New York Yankees, whi ... Show More
20m 9s
Sep 30
Truth and Reconciliation and the reality of Indigenous homelessness
Guest: Steve Teekens, Executive Director, Na-Me-Res, a Toronto-based Indigenous-run non-profit that provides temporary, transitional and permanent housing Indigenous people make up less than one per cent of Toronto’s population, but about 15 percent of the city’s homeless. Nation ... Show More
27m 33s
Recommended Episodes
Nov 2016
Introducing “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know”
Stephen J. Dubner of “Freakonomics Radio” has always had a mission: to tell you the things you thought you knew but didn’t; and things you never thought you wanted to know, but do. Now he has a new way of doing just that: “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know,” a live game show that’s ... Show More
3m 28s
Jun 2023
David A. Banks, "The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America" (U California Press, 2023)
The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America (U California Press, 2023) is the first book to explore how our cities gentrify by becoming social media influencers—and why it works.Cities, like the people that live in them, are subject to the attention economy ... Show More
51m 8s
Dec 2024
Edinburgh
How was Edinburgh transformed from an ancient defensive site on top of a volcanic crag into a major centre of power, faith, commerce, and learning? In this second of our two festive bonus episodes, travel writer and history buff Paul Bloomfield is joined by historian Rosemary Gor ... Show More
41m 47s
Mar 2024
Arteries of tomorrow
The A13 runs from the City of London past Tilbury Docks and the site of the Dagenham Ford factory to Benfleet and the Wat Tyler Country Park. As he travels along it, talking to residents about their ideas of community and change, New Generation Thinker Dan Taylor reflects on the ... Show More
14m 14s
Dec 2018
Seamus O’Hanlon, "City Life: The New Urban Australia" (NewSouth Publishing, 2018)
In his new book, City Life: The New Urban Australia (NewSouth Publishing, 2018), Seamus O’Hanlon, an Associate Professor at Monash University, explores the economic, social, cultural, and demographic changes in Australian cities over the last four decades. Globalization, de-indus ... Show More
17m 30s
Oct 2024
The Other Ancient Civilisations: Interview with Raven Todd DaSilva
When we think of the ancient world, we tend to think of just a few societies: Egypt, Mesopotamia, and so on. But the more distant reaches of the past contained multitudes, and Raven Todd DaSilva has written a new book - The Other Ancient Civilisations - about some of them. I chat ... Show More
44m 14s
Jul 2022
What Makes a City Great? Featuring: Top of Mind
Constant Wonder is giving listeners a sneak peak of another BYUradio show, Top of Mind. Millions of Americans move each year in search of a better house, neighborhood, job, or quality of life. Is leaving the only way to live some place better? What would it take for an imperfect ... Show More
53m 47s
Oct 2024
A One Man (Abridged) History of the Big Apple
On this episode of Our American Stories, if you’re curious enough, the familiar can become fascinating. Bill Bryk briefly recounts how New York City became the city it is today, as well as his love for its past. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)See omny ... Show More
9m 59s
Apr 2024
Interview with John Daniel Davidson: Silence, Pagan!
In his new book, Pagan America, Federalist Senior Editor John Daniel Davidson argues that America is not only becoming, but functionally already is, a pagan society. We talk about what that means, why it's happened, and what can be done about it. It's a fascinating discussion tou ... Show More
34m 13s
Dec 2024
The Year in Wisdom
To end the year, Melissa Kirsch, The New York Times’s deputy editor of Culture and Lifestyle, talks with Times reporters, editors and columnists whose jobs involve thinking about how we live, and how we might live better.First, she speaks with Philip Galanes, who writes the Socia ... Show More
34m 6s