On April 20th, 2022, the City Institute held its Annual General Meeting (AGM). The City Director, Prof. Linda Peake, reported to the Council of Affiliates on the successful fundraising activities in which the City Institute had engaged to support the new annual Graduate Professional Training Program, which includes the City Institute Fortnight Fridays (CIFF) in which faculty members present on a topic of professional training and also meet with post-doctoral fellows who engage with students on writing projects. These sessions attracted an average of 18 students. The training program also included a one-day student conference, with a keynote speaker and urban essay awards.
The City Institute held its inaugural Graduate Student Conference on April 20th, 2022, with over 40 attendees. The Conference was led by Farida Abdelmeguied and Emily Lim, student representatives at the Executive Committee. Fourteen students presented their research at the conference and had the opportunity to discuss and receive feedback from other students, urban researchers and professors.
Prof. Nidhi Subramanyam, Assistant Professor of the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto, presented the keynote lecture: The politics of water access and planning implications in the hybrid waterscape of a small Indian city.
Urban essay prizes were also presented to four graduate students and five upper-level undergraduate students.
- Figuring Dissonant Desire: Toward Anarcha-Queer Citizenship, by graduate student Wiley Sharp. Class: Space, Power and the City.
- Unsettling the settler city: Indigenous resurgence and reclamation in Canadian cities, by graduate student Taliya Seidman-Wright. Class: Space, Power and the City.
- Accumulation by Dispossession: Settler-colonialism and David Harvey’s theories of the urban process under capitalism, by graduate student Yutaka Dirks. Class: Critical Urban Theories: Epistemologies and Politics.
- The Right to the City in Brazil: Towards a Transformatory Understanding, by graduate student Sean Isaacs. Class: Critical Urban Theories: Epistemologies and Politics.
- The Lack of Feminist Perspectives in Urban Planning, by undergraduate student Enisia Johnson. Class: Seminar in Urban Theory.
- Community Engagement and Citizen Participation in the Eglington Crosstown LRT Project, by undergraduate student Cheryl Forest. Class: Seminar in Urban Theory.
- The Production of Mobilizing Urban Queer Space, by undergraduate student Michael Ricci. Class: Seminar in Urban Theory.
- - Global Cities and Informality, by undergraduate student Amy Giang. Class: Global Cities.
- - Three-Pointer from ‘Flemo’: Evaluation of Neoliberal Planning Through Sports Urbanism in a Low-Income Toronto Neighbourhood, by undergraduate student Elijah Leotaud. Class: Urban Studies Seminar.
The AGM also reported on the City Institute Seminar Series, book launches, activities by the Federation of Urban Studies Students (FUSS), and the Toronto Urban Journal (TUJ), also run by members of FUSS.
In addition to our website, the City Institute has expanded its knowledge dissemination platforms to include Twitter, and a YouTube channel. provide links
Our new co-ordinator, Dr. Carmen Ponce was also introduced and change to the Executive Committee was discussed. The Council of Affiliates voted on changes to the City Institute’s governance document (the updated document is available here).