The Real World of City Politics

First published in 1970, this book documents a kind of city government then all too common in Canada: a closed circle of politicians and bureaucrats closely linked to friends in the land development business and hostile to ordinary city residents.

The book describes six issues that pitted citizens against the civic government in Toronto in 1969. These are classic examples of situations repeated in every other Canadian cityan unnecessary expropriation of land, for example, resisted by the people being forced out of their homes.

The accounts given here, originally published in The Globe and Mail, offer a lively portrait of development in Canada's largest city at a crucial period in its history.