Building Toronto's Skyline with Nick Ainis
Aug 21, 2026 · 53 min · 18 segments
On this episode of Building Toronto's Skyline, Nick Ainis chats with former Toronto city councillor Karen Stintz about how we can fix Toronto.
Karen StintzGuestMikeHost
Nick IanniniHost
I'm old enough to remember the whole discussion about amalgamation and whether we should take our five cities and become a mega city.
And I remember at the time thinking that that was an exciting idea that would really help Toronto become more than the sum of its parts, that it would put us in a place where we could be the economic center, which we were, but it was kind of by accident.
Right.
And there was a book that was written about Toronto before amalgamation that was called The Accidental City by Robert Falford.
Right.
We could intentionally be a place where businesses wanted to come, head offices wanted to locate a cultural center, an economic center, a culture educational center, because we had these incredible universities and academic centers.
We had the health network and health academic expertise linked with our hospital network.
We had all of the inputs that we needed to become this incredible, diverse, ambitious city.
And part of it was structural, I think, because the way City Hall was structured.
But when I look back at the mayors, you know, I think about the impact they had.
You know, I think David Miller, I didn't share his politics, but, you know, he had a vision for transit and advocated for a transit network.
And Rob Ford, he advocated for a city that listened because there was a sense that City Hall had lost touch.
And he advocated for the taxpayer and for those that, you know, who were supporting and investing in the city.
I'm old enough to remember the whole discussion about amalgamation and whether we should take our five cities and become a mega city.
And I remember at the time thinking that that was an exciting idea that would really help Toronto become more than the sum of its parts, that it would put us in a place where we could be the economic center, which we were, but it was kind of by accident.
Right.
And there was a book that was written about Toronto before amalgamation that was called The Accidental City by Robert Falford.
Right.
We could intentionally be a place where businesses wanted to come, head offices wanted to locate a cultural center, an economic center, a culture educational center, because we had these incredible universities and academic centers.
We had the health network and health academic expertise linked with our hospital network.
We had all of the inputs that we needed to become this incredible, diverse, ambitious city.
And part of it was structural, I think, because the way City Hall was structured.
But when I look back at the mayors, you know, I think about the impact they had.
You know, I think David Miller, I didn't share his politics, but, you know, he had a vision for transit and advocated for a transit network.
And Rob Ford, he advocated for a city that listened because there was a sense that City Hall had lost touch.
And he advocated for the taxpayer and for those that, you know, who were supporting and investing in the city.
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