The average listing for a one-bedroom is $2,500, people are leaving the city, and the housing situation in Toronto has never been more dire. With stories about delays at the landlord and tenant board, housing discrimination, the city’s worst landlords, and possible solutions, the Rent Series is our ongoing look at the barriers preventing the almost 50 percent of Torontonians who are renters from making a life here.
In this city’s quietest hour, the people who are awake are awake for a reason. From international student security guards to crisis line volunteers, from DJs building fun in an unfun city to palliative care doctors making house calls—stories of the people who are up while the rest of the city sleeps.
Ongoing coverage of Toronto’s 2022 municipal election. In-depth features on the issues at stake, hyper-local coverage of competitive ward races across the city, and a Candidate Tracker tool to keep you informed this fall.
From heat inequality to invasive species, from an urban bird sanctuary to a brand new Toronto island—stories about vulnerability and adaptation in Canada’s biggest city, a collaboration between The Local and The Narwhal.
This is the sixth wave of the pandemic but the first wave of the “living with it” era. How does a city recover when COVID is no longer the single dominant force in our lives, but still very much present? From beleaguered theatre artists to shopkeepers in a Malvern mall, from the TTC to the health care system—stories about individuals and institutions groping their way towards a new kind of equilibrium.
From overworked ECEs to anxious alternative school parents, from teenagers mourning their lost high-school years to elementary school students still learning from cramped apartments—an ongoing series about Toronto kids, the people who teach them, and the state of the education system two years into a global pandemic.
In 2021, the gap between our dated vision of what it means to “have a job” and the patchwork reality of how people earn their living has never been wider. From nurses doing gig work to mothers on EI working under the table, from college instructors to sex workers to nail salon technicians—a series about the way we work today, and how to turn precarious labour into decent work.
With an all-Indigenous roster of writers, photographers and artists, this issue’s stories are presented through the lens of the largest Indigenous population in Ontario. It celebrates art, identity and resilience while looking, sometimes somberly, at the past.
Comprehensive coverage of the largest vaccination campaign in history. In-depth storytelling, maps and analysis, and perspectives from corners of the city too often overlooked.
It’s been 12 months since COVID-19 took over our city. The stories in this issue, published throughout the week, aren’t meant to be some grand summing up of the pandemic year that was because, in truth, it's much too soon for a retrospective. They’re snippets of lives lived over a year in Toronto unlike any other—stories about the brave, tough, and sometimes strange ways people have endured.
The suffering during this pandemic didn’t begin with COVID-19 in March—Toronto's vulnerabilities have been showing for decades. This issue tells the story of how we got here. As the city goes into a second lockdown, with a vaccine somewhere on the horizon, it also provides vital context moving forward. We need to know where the cracks are before we can rebuild.
In the first days of the pandemic, an eerie hush fell over Toronto. As the familiar background hum returns, it's worth remembering that the sounds of the city are not neutral or inevitable. How noise, and our clumsy attempts to control and police it, shapes city life.