Back to the Future: Lessons in Municipal Finance from Toronto’s “Golden Age”

Toronto is known for having been a prosperous and successful city in the decades after the Second World War, a period that has come to be seen as something of a Golden Age for the city. This fall, as City Council debates the future of Toronto’s long term financial direction, what lessons can we learn from the past? On November 23, historian Richard White presented findings from his recent IMFG study on municipal finances in the Golden Age, with observations about the history of Toronto’s revenues and expenditures, public debt, regional governance, intergovernmental finances, and more.

SPEAKER

Richard White is a Toronto historian, long-time lecturer in Canadian history at University of Toronto Mississauga, and former Research Director of the Neptis Foundation. He is the author of many reports and books. Most recently, he published a comprehensive history of Toronto’s post-war planning, Planning Toronto: The Planners, The Plans, Their Legacies, 1940-80 (UBC Press).