John Lorinc
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johnlorinc.bsky.social
John Lorinc
@johnlorinc.bsky.social
5.9K followers 460 following 330 posts
Toronto journalist & editor. Contributor to Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, Corporate Knights, Walrus, Spacing. Co-editor: Messy Cities (Coach House, 2025). Author: No Jews Live Here, A Memoir. https://chbooks.com/Books/N/No-Jews-Live-Here.
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johnlorinc.bsky.social
John Lorinc @johnlorinc.bsky.social · Nov 2
#booksky New from me, No Jews Live Here, a memoir from @coachhousebooks chbooks.com/Books/N/No-J...
No Jews Live Here
A stolen sign, ‘No Jews Live Here,’ kept John Lorinc’s Hungarian Jewish family alive during the Holocaust.From pre-war Budapest to post-war Toronto, journalist John Lorinc unspools four generations of...
chbooks.com
Reposted by John Lorinc
glynbowerman.bsky.social
It’s an annual tradition over in @spacingradio.bsky.social: we’re talking transit! @graphicmatt.com and Tricia Wood join me to talk about the TTC, backlogs and logjams, the federal budget, and, of course, the Eglinton Crosstown. Check it out: spacing.ca/toronto/2025...
PODCAST: Episode 91, Talking Transit 2025 - Spacing Toronto
This year has been one of major change. But what doesn’t change here is talking about transit. It’s the return of Tricia Wood (York University urban geography professor and Spacing contributor) and Ma...
spacing.ca
December 1, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
oliver-moore.bsky.social
Hot take: bike lanes aren't big enough to take all the things people want to put in them. Either keep them for bikes or make them a lot wider
December 1, 2025 at 7:23 PM
johnlorinc.bsky.social
#cndpoli A useful reminder that Trump has 0 qualms about interfering in other countries’ politics but when we run an ad on US TV, that hypocrite & his enablers react like someone had set off a bomb at the White House (Trump Becomes the Wild Card in Honduras Election.) www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/w...
Trump Becomes the Wild Card in Razor-Thin Honduras Election
www.nytimes.com
December 1, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
coachhousebooks.bsky.social
Messy Cities: Why We Can't Plan Everything (ed. @johnlorinc.bsky.social, @dylanreid.bsky.social, Leslie Woo, and Zahra Ebrahim) on @canadianarchitect.bsky.social's Best Books for Canadian Architects 2025 list!

www.canadianarchitect.com/best-books-f....
www.canadianarchitect.com
December 1, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
coachhousebooks.bsky.social
'Tis the season for a HOLIDAY SALE!

For the first day of our Holiday Sale, all titles (including our newest releases and recent award winners) are 15% off and eligible for free Canadian shipping!

🎁🌟 chbooks.com🌟🎁
A photo of the coach house tinged blue, with the red text: CHB Holiday Sale! From Dec 1-8, shop a new deal every day and enjoy free Caandian shipping on all orders on chbooks.com"
December 1, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
spacing.bsky.social
On the new @spacingradio.bsky.social, it’s our annual Transit Talk! Can faith in the TTC be restored, what’s in the Federal budget for transit, competing transit projects, and lots more: spacing.ca/toronto/2025...
PODCAST: Episode 91, Talking Transit 2025 - Spacing Toronto
This year has been one of major change. But what doesn’t change here is talking about transit. It’s the return of Tricia Wood (York University urban geography professor and Spacing contributor) and Ma...
spacing.ca
December 1, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
mielke.bsky.social
Great cover story in the latest Canada’s History magazine: Mosaic in the Making by @johnlorinc.bsky.social. Thoroughly researched and engaging account of the evolution of Canada’s migration policies over the last century.
November 29, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
coachhousebooks.bsky.social
Christian Bök’s The Xenotext: Book 2 is one of @theobserveruk.bsky.social's books of the year 2025, included in their essential guide to what to give this holiday season!

Discover The Xenotext: Book 2: chbooks.com/Books/T/The-...
‘In this audacious work – arguably the world’s first example of “living poetry” – the poet and Leeds Beckett University professor Christian Bök chronicles the completion of his 25-year experiment, in which he used a “chemical alphabet” to encode a sonnet into the genome of the almost indestructible bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans – which can survive radiation, acid, freezing and even outer space. Miraculously, the microbe “writes” a poem back. Although his text is shadowed with apocalyptic gloom, Bök stokes a romantic idea: that poetry might live in more than just our hearts, perhaps even outliving humanity itself.’
November 28, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
coachhousebooks.bsky.social
Maggie Helwig’s Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community is featured on @theglobeandmail.com's 100 Best Books of 2025!

Learn more about Encampment here: chbooks.com/Books/E/Enca...
‘In 2022, Helwig, a priest at St. Stephen-in-the-Fields Church in Toronto’s Kensington Market, controversially began opening her churchyard to the homeless, where they’ve remained ever since. In this memoir, she profiles occupants of the tent cities that have become fixtures across the country, explaining her natural affinity for this population and the frustratingly practical obstacles they face trying to get off the streets.’
November 28, 2025 at 12:22 PM
johnlorinc.bsky.social
November 27, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
johnlorinc.bsky.social
#topoli #onpoli New from me on @spacing.bsky.social: When did we begin dismissing opioid addiction, especially among homeless encampment residents, as "delinquent" behaviour? Contrary to the claims of pundits like The Globe's Robyn Urback, there's much more to this story. spacing.ca/toronto/2025...
When did we start describing opioid addiction as "delinquent" behaviour? - Spacing Toronto
In a widely read, shared and commented upon column in Saturday’s Globe and Mail, columnist Robyn Urback asked a question that, I’d say, is on a lot of people’s minds these days: how did we “normalize ...
spacing.ca
November 26, 2025 at 8:13 PM
johnlorinc.bsky.social
#topoli #onpoli New from me on @spacing.bsky.social: When did we begin dismissing opioid addiction, especially among homeless encampment residents, as "delinquent" behaviour? Contrary to the claims of pundits like The Globe's Robyn Urback, there's much more to this story. spacing.ca/toronto/2025...
When did we start describing opioid addiction as "delinquent" behaviour? - Spacing Toronto
In a widely read, shared and commented upon column in Saturday’s Globe and Mail, columnist Robyn Urback asked a question that, I’d say, is on a lot of people’s minds these days: how did we “normalize ...
spacing.ca
November 26, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
ehemess.bsky.social
Lol. I was at this very location at 9am this morning and you could already see the pain and resignation on the staffs' faces.
Also amazing that it's not allowed to play traditional Christmas carols during a Christian celebratory season anymore.
November 25, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
heradasha.bsky.social
Ever since I was forced to listen to a cassette tape for months on end while working in a movie theater as a teenager, I have long held the belief that music tyhat employees are forced to listen to is tantamount to torture.

There are multiple songs that to this day trigger rage in me.
November 25, 2025 at 6:28 PM
johnlorinc.bsky.social
#topoli #onpoli Re-upping my yearly scroogish gripe-question: Why aren’t infantalizing Xmas songs on an endless loop in big box retails (Loblaws, looking at you) classified as workplace (mental) health hazards subject to Ontario labour/health&safety standards/penalties? There, I said the thing.
November 25, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
thestar.com
The Ford government owes us straight answers on Exhibition Place

#Opinion from @johnlorinc.bsky.social
John Lorinc: The Ford government owes us straight answers on Exhibition Place
It seems Doug Ford and the Ontario government is planning a reverse takeover of the CNE
www.thestar.com
November 24, 2025 at 10:47 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
thesidewalkballet.bsky.social
Building Blocks. The Rise of the Neighbourhood in Canada 1880s–2020s, R. Harris. Messy Cities: Why We Can’t Plan Everything, edited by @dylanreid.bsky.social, Zahra Ebrahim, Leslie Woo, @johnlorinc.bsky.social

@fabulavancouver.bsky.social @reviewcanada.bsky.social
reviewcanada.ca/magazine/202...
Building Blocks | Literary Review of Canada
Frances Bula reviews “The Rise of the Neighbourhoodin Canada, 1880s–2020s” by Richard Harris and “Messy Cities,” edited by Dylan Reid, et al.
reviewcanada.ca
November 21, 2025 at 12:46 AM
Reposted by John Lorinc
uoftcities.bsky.social
Before our recent screening of The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, Spacing's John Lorinc wrote about the film – a look at the arrival of privately-owned public spaces in NYC in the 1960s & urbanist-author Holly Whyte's work to document how they were used https://ow.ly/lFIR50Xsuh0
November 20, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
alexbozikovic.bsky.social
What a ride. This piece, about AI-powered scamming in journalism, is crucial.
November 20, 2025 at 2:09 PM
johnlorinc.bsky.social
#topoli #cdnpoli US class action lawyers & anti-trust investigators have come after algorithmic pricing firms that help large landlord optimize rents. So why did our competition regulator just drop its probe into their Cnd operations? www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
John Lorinc: Rent pricing algorithms are sparking lawsuits in the U.S. So why are they still allowed in Canada?
That this predatory technology has entered the Canadian market is cause for concern
www.thestar.com
November 20, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
coachhousebooks.bsky.social
Nathan Whitlock speaks to Maggie Helwig about winning the Toronto Book Award, the clearing of the encampment at her church, and her long, ongoing writing career, which includes a new book out from us next spring!

Listen now: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/m...
nathanwhitlock.bsky.social Nathan Whitlock @nathanwhitlock.bsky.social · 15d
Spoiler for tomorrow’s episode.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT is presented by @thewalrus.ca

@coachhousebooks.bsky.social

Find it at all the podcast places.
thewalrus.ca/podcasts/wha...
November 18, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
spacing.bsky.social
How many more highway lanes? On the 20th anniversary of the Greenbelt, the Ford government's highway building plans are turning back the clock. #TOpoli #ONpoli #CDNpoli

spacing.ca/toronto/2025...
How many more highway lanes? - Spacing Toronto
After more than two decades tucked away as an idea simply not worth the cost, Highway 413 is finally kicking into gear as Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government has awarded the first ...
spacing.ca
November 18, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Reposted by John Lorinc
shawnmicallef.bsky.social
Read @johnlorinc.bsky.social on why the store thing is bound to fail because it’s watered down to a Potemkin change in how Toronto operates.
The compromised compromise, moved by Mayor Olivia Chow, passed 23-2. While Gord Perks, the architect of the deal, insisted otherwise, the new bylaw resembles the six-plex deal from the summer, with most parts of the older city opting in and most parts of the inner suburbs opting out. (This is essentially the triumph of urban form over zoning reform.) Even for what we might call the pro-corner-store parts of the city, there are all sorts of conditions in the new bylaw, including some that seem extra super fussy (e.g., "a retail store may include an ancillary eating establishment or takeout eating establishment, provided that the preparation and sale of food and beverages is limited to cold and hot beverages and low-risk or pre-packaged, ready-to-eat food items"). Such businesses are only supposed to be established on so-called "community streets," which is now a new designation in the zoning bylaw. Council also sent off requests to the province to disallow cannabis shops from becoming, well, neighbourhood convenience stores.
November 15, 2025 at 8:07 PM
johnlorinc.bsky.social
#topoli ICYMI on @spacing.bsky.social today: Nostalgia about neighbourhood retail isn’t a strategy for bringing back local commerce. spacing.ca/toronto/2025...
Nostalgia about neighbourhood retail is not a strategy - Spacing Toronto
I have lived for many years less than 30 metres from what was once one of Toronto’s storied corner stores — a green grocer known locally as “Dom’s” — for the owner, Domenico Cozzi. He and his wife Ros...
spacing.ca
November 15, 2025 at 12:21 AM