Spacing Toronto on “Kingwell versus Florida?” That’s Mark Kingwell, my distinguished University of Toronto philosophy colleague and author of among many other things Concrete Reveries. I’ve not met him, but I like what Kingwell has to say and find myself more in broad agreement with the issues he cares about – social justice among them. I’ve long been fascinated by political philosophy. I took a good dose of it as an undergraduate, and I like to think social contract theory, Hegel and Marx and a little bit of critical theory inform my own work, though my last “foray” in the field was a paper I wrote on Habermas at Rutgers in 1979 which won a small undergraduate paper award. We’re lucky to have a philosopher of Kingwell’s stature weighing in on cities and urban issues. Kudos to Spacing Toronto – one of the best urban sites out there, the writing and coverage are first rate; and the comments consistently as good or better than any around the blog-sphere- for providing some nice context on our different approaches and perspectives. I think they got it about right. It’s healthy when a university and a community are home to different points of view, different analytical approaches, and different emphases. For me it represents the flourishing of a distinctive “Toronto school of urbanism” – descending from Jane Jacobs but evolving from the very real material conditions, issues and challenges facing Toronto in the world economy. For someone who worked in isolation for too long, it’s a real privilege to be part of a city where so many people care – and think deeply and carefully – about urban questions.