The impact of building controls on residential development in Toronto, 1900–40

The extent of building regulation in North American cities, and its impact on residential development, are poorly understood. By the early 1900s affluent suburbs, and most cities, were regulated in some way; extensive poorer suburbs and unincorporated areas were not. Toronto is a case in point. Over the period 1900–40 construction was quite strictly controlled in the city and one affluent suburb, but scarcely at all elsewhere. In these years lower‐income families settled in large numbers in the unregulated suburbs where many built their own modest homes. A comparison of the two halves of a district which straddled the city boundary shows that municipal controls, not relative location, was the critical factor behind this trend. As reformers argued, weak regulation created problems, but it is not clear that the likely alternatives were preferable.