Matt Hern argues that the changing relationship between the urban center and the suburban periphery forces us to rethink the entire identity of the city itself. Today, most of the Western world lives on the city outskirts. Yet these neighborhoods that once offered security and respite from the perceived dangers of the city center have been radically transformed in the last few decades to poor, working-class and racialized communities. Outside the Outside maps these changes and arg...

An investigation into gentrification and displacement, focusing on the case of Portland, Oregon's systematic dispersal of black residents from its Albina neighborhood.Portland, Oregon, is one of the most beautiful, livable cities in the United States. It has walkable neighborhoods, bike lanes, low-density housing, public transportation, and significant green space—not to mention craft-beer bars and locavore food trucks. But liberal Portland is also the whitest city...

If we want to preserve what's still left of the natural world, we need to stop using so much of it. And, says veteran environmental activist Matt Hern, cities are the best chance we have left for a truly ecological future . . . but what does it take to make a truly sustainable city?Common Ground in a Liquid City is a fun and engaging look at the future of urban life. Hern takes us on a journey through over a dozen urban centers, from Vancouver to Istanbul, Las Veg...

All countries have distinctive urban regions, but Canadian cities especially differ from one another in culture, structure, and history. Anthony Perl, Matt Hern, and Jeffrey Kenworthy reveal that despite the peculiarities and singular traits that each city embodies, a common logic has guided the development of transportation infrastructure across the country.Big Moves analyzes how Canada's three largest urban regions - Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver - have been shaped by...

Exclusive online content, photos, and more, available here Parks are importantly fertile places to talk about land. Whether its big national parks, provincial campgrounds, isolated conservation areas, destination parks, or humble urban patches of grass, we tend to speak of parks as unqualified goods. People think of parks as public or common land, and it is a common belief that parks are the best u...

A guide for parents and guardians: Moving beyond the intellectual tendency to either ignore children or see them merely as students, Trust Kids! gives parents and families a guide on how we can cultivate authentic relationships in households by teaching and learning the importance of autonomy in all aspects of developing lives.Confronting our own households: Presents a radical and thought-provoking conversation on people’s relation...

As winter's first snow falls, there's not much Christmas cheer in Sherwood Forest. Cupboards are bare, the nights are cold, and the cruel Sheriff of Nottingham squeezes his citizens for every penny they're worth.But deep in the forest, in the heart of the Major Oak, Robin and Marian are plotting an audacious scheme to bring some festive joy to all…This charming retelling of the Robin Hood legend by Chris Bush, with music by Matt Winkworth, was first performed at Rose Theatr...

It ain't easy being a kid these days. For the first time in generations, today's teens have worse prospects ahead of them than their parents did, and the pressure to toe the line and be a success is heavier than ever . . . and so is the temptation to just give up. But there are things in the world worth fighting for!This scrapbook-style collection of essays, excerpts, explanations, and images pushes back against a culture that relentlessly demands that kids give up their best ideal...

A shocking crime divides the nation. Fingers are pointed, sides are drawn, facts are hard to come by. Why did this happen? How do we move on? What must we remember?It's easy to have an opinion online, safe behind the anonymity of a keyboard, just like, share and subscribe. But as the digital mob polish their pitchforks, the world starts to question just how free should free speech be?A smart, satirical musical by Chris Bush and Matt Winkworth about truth, celebrity and publ...

Equal parts hilarious and heart-breaking, Matt Anderson's Shotgunned is a relatable and intimate piece of theatre about how the people we lose can shape who we become.Telling the story of Dylan and Roz – a couple who unexpectedly fall out of love – Shotgunned takes the audience on a non-linear journey through their relationship in a collection of fragmented scenes, like photographs in a shoebox or memories of a bygone age.Shotgunned is a poignant ...

Matt Hartley's moving, funny and charming play, Here I Belong, takes you through decades of history seen through the eyes of one village resident.It's Elsie's ninetieth birthday. Come and join us in the village hall to celebrate. There will be cake.Elsie has lived in the village for sixty years. She has seen elections, weddings, wars, people coming, people going. The village is where her daughter grew up, it's where her husband died and it's where she's going to st...

An incisive, unflinching insight into what makes a community tolerate the unthinkable.'One girl, against the happiness of the whole village. Can you not see it has to be done?'Midsummer. The village must choose a new Daughter to sail with the fishing boats and bless the waters, keeping them safe from the roaming orcas for another year.Fan hopes with all her heart to be the one they choose. But her older sister Maggie says she must never, never, go with the ...