Updated on 20 September 2026
Big Cities Past and Present
Livability and the Energy Transition in Ontario and Beyond
This website began as documentation of research on large urban agglomerations in North America, of which Mississauga and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) are a part. That research became the book Mississauga: Building a Livable City, which traces the history of cities in Canada, explains why Mississauga emerged as one of the country's large cities, and weighs the pros and cons of big cities in North America. About a decade after its publication, other issues moved to the foreground. A looming energy shortage, together with a rapidly deteriorating environment, called for urgent attention.
The research was carried out at a time of general optimism about Canada and its big cities. The GTA grew rapidly into one of the largest urban agglomerations on the continent, behind only Mexico City, New York and Los Angeles. Most new immigrants settled in large cities, drawn by jobs, education and health care, and by the chance to pursue their interests in a multicultural setting. For several years, Toronto ranked among the best cities in the world to live in.
From optimism to uncertainty
Two developments have since clouded that outlook. The first was the pandemic, which prompted a broad rethinking of what makes urban life livable, from low-density neighborhoods and public transit to green space, remote work, and the resilience of local services under strain. Canada fared better than the US, with roughly half the deaths per capita, but imposing necessary health measures and supporting people who lost jobs or businesses proved difficult and costly.
The second was the return of Donald Trump to the White House in 2025. His policies, including punitive tariffs with unpredictable economic consequences, have challenged Canada's sovereignty and left its economic future uncertain.
As of 2026, Toronto residents face the downsides of rapid urban growth: congestion, long commutes, soaring housing costs and strained health care institutions. Living costs are inflated by rising energy prices, after supplies of Gulf oil were disrupted by the US war with Iran. Toronto no longer ranks among the ten best cities in the world to live in.
Uncertainty is compounded by the prolonged war in Ukraine and by China's expansion, which is eroding US technological and military supremacy. These tensions heighten concern about the energy resources that underpin economic development.
The energy question
Growing urban centers demand ever more energy, even as the broader trend moves away from fossil fuels to ease the environmental stress of pollution and climate change. New nuclear plants remain very expensive and slow to build, and newer technologies such as small modular reactors (SMRs), though promising, are largely unproven at commercial scale. Renewable energy, by contrast, has fallen sharply in cost and is now cheaper to build and operate than nuclear power. New renewable projects are proliferating worldwide, particularly in Europe and China, both of which are increasingly charting their own course apart from current US energy policy.
Ontario continues to treat nuclear power as its preferred path, even as other Canadian provinces significantly expand wind and solar capacity. At the same time, entirely new approaches to nuclear power are emerging, including floating or transportable SMRs intended to be built in factories and deployed wherever they are needed most.
This website tracks these developments as they unfold, across both nuclear and renewable energy, in Ontario and around the world. The earlier research is presented on the page The Book, with continuing updates on other pages. The book is available from Amazon in print and Kindle editions.
The Pages:
The Web Pages return to a few recurring themes: livability, the knowledge-based economy, automation and job prospects, the concentration of capital and wealth, the high cost of energy for big cities, the CANDU reactors at Bruce Power, and the emerging competition from renewables. The most recent research comes first, followed by the earlier work.
Nuclear Energy Revisited. The prospect of supplying new energy from new nuclear plants, possibly SMRs, is weighed against new electricity from renewables, mainly solar and wind farms. The evidence shows that energy from new nuclear plants would be much more expensive than energy from new renewables, which have undergone a technological revolution, while new nuclear technologies remain at the development stage. The page also describes Quebec's recent problems with nuclear power.
The explosive growth of renewables worldwide contrasts with the slow pace of plans for new nuclear plants.
The Bruce CANDU Plants. An account of a 2024 visit to the CANDU-powered Bruce nuclear plants, regarded as the largest in the world by number of operating reactors.
Nuclear Setbacks and the Renewables Surge. Quebec's early problems with nuclear power, set alongside nuclear accidents worldwide. The page also notes that 2023 was a record year for renewables.
The Lost Decade. The disruptive power of the COVID pandemic and its economic and human toll, supply chain disruption, employment uncertainty in the face of AI, and the challenge the US now poses to Canada.
The Year of the Pandemic. The emergence of COVID vaccines and the pandemic's effect on the social order. Public health regulations met resistance from various groups in many countries. In the US, they coincided with Donald Trump's electoral loss and his claims of fraud, as extremist groups coalesced and stormed the US Capitol.
Covid-19. The early stages of the pandemic in Canada.
The Book Mississauga: Building a Livable City. The history of cities in Canada, the reasons for Mississauga's emergence as one of the large cities, and the pros and cons of big cities in North America. Includes the knowledge-based economy.
Introduction to the Book. The main ideas of Mississauga: Building a Livable City.
Concentration of Wealth. Rising inequality resulting from accelerated capital concentration, the jobs most affected by automation, and the roadblocks to a post-carbon economy.
Slides. The book as a slideshow.
Photos. Snapshots of Mississauga's evolution into a large modern city. The Credit River marks the area where Indigenous peoples met the first French fur traders, which gave rise to the first settlements that eventually became the City of Mississauga.