ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the criticisms, and the efforts to renew or improve Regent Park between 1960 and 2000. To those who planned Regent Park in the 1940s, it was clear that substandard housing was closely associated with poverty. When the issue of demolition was put to public discussion, in the context of broader redevelopment of the entire Regent Park site, residents of the tower were adamant in opposing renovation and rejecting the possibility of moving back. In much press reportage, and in the minds of many Torontonians, Regent Park has been associated with high rates of crime since the 1960s. Peter Dickinson's design for the towers of Regent Park South was praised by architects for its modernist innovation. Christopher Hume, architectural critic for the rival Toronto Star, took an opposing position, describing the Dickinson building as a monument to failure: 14 Blevins is the sort of nondescript slab one sees throughout the city and countless others.
