Making Public Markets visible!
1st Toronto Interactive Public Market Map

The International Market Cities Program began working with the Toronto Food Policy Council and Marina Queirolo, lead for the public market initiative, along with the two other pilot project cities: Pittsburgh, PA and Seattle, WA, in March 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. 

In light of the pandemic, the Toronto partners' top priority was advocating for farmers' markets and fresh food markets to be declared essential services by the City. 

During that time, thanks to the support of the University of Toronto Scarborough Feeding City Lab, we were able to collect baseline data on the public market system through meetings and interviews with key players in local food policy; surveying of markets; and mapping the public markets along with other data layers including wards, the subway system, population density, walking distance to markets, priority neighbourhood and business improvement areas, and grocery stores to identify gaps and opportunities for public markets. This 2019 data formed the basis for the first International report and public market interactive map,

 

https://aws-website-ppsimages-na05y.s3.amazonaws.com/qgis2web_2020_10_16-13_16_22_409542/index.html#11/43.7184/-79.3299

We work with Toronto’s intrepid market managers, vendors, city staff and policy-makers to activate the power of markets.

Get in touch ->

Marina Queirolo
Public markets & food systems specialist
mqueirolo@marketcityto.org

Project For Public Spaces' Market Cities Network is a global forum for markets of all kinds and the people committed to their success. We’re honored to join as a Founding Member, a role where we can connect and advance leaders in the public markets field.

Supporting partnership from the Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance and Hypenotic.

International partners with Project For Public Spaces.

Project partners with City of Toronto, St. Lawrence Market, Greenbelt Markets, Scarborough Farmers Market, and Canadian Farmers Market.

We respectfully acknowledge that the work stewarded by Market City TO takes place on many Indigenous nations' traditional territories.

Tkarón:to has been cared for by the Anishinabeg Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Huron-Wendat, and its current treaty holders, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Now home to many First Nation, Inuit, and Métis communities, this territory is subject to the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement to share and care for the land and resources in the Great Lakes region peacefully. The dish with one spoon reminds people we only have one dish, one mother earth we can take from. Therefore, we should take only what we need, leave something for others, and keep the dish clean. It also demonstrates our collective responsibility to share equally. This area had been a gathering place for Indigenous peoples for centuries before colonization; they hosted the original markets.

The relationship between food, culture, land, and communities informs our work on Toronto public markets. As we work towards collectively reimagining Toronto as a market city and mobilize the partnerships to make it happen, we prioritize finding ways to support Indigenous food sovereignty in their territory. We respectfully acknowledge that the work steward by Market City TO is on traditional territory of many Indigenous Nations.