Women, Walking

Zahra Ebrahim is an urbanist, educator, and strategist. Her award-winning work focuses on building bridges between institutions and their public, working with communities to co-design towards better social outcomes and leading some of Canada’s most ambitious participatory infrastructure and policy programs. She currently co-leads Monumental, a national organization focused on projects that advance fair, just, and culturally responsive citybuilding, with previous experience leading organizations across multiple sectors. She is an Adjunct Professor at the Daniels School of Architecture and Urbanist-in-Residence at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities. She is the co-editor of Messy Cities, published by Coach House Books in 2025. She lives in Toronto with her partner, and their whippet, Zada.Jane Farrow is a writer, broadcaster and dynamic interviewer, and facilitator who has immersed herself in community and urban affairs. She has years of experience editing and researching reports, articles, and books, including Any Other Way, a queer history anthology of Toronto (Coach House Books, 2017), The Book of Lists (Knopf Canada, 2017 & 2005), and Wanted Words 1 and 2 (Stoddart). Her ten years at CBC radio included producing and hosting for current affairs programs such as This Morning, And Sometimes Y, and Workology. Jane was the founding executive director of Jane’s Walk, a global initiative involving free, locally led walking tours inspired by urbanist Jane Jacobs’ ideas about connected, livable neighbourhoods.

Praise for Messy Cities:One of Bloomberg Cities Network’s ‘Summer Reads for Urban Innovators’One of Canadian Architect’s ‘Best books for Canadian architects: 2025’‘Cities will always grapple with disorder and the best ways to manage it. But one core message embedded in this collection of 43 essays is that it can be helpful for residents and local leaders alike to consider when that “mess,” whether a glut of street vendors or a complicated traffic intersection, is actually an asset.’ – Bloomberg Cities Network, ‘5 Summer Reads for Urban Innovators’‘This book ... focuses mostly on personal, organic, on-the-ground descriptions of the ways neighbourhoods work in Toronto: How one created a “gorgeous landlocked oasis” out of a vacant lot at the start of the COVID‐19 pandemic. The veggie grannies of West Chinatown. The banquet halls, primarily serving the South Asian community but not exclusively, that have become important cultural conduits even though they’re usually bland buildings in the middle of suburban industrial areas.’ – Frances Bula, Literary Review of Canada‘Messy Cities doubles as a love letter to Toronto’s growing immigrant neighborhoods, and an archive of the everyday strategies by which communities make an often hostile city work for them.’ – Sabina Sethi Unni, Places Journal‘[S]tudents of urbanism looking for an alternative to the straight and narrow path will find much to consider.’ – Publishers Weekly‘This anthology of (mostly) brief essays celebrates what’s now known as “messy urbanism” – the serendipitous, unplanned ways people shape urban environments, from graffiti to street vending. Appropriately polyphonic, its diverse contributors include urban planners, artists, physicians and geographers.’ – Emily Donaldson, The Globe and Mail‘With examples from Toronto and around the world (Mexico City, Cape Town, Los Angeles, Tokyo and points beyond), it’s a book that takes an intentionally scattered – one could say messy – approach to considering the value and the complications of spontaneous and unplanned city building.’ – Edward Keenan, The Toronto StarPraise for Any Other Way: How Toronto Got Queer:‘The one hundred and four pieces in the book show a remarkable level of diversity on all accounts, and deserve particular praise for the focus on queer and trans of colour histories so often buried or obscured by white queer historians.’ – Morgan M. Page, Lambda Literary Review