This land known today as Toronto is the traditional territory of nations that include Mississauga of the Credit, the Ojibwe, the Haudenosaunee, and the Huron-Wendat. This territory is under numerous Treaties that include One Dish, One Spoon, a mutual agreement between nations to share and protect land and resources. Scarborough, the now eastern suburb of Tkaronto, is under the pre-confederation Williams Treaties. See native-land.ca for mapping of indigenous lands.
From Old French subburbe, derived from the Latin suburbium, formed from sub (“under” or “below”) and urbs (“city”)
Lee challenges popular imagination of the suburb as uninspiring and lackluster, comprising of Anglo Saxon middle-class nuclear families in developer row housing surrounded by white picket fence. In reality, Toronto’s periphery is as a dynamic site of transition: between preservation and change, built and natural environments, and varying generations of immigrants. Urban peripheries like Scarborough are a coalescence of typologies informed by both rural and urban cultures and values, interwoven by racialized migrant communities.
