Towards a New Generation of Urban Planning: Leadership-in-Action Report

What could the future of urban planners be like? How can youth become more involved in our cities and our futures, instead of being cast aside and dismissed by unimaginative bureaucracies which cause more harm than benefit? My time with Urban Minds explored the potential of high school students.

Aug 28, 2024

Augustine Wong

Architecture Student, University of Toronto

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This report details my 2nd summer as a Leadership-in-Action student embedded with Urban Minds, a Toronto-based non-profit that aims to encourage students to become more involved in architecture, urban planning and civil engineering to create direct positive changes in their environment. While I had ups and downs while achieving the end goal of helping to coordinate the 1UP Leaders' Lab, a two-day conference for students to become champions of design within their communities, I found myself growing by working with other environments. These included consulting activities for Bike Share Toronto, stepping out of my comfort zone to pitch Urban Minds to high schoolers, and more which helped me to grow as a leader on top of my personal traits. I am glad to have had such an amazing and long-lasting opportunity from the Laidlaw Foundation, my project supervisor, Ryan Lo for his patience, guidance and good sense of humour, my mentor Prof. Peter Sealy for his advice as well as the University of Toronto Laidlaw Scholars Programme! This project couldn't have been achieved without your support,

Augustine Wong (He/Him)

Architecture Student, University of Toronto

Hello there! I'm a problem-solver and leader in my second year of undergraduate architectural studies at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, University of Toronto, minoring in Forest Conservation.

This summer, my research topic regards phenomena where corporations possess more power than nation state apparatuses. In this scenario, companies may build privately owned and controlled towns where employees may be at the hands of corporate mercy. This pattern has not only happened historically, but is still occurring in the present by entities such as Amazon. As an architectural researcher, I hope to identify urban or economic patterns of company towns and find antitrust solutions to break up corporate dependence.

I'm also passionate about democracy, built and natural environments. But when I'm not thinking about architecture, in my free time I pursue various interests, from photography to journalism, hiking, writing and listening to music.