Written by Gabrielle John
For Civic Actions Policy Analyst Lindsay Klysen, city building is less about controlling fixed outcomes and more about understanding the systems, relationships, and lived experiences that contribute to how cities organically evolve. Klysen was drawn to the field of urban planning for her undergraduate degree at TMU.
“What interested me was always the politics of space.” Klysen explains. Whether discussing the placement of a bench, large scale transit investment, or policy design, her interest was sparked by how planning choices impact residents’ access, behavior, and opportunity.
“It can impact one person or millions of people – but there’s always intended or unintended outcomes” It is with that same complexity that Lindsay carried her approach into City Building. She urges us to think of the term “City Builder” beyond technical planning and instead focus on how those processes could better reflect the realities of the people they aim to serve. Her deeply insightful orientation toward planning for the people ultimately led her toward roles that sat slightly outside of traditional planning trajectories—positions focused less on producing plans and more on understanding how communities experience systems in practice.
Before Civic Action, Lindsay helped conduct research for Feed Scarborough. A foodbank focused on service expansion in the face of growing needs. Klysen’s work meant confronting practical questions: Where can limited resources have the greatest effect? How do we make decisions that reach the most impacted people? A central focus in that initiative became ensuring the research methods were as diverse as the populations they were serving. This meant administering surveys in six languages, combining primary insights with local Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and census data to assess factors such as transit access, demographic indicators, and access to housing. For Klysen, experiences like this reinforced that planning frameworks are transferable beyond land use.
Reconsidering The Term City Builder, we should view it with deliberate openness. Too often, she argues that the language of City Building narrows towards physical infrastructure, development, or formal structure. Ultimately, her understanding is broader, exploring that cities are shaped through overlapping systems within community housing, governance, economics, public space, and more. Working across these systems requires understanding both formal structures and lived experience. It means expanding our scope of understanding to look beyond sectors and see them as systems. Consider Housing. It is rarely just a housing issue; it lies at the intersection of financing, regulation, construction, service delivery, and governance. However, Klysen cautions against treating systems thinking as detached from residents.
Planning, for example, has historically operated through top-down models where institutions identify problems and produce solutions on behalf of communities. Contemporary practice increasingly recognizes the limits of that approach. Communities are not just recipients of planning decisions; they themselves actively shape outcomes.
“We need to move toward a community-informed approach to how cities are built. Ultimately possessing implications for how planners assess their role “
Planning processes often rely on projections, servicing assumptions, and efforts to optimize future outcomes. But cities are anything but static; while these tools remain necessary, they should not be mistaken for absolute certainty. A city is shaped through planning but also social, cultural, and economic forces that collectively emerge.
Lindsay strongly iterates that cities are built through participation and should remain accessible. “I don’t only think of architects or planners when I think of a City Builder” she views city planning as fundamentally participatory.
It is not a requirement for a City Builder to work in planning, sit on advisory committees, or build physical infrastructure. Everyone already interacts with housing systems, public space, neighborhood change, and local institutions. That interaction produces knowledge.
“Your lived experience in a city is just as important as theoretical understandings of how cities should be planned.”
For Lindsay, participation extends beyond formal consultation. Some people organize locally. Others advocate, volunteer, create gathering spaces, support neighborhood initiatives, or contribute to civic life in less visible ways.
Toronto offers clear examples.
Neighborhoods that people are drawn to were rarely produced through planning documents alone. Places like Kensington Market and the Gay Village, now regarded as distinct and highly trafficked areas evolved through communities responding to conditions and need over time.” In Kensington, new immigrants who settled in the area-built fruit markets and businesses on the ground floors of their homes, creating a unique neighborhood form that feels different from the rest of the city. This was not the product of zoning or planning decisions, but rather a neighborhood built by and for the people who used it every day. “Cities emerge through both planned and unplanned growth. While the role of institutions is vital, it is up to the communities to determine whether places become resilient, vibrant, and meaningful.
A Seat at the Table
To close out our conversation, I asked Lindsay what she would say to the everyday civilian interested in building their city, unsure of just where to begin. She then emphasized the importance of remembering the legitimacy of each and every voice.
“If you have a seat at the table, use it”
Too often, people assume expertise belongs elsewhere, but Lindsay challenges that instinct.
“If you’re in a meeting, community consultation, or even a simple conversation, you deserve to be there. Use that opportunity to advocate for the change you want to see.”
She also emphasizes that community and city building requires contributions—not only expectations. Many people expect cities and communities to function as services delivered to them rather than relationships that require participation. That mindset, she suggests, became more pronounced during the pandemic as people retreated inward, and public life became more fragmented.
Building a community means choosing to show up again and again.
Showing up for neighbors. Showing up for local spaces. Showing up for collective outcomes even when participation feels inconvenient. Lindsay’s perspective is a simple idea: city building is not reserved for institutions or professional expertise.
It belongs to anyone willing to contribute to the places they live.