The mega-project is experiencing revived interest as a tool for urban renewal. The current mode of large-scale urban development is, however, different from its predecessor in so far as its focus is flexible and diverse rather than singular and monolithic. However, the diversity that the new approach offers, we argue, forecloses upon a wide variety of social practices, reproducing rather than resolving urban inequality and disenfranchisement. Further, we suggest that the diversity of forms and land uses employed in these mega-projects inhibits the growth of oppositional and contestational practices. The new mega-project also demonstrates a shift from collective benefits to a more individualized form of public benefit. The article is based on Toronto's recent waterfront development proposals, which we identify as an example of a new paradigm of mega-project development within the framework of the competitive city. Its stated but paradoxical goal is to specialize in everything, allowing for the pretence that all interests are being served while simultaneously re-inscribing and reinforcing socioeconomic divisions. Our findings are centred on four areas: institutional change; the importance of mega-projects to global interurban competition; the exclusive nature of public participation processes; and the increasing commodification and circumscription of urban public space.We have all agreed on the imperative of revitalizing Toronto's waterfront (Robert Fung, Chairman, Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation 1 ).

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As one of the 'last great waterfronts' to embrace what has become a near-ubiquitous post-fordist development model, the formerly industrial lands of Toronto's Central Waterfront are currently being reshaped to provide the kinds of spaces and places that facilitate new modes of capital accumulation. In order to understand how Toronto's waterfront has come to be mobilized to accommodate the imperatives of 21st-century global economic and spatial restructuring, this paper explores the area's recent planning history, reviewing the policies and politics of waterfront planning activities undertaken over the past twenty years. A new and novel 'ecosystem approach' to waterfront planning was adopted in Toronto in this period that allowed its proponents to resolve historical problems that had formerly impeded new forms of waterfront development. This paper demonstrates that, in so doing, the ecosystem approach -and its use by a succession of influential waterfront planning bodies and processes -set the stage for the Central Waterfront to become a key site for the elite pursuit of world city status in Toronto.

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