Toronto is a big city, bigger than any person or office. Despite the steady stream of bad news flowing from city hall, there are reasons for optimism. Here are 10 of them, in no particular order:

The new Joel Weeks Park on Carroll St., in the Queen and Broadview area, opened last week and has already transformed the neighbourhood. Though small (1 hectare), the facility has a powerful civilizing effect. The results are quiet but brilliant.

The late 19th-century storefront building at 140 Yonge, at Temperance St., has never looked better. Fully restored by owner Clayton Smith, its edges are once again crisp, its surfaces clean and interiors inviting. It is a powerful reminder that our forebears understood instinctively how cities work.

Let’s be honest, Dundas St. east of Jarvis isn’t the sort of place people go for family walks. But suddenly this summer, that changed. A garden — a guerrilla garden? — has mysteriously appeared on Dundas at George St. Exquisitely planted and assiduously tended, it’s enough to bring a tear to the eye of even the most hardened urbanist.

Hard to believe, but Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Toronto-Dominion Centre has been with us for more than half a century. It dates from that brief postwar period when the future loomed luminous and global warming meant summer was coming. So when word came that the venerable T-D Centre has received LEED platinum rating, we were impressed. We might not think of this as heritage, or heritage preservation, but that’s exactly what it is.

The appearance of so many institutional projects — educational and cultural — within months is a sign of robust civic heath. Recently, Toronto has seen the opening of the Regent Park Arts and Cultural Centre, the George Brown School of Health Sciences, the Ryerson Image Centre and the Centre of Excellence at Glendon College. The new facilities vary, but all are of exceptional architectural quality and thoroughly urban.

The tired-looking 16-storey office building at 111 Richmond St. W. has been brought back to life in impressive fashion by Oxford Properties. Designed in the 1950s by storied English architect Peter Dickinson, this elegant structure will now win over new generations of admirers. Anyone who loves Toronto and its architecture, especially its endangered mid-century modernist stock, will be thrilled.

It’s over but Celebrate Yonge was a memorable exercise in reclaiming the city and its streets. The month-long project saw Yonge partially closed to traffic between Gerrard and Queen. Restaurants installed patios and Parks Canada even put in a remarkable pocket park at Shuter. No one who saw it will be able to look at that corner again without a smile.

It took forever to happen, but the revitalization of Bloor St. from Church St. to Avenue Rd. has finally brought urbanity to Toronto’s premier shopping strip. This stretch of Bloor is as lively as any street in the city, but has never had the public realm to match. The granite paving, overflowing planters and well-tended trees mark a welcome makeover of this important street.

The way we carry on in Toronto, you’d think there was something subversive about riding bikes on city streets. Though official Toronto has responded badly, bikes are a part of the city’s future, like it or not. And, in fact, most of us are quite happy to share the roads with two-wheelers. The dedicated bike lanes under construction on Sherbourne will help people see the obvious, despite having been in denial for more than decade.

No agency, organization or public body of any sort has done more to bring Toronto into the 21st century than Waterfront Toronto. Despite constant threats and general government silliness, WT has kept its collective gaze fixed firmly on the future. It has also established a new model of planning that balances people and cars, work and recreation, community and communications.

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca