This is the first lecture of The Viaduct Winter 2026 Lecture Series.
The Future: Made in Cities by Kevin Bryan
Cities and civilization are almost synonyms. The printing press, the stock exchange, the jazz club, the research university, the automobile revolution—these emerged in urban environments, not villages or scattered farms. But why?
Is there something in the structure of cities that generates technological and cultural progress, or do productive people just end up in the same places? And if cities do have a formula, can we engineer it?
Kevin Bryan is an innovation economist at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School, where he launched Canada’s first graduate seminar on the origins of progress. He is the Chief Economist of the Creative Destruction Lab Toronto, home to the world’s first AI accelerator, the cofounder of the NBER Innovation PhD Boot Camp, an editor of the Journal of Economic Literature, and an academic advisor for the Longitudinal Expert AI Panel.
Event Timing
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6:00 PM: Doors Open and Live Music
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7:00 PM: Lecture Followed by Q&A
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8:30 PM: Social Hour
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10:00 PM: Event Concludes
Patron Tickets
Our patrons make the work that the Toronto Society does possible. Every patron ticket includes
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A reserved front row seat for every lecture
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Dinner with the lecturer following the show
Our Vibe (The Toronto Society Etiquette Guide)
Toronto deserves the most welcoming and earnest intellectual community in the world.
Society events are a place for our community to learn, make friends, and develop their ideas. Everyone should feel energized, engaged, and most importantly at ease. Here are a few pointers to help build that spirit:
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Put in the effort. The most interesting dialogue you will have all week will be at a Toronto Society event but being part of a sparkling conversation takes work. Pay attention. Really listen. Push your thinking. Try to make the other person laugh. Dress 10% better than you usually would.
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Extend grace to everyone. We’re here to learn together. Learning means being able to make mistakes. No one knows everything and no one should ever be made to feel bad about their ideas. This also means holding each other to high standards. We want to show others the respect of expecting the best from them.
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Prioritize Love. We do this because we love to learn, we love the world and believe we can make it better together, or because we simply love to spend time with our friends. Whatever the motivation, we want to make things better. This means bringing a spirit of optimism, however tentative, and not cynicism, nihilism or the desire to outsmart or undermine.
About the Viaduct
The Viaduct is a lecture series highlighting people and ideas that could transform our city.
Season Three is about asking questions to discover our cultural infrastructure, from the purpose of cities to the impact of infinite-scroll videos to the very way we use language.
Each lecture will be preluded by live music played by local artists, from R&B to classical. We meet to be changed—by a sentence that rearranges the mind, a frame that lingers in the dark, a story that can only be told once. Patron ticket holders will join the speakers for a private dinner after each lecture.
About the Toronto Society
The Toronto Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge is building intellectual infrastructure that will promote education, community, and cultural creativity for the next 100 years and beyond.
Notice of Filming and Photography
When you attend this event, you enter an area where photography, audio, and video recording will occur. By entering the event premises, you consent to this recording and its release, publication, exhibition or reproduction.