2012 has been a pretty big year here at UrbanToronto, and it isn’t over yet. For those who have been following us for a while now, you’ll remember that we re-launched back in 2011 with a new look, new layout and brand new content. Since we began using Facebook and Twitter to directly interact with our readers our site usage has tripled, and we’ve seen exponential growth in the UT family. Add together nearly 2,700 Facebook likes, close to 14,000 followers on Twitter, 2 million page views  and 200,000 unique users per month, and we've definitely come a long way since we began!

Downtown Toronto skyline, image by vegeta_skyline

While the new features, such as our extensive dataBase section, are proving to be invaluable tools, we haven’t forgotten the old. A team of dedicated interns put in quite a few hours uploading hundreds of UT stories that date as far back as 2009, all of which are now accessible to you, the reader. Add these archived stories to our collection of threads (some of which go back to the early days of UT in 2002), and we are the go-to resource for information on any and all projects in the GTA, not only for today but also from the past decade.

We’ve made the process of searching through the archives easy – all it takes is a few clicks. Let’s look back on the history of the recently finished Shangri-La, for example. Heading to the Forum section, we click Advanced Search, and type in Shangri-La as the keyword. Click search, and the project thread appears, with the first post dating back to 2006 when a committee of area councillors initially approved the tower.

If you want to find early stories on the Shangri-La all you have to do is click the associated tag at the bottom of a story that references the project. Going back to the last page, it looks like we first wrote about it in 2010, when Forum member Gregarious shot a pretty unique view of the Shangri-La just before it reached ground level.

Whether you’re an avid reader of our news page or a user of our extensive dataBase section, we encourage you to explore the site, and use the vast resources we have to your advantage. Register as a Forum member and make your voice heard on projects you care about, or use our search engine to see what existed before a 45-storey rose from the ground.

We have a number of exciting changes currently in the works that will facilitate greater interaction between users and UrbanToronto. We're working on establishing a newsletter that you can sign up for here, within which you'll find the latest condominium and development updates. Keep an eye out over the coming months as we continue to grow and expand, and if you have any comments or questions feel free to shoot us an email and let us know. We love to hear from you!

—The UrbanToronto Team