When they celebrate the "wisdom of the crowd," I sure hope they're talking about the crowd of people Yonge Street featured in 2011. In sharing their experiences as entrepreneurs, community leaders, politicians, artists, caretakers, visionaries and change agents, they not only talked about their own passions, but provided insight all Torontonians can put to good use.
 
Considering the breadth of Yonge Street's coverage—everything from the arts to biodiversity to city-building to small businesses to conservation to the new economy to diversity—the threads that hold it all together are vital. Most important are the people who weave this sectors together, showing the intersections between health and prosperity, a clean environment and diversity, innovation and our shared history.
 
So here are some of the ideas we've published in the past year which seem to leap beyond the boundaries of the project we were profiling, ideas we'd all be wise to embrace.

"We can't fix what we don't know." Camille Orridge, CEO of the Toronto Central Local Health Integration Network (TCLHIN).


"We've learned that if you let the product rest and don't rush things, the quality is better." Alon Ozery of Ozery Pita Break bakery in North York.

"There has to be a shift in cultural attitudes that it's all right to raise kids and grow up in a high rise."
City councillor Peter Milczyn.
 
"If you've enhanced a space, people feel better about it. There's less crime, less graffiti." Rina Greer, lead consultant on the St Clair TTC art project.
 
"You either take risks or you play it safe. I take risks. But I think the question is more how do you sort through what's good and what's going to be good." Klaus Nienkamper of Klaus on King Street East.
 
"Making beautiful photographs with beautiful models is one of the joys of my life. But the plastic side of fashion has to change."Brian Phillips, CEO of worldSALON.
 
"Be your brother's keeper, because times are getting steeper." Jam Johnson, pitching his Neighbourhood Basketball Association idea in a competition hosted by the Young Social Entrepreneurs of Canada.
 
"Climate change is a human issue, but look at how it's affecting the polar bears. By going face to face with an animal that's endangered and facing trouble, it makes it feel more real." Owen Ward, national program manager for social change at Air Miles. 
"We're going to be moving into a revolution of what automobiles look like, what public transportation looks like. Chassis, fuselages, all those things, we're going to go through a materials revolution. The things we move on are going to look very different from what they do now." Glen Murray, Ontario Minister of Research and Innovation.
"Too often governments drag their feet and real change comes from entrepreneurs and the private sector. Change seems to be a word spoken by many and understood by few." Paul Bichler, owner of Eco Laundry Room at Danforth and Main.
 
"Bringing patients to the table [to talk about the healthcare system] is now appropriate. It's necessary if you're going to deal with chronic conditions. The patient experience is part of dealing with the condition." Sholom Glouberman, author of My Operation.
 
"We need to be able to reward those developers who bring ingenuity and innovation to the challenge in front of us. If we massage the issue with the development industry as a willing partner, we'll find the sweet spots to deliver the objectives we're talking about." City councillor Adam Vaughan.
 
"The whole time you're working there you're also watching people and listening to stories. And you see that you're part of something bigger." Taylor Brydges, a University of Toronto student who was placed at the Fort York Food Bank as part of a service learning program.
 
"People who work with human rights, cyberspace and freedom issues" can be "loathe to engage the private sector. I feel the exact opposite about it. The first thing to understand is that cyberspace is owned and operated by the private sector." Ron Deibert, director for the University of Toronto's Canada Centre for Global Security Studies.
 
"What we do have is a lot of amazing ecosystems of small and medium-sized enterprises and creative individuals, especially when you look in the ICT [information and communications technology] area. That is the kind of thing we need here. We don't need large, monolithic, homogenous ICT firms that produce a single standard of a product—we need diversity of design and many different ideas. We actually have a perfect environment to do this type of thing." Jutta Treviranus, an OCAD University professor spearheading the inclusive design program.
 
"When people feel like they can do something, they give it their all. They go to great lengths." Laron Nelson, member of Black Daddies Club.
 
"To inspire people you have to also educate them, show them both what is possible and how easy it is to do." Kay Valley, owner of The Zero Point in Leslieville.
 
"Rather than go to renewables kicking and screaming, we would go in full out, become a global leader, get the investments happening here and create a clean energy hub for projects." Ontario Energy Minister Brad Duguid. 
 
"I think that kind of experience just stays with you in your family life, and your parenting and your professional life. You don't walk away from that." Carol Wilding, CEO of the Toronto Board of Trade, on her work in Africa, Asia, South and Central America, coordinating programs for struggling communities.
 
"I think around the world people are realizing that treating food as a tradable commodity works to a certain degree—but only a certain degree. It's not the only solution to feeding the world. And I think very recently it's become evident that local knowledge about the land is the most important thing." Erica Lemieux of City Seed Farms.
 
"We learn the most about ourselves and our company when we're under stress." Darius Mosun, chair and CEO of Soheil Mosun Limited.
 
"We've gotten to the point where too much of the population doesn't understand that things are made. That's a problem because we become beholden to it instead of it being beholden to us." James Arlen, founder of Hamilton maker-space Think|Haus.

"It opened the doors to spirituality: fasting ceremonies, interpreting messages from spirits, our ways and our customs and our stories, learning about our traditional ways and what our purposes are as Anishnaabe people." Eddy Robinson, head of MorningStar River talent agency, about a major journey his spiritual advisor told him to take.
 
"Sometimes I learn something from the creative youth who make the most incredible outfits." Lynn Hubbs, volunteer at Sketch.

"Writing makes you feel good, makes you understand things, makes you release things and that's why I write, mostly. I think the process of writing is more important than the product." Ryad Assani-Razaki, author of the short stories collection Deux Cercles.
 
"To do anything you need your foundations. You need to know where it comes from to truly appreciate what you're doing." Hip hop artist Jade Jager Clark.
 
"Canadian human rights are here for everyone." Mario Guilombo, executive director of Canadian Human Rights International Organization.
 
"Suburbanites allocate their sense of culture to the city. They feel like we're just an adjunct of the city, that our life is just sort of a surrogate thing, a temporary life between commutes. And I have a problem with the sense that our stories are not legitimate." Trevor Copp, the performer and co-creator of Tottering Biped Theatre.
 
"The facts are overwhelming that passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles have contributed immensely to greenhouse gas emission. People don't think it's their problem, but it will be their problem." Mike Elwood, chair of Electric Mobility Canada.
 
"Anything that gets people out into their streets with their neighbours is great." David DeForest, DiverseCity fellow and one of the founders of StreetSports.
 
"Sometimes talent retention is as simple as making a clear case of the history of the place and that the person is needed there." Josh McManus, chief innovator, curator and creative director for Little Things, a social innovation laboratory based in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
 
"I see media as a tool for documenting [Aboriginal knowledges], and I see art as a way of revitalizing that knowledge." Rebeka Tabobondung, founder of Muskrat magazine.

"The ability to own a car, park it either in front of your house and in a garage, is going to become more and more difficult. Cars are going to get more and more expensive to operate, and it'll be much more convenient to just pick up the car and pick up the groceries and come home again. I think we're just at the beginning of this." Eric Miller, director of the University of Toronto's Cities Centre.

"One of the things China can learn from Toronto is to increase its tolerance, which is important to attract talent. People really try to help other people and there's tremendous economic value in that." Economist Maggie Chen.
 
"You know that to do justice to [a work of art] you have to bring a certain scale. But then you also have to realize the budgetary constraints. So you try and arrive at a compromise, because at the end of the day, you also want the story to be heard." Artist and storyteller Sharada Eswar.

"It's Canada's fault that I started this company—Canada made me a businessman." Dr. Hamid Tizhoosh, founder and CEO of Segasist.

"I know it's so cliché, but there's no place, really, like home…. You come back to Toronto and you feel the mosaic—there's nothing really like it." Hip hop artist Besque.