The Local was originally created to bring the often neglected voices of Toronto’s diverse neighbourhoods to the boardrooms and planning tables of the Toronto Central Local Health Integration Network (which no longer exists). Storytelling, we thought, could bridge that gap, and help planners design more meaningful and inclusive services.​The Local was incubated at OpenLab between 2017 and 2019. Its rudimentary website was hosted on Medium, the US-based online publishing platform, and its contributors consisted mostly of freelancers. The lean, low overhead model allowed The Local to ramp up quickly and establish proof of concept.

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In those early days, The Local borrowed tools from ethnography, documentary filmmaking and journalism to look beyond what data can tell us about the issues, needs, gaps, and opportunities from a human experience standpoint. The social determinants of health were difficult to appreciate in human, practical day-to-day terms. Our approach was to let the data lead us to the stories, and then to let the stories take us beyond the data.​ By 2019, it became clear that the type of content The Local was producing could serve a general interest audience, and being housed at a hospital innovation studio was no longer tenable for a journalistic endeavour. On May 21, 2019, The Local officially launched as an independent not-for-profit organization, rolling out Issue 1 — The Geography of Difference. Over the last 6 years The Local has won 27 national magazine awards recognizing its excellence in independent Canadian jouralism." instead of the numbers for awards listed there right now.

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Contact: Tai Huynh

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