Racks of t-shirts with “Toronto vs Everybody” emblazoned across the locally made threads hang near toques uniquely stitched with different urban neighbourhoods in the Toronto Spacing Store. Stocked with mostly city-themed paraphernalia, the shop is a curated collection of clothing, houseware items and novelty gifts. The perimeter is lined with books about architecture, vintage subway map posters, handcrafted knickknacks and the store’s popular button and magnet collection. Opened in November 2014, the downtown store resembles a souvenir shop without the made-in-China kitsch. It’s located on the ground level of a heritage building and the magazine’s staff works from a small office studio hidden behind the checkout counter.

Apart from a place to sell goods, the store is a business strategy that’s helping the magazine survive. Canadian publications—especially independent ones—often need to find additional revenue streams to sustain themselves. The store has been a lucrative move: Spacing has doubled its yearly revenue since opening the shop. It has also boosted magazine newsstand sales by 15 percent and increased subscriptions. And since opening the Toronto-based retail shop, the publication, which covers urban issues, is finding success rooting itself physically in a city that it critiques and celebrates. Matthew Blackett, the publisher, editor and co-founder of Spacing, says the benefit of operating out of a public retail space is that it allows the magazine to live what it preaches.

Blackett was part of a team of journalists that launched Spacing in 2003. Soon after, they realized they needed to find additional revenue if the magazine was going to grow. The quarterly (two issues a year focus on Toronto and two are national) publishes content on urban issues such as public transit, municipal politics and community planning. Advertising and subscription sales are often not enough to sustain a small publication, so within a year of going into print, Spacing began selling buttons and magnets—including the popular subway stops and Toronto highway signs collections—online. The in-house designs started to take off and began to make up about 15 to 20 percent of the company’s revenue.

From the success of its online store, the idea to open a bricks-and-mortar retail one was “pretty organic.” Spacing teamed up with independent publisher Coach House Books for a pop-up shop in 2013 and used the temporary store experience to see how receptive people were to the idea of a permanent retail space. “We have demonstrated that we have a very good knack of either creating, or choosing and finding people that are doing good stuff,” says Blackett.

Consultant D.B. Scott, president of Impresa Communications Limited, says that most magazines today can’t just rely on their publication for financial security. He cites Downhome as another example of a magazine finding success through a retail space. Its store in St. John’s, Newfoundland, has been a staple for the brand and attracts shoppers from across Canada. Grant Young, president of Downhome Incorporated, says the company generates $4 million annually, with $1 million coming from retail sales and another $1 million from wholesale distribution. The store sells a range of merchandise from stuffed plush puffins, t-shirts and Newfoundland souvenirs.

Success, Scott says, depends on a business strategy that’s consistent with the general image of the magazine. But shops aren’t just for small publications. Monocle, the glossy London-based magazine about current affairs, business, culture and design has opened retail stores in Europe, Asia and, in 2012, in Toronto.

While Spacing has no immediate plans of opening more shops in other parts of Canada, the store was designed in a way that the concept would be transferable to other cities. They can use the same model to sell merchandise related to different urban areas. Spacing wants to conquer the Toronto market first before considering a location in Vancouver or Calgary.

Blackett thinks stores can help save some magazines, depending on the genre. He believes sports magazines, active lifestyle publications and niche titles could thrive in a retail market. “We’re lucky that we are editor-owned,” he says, “which allows us to experiment and take risks that other magazines can’t existentially afford.”

But it’s not just about money. The Spacing team previously operated out of an office building that didn’t allow readers to access staff without passing security, which wasn’t aligning with the magazine’s notion of public space and overall ethos. “Now,” says Blackett, “you can walk right into our store and theoretically yell at us about an article, or pitch an article, or talk to us about an issue.”

he Monday evening at Revival is growing old. It must be hot on the crowded platform, where the mayor and his interrogators exist in close quarters beneath stage lights and a Spacing sign. David Miller is taking a swig from his water bottle between questions, the sound of TTC chimes signals when his airtime is up, when someone in the vast dimness of the audience shouts, “I love you, David!”

A beat, then laughter. That’s not an issue Miller’s going to get into tonight, one week before today’s (November 13) election. He responds with an easy confidence at the podium that was missing from Jane Pitfield when she stood in the same spot a scant hour ago. It should be noted, however, that Pitfield’s supporters are noticeably outnumbered among the 450 spectators that have turned up for the candidates’ Q&A with the panel of Spacing and Eye Weekly editors and writers. The main topic at tonight’s Political Party? co-sponsored by the two magazines ? is public space, and the discussion has moved briskly through parks and housing projects and along subway lines, sidewalks and bike paths.

To publish online a daily chronicle of Toronto’s 2006 civic election, up to and including election day today, might seem ambitious for a magazine that comes out three times a year and is read by young, idealistic urbanites. But despite the challenge, Spacing creative director Matthew Blackett’s original plan was simple and to the point. “About a year ago,” he says, “we realized our print issue would come out around the election. It was a good time for us to get political.”

And get noticed. Even majornewsoutlets perked up during “the Pitfield thing,” as Blackett calls it. “It was in the news for five days,” he says. “It had a long life cycle.” The commotion started when a post on mayoral candidate Jane Pitfield’s blog was found to be almost identical to a paragraph published the day before by Spacing Votes, written by columnist John Lorinc. The blogosphere churned the incident in “a big toxicsoup,” as Lorinc puts it, and the drama ended with the sound of Spacing’s phone ringing, heralding a call from Pitfield herself. “She asked me three times if her apology was sufficient,” Blackett says. “It was an acknowledgement that they had messed up – it’s rare that politicians apologize.”

The bias against rightward-leaning politicians like Pitfield is unmistakable at Spacing Votes, but Blackett is nothing if not candid. He concedes the magazine is “at odds with her” on a number of issues, including transit and public advertising. He says Spacing has “a certain point of view – I don’t think that should be a surprise to anyone who reads the magazine.”

In Spacing‘s case-in name of expanded coverage-many someones are involved. Spacing Votes is a digital exercise in democracy carried out not by a single writer, but an entire team of bloggers. “I think there are 15,” Blackett hazards. “Some haven’t done much, some have done a lot.” His hesitation in knowing the exact number might be a symptom of stress. In addition to producing the magazine, the blog and a public debate, he also teaches journalism at Humber College and moonlights as a graphic designer. Blackett jokingly says he plans to sleep for a week after Election Day, but for now “we’re election junkies. I hope we do this for the provincial election next year. We shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to hold politicians and candidates to account.”

Blackett’s test group of full-time interns have held politicians accountable, at least to readers of Spacing. Although the work is unpaid, the band of bloggers ? dubbed an “army of young guns” by Eye Weekly‘s city editor Edward Keenan ? was culled from about 50 applicants who answered the call on Spacing Wire. Journalism experience wasn’t necessary, but a passion for issues about public space and its uses was. Students of architecture, urban planning and environmental studies act as beat reporters, armed with knowledge and commitment to different issues. The blog functions as both a discussion forum and a virtual training ground. “We just don’t have the time to give a crash course in transit development,” Blackett says. “It’s harder to learn these things than it is to get good writing.”

“We’re definitely an experiment,” says Karen MacKenzie, the blog’s managing editor. “I love the immediacy and the interactiveness.” MacKenzie is currently studying journalism, but of all the Spacing Votes recruits only Lorinc has covered city hall professionally. The veteran Toronto Life urban affairs columnist says the blog is a good way for younger writers to hone their skills, and a chance for them and the public to voice their opinions. “It opens up a space to talk about certain issues that are top of mind to people who may not find them satisfactorily expressed in mainstream media.”

Although there’s no statistical way to measure the blog’s influence, if any, on the election, site traffic has risen to 40,000 visitors per week. “In September it was about 25,000,” says Blackett. “We can see that people are coming.” He frames the issues for “young people who read our magazine who don’t know what’s going on at city hall.”

The blog has attracted candidates as well as voters. Gary Pickering, running for school board trustee in Ward 12, became a regular reader after following a link from Who Runs This Town, a non-profit site encouraging electoral participation. “It’s free publicity for me and other candidates who can’t afford to buy advertising,” he says. “I can put my own ideas forward, but also see what the public is thinking.”

Tammy Thorne, a Spacing blogger who balances her bike activism with an administrative job, says that she’s received positive feedback about her cycling posts from cyclists and city councilors. “I was feeling a bit insecure at first because I wasn’t sure how journalistic it was supposed to be,” she says. “I found it challenging but also fun to write something personal.”

Julia Lo, an urban studies major at the University of Toronto, is another who answered the call for interns. “I like how Spacing magazine brings the stuff that I’m doing in school to Toronto, in a theory-in-practice kind of way.” She blogs once or twice a week ? sometimes posts are kept waiting because with this many writers, the blog may suffer from oversaturation ? and compares the experience to writing for The Varsity, “except a bit less formal. I guess it’s less pressure than having something in print.”

Lorinc might be inclined to disagree, especially during the morning he spent writing at Starbucks when the Internet connection disappeared and he lost his work. “It’s not without its frustrations,” he says of blogging. “Two hours’ work down the drain.” Lorinc was a stranger to the art of the blog before Blackett approached him to contribute to Spacing Votes. “I’ve never done anything online before,” says Lorinc. “I don’t read blogs, for the most part. They’re an interesting sort of discourse, but I’m really a mainstream journalist. I come from the print world, where there are lots of layers between what I write and what gets out.”

Other print publications are offering daily election blogs, including one of the largest. Marc Weisblott, formerly of The Toronto Star‘s Paved.ca, is filing an election column called Campaign Bubble for The Globe and Mail. He genially refers to Blackett as a “big geek” when it comes to politics, but says nobody really competes in the blogosphere. “It’s more like everyone’s there to complement each other. If you’re a media junkie you read a lot,” he says. “You click around, consuming from everywhere.

“When it comes to online journalism, no one is going to read your one site,” Weisblott continues, “So it becomes about being the site that people go to first, not about obliterating everyone else like the six o’clock news on TV. It still is a challenging thing for mainstream media to wrap their heads around. It used to be about dominating the reader with information, now it’s about sharing it.”

And Blackett is encouraged that Spacing Votes has been shared by voters of different stripes. “There are tons of people who just hate Miller and say what a poor job they think he’s done,” he says. “We’re attracting those readers as well ? it’s not all just a bunch of lefties and progressives. I’m happy because there’s a discussion.”