Tanzeel Merchant

Tanzeel Merchant is a Toronto-based urban designer, architect, planner and writer.^[1]

As manager of the Ontario Growth Secretariat, Merchant played a key role in the development and implementation of Ontario’s award-winning^[2] Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Merchant is currently on a leave of absence from the Province of Ontario, working in Alberta with mayor Melissa Blake of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, and minister Don Scott of the Government of Alberta, and the energy industry in the rapidly growing Athabasca Oil Sands region, home to the world’s third largest oil reserve.^{[citation needed]}

Merchant is a regular contributor to Forbes Magazine's Indian edition.^[1] on matters of the economy and policy. He has also written intermittently on design, such as his first-hand narrative on his involvement in the Regent Park redevelopment project.^[3] The Regent Park Revitalization Plan went on to win the Canadian Institute of Planners' Award of Excellence in 2003.^[4]

Merchant serves on the board of Heritage Toronto^[5] and also chairs the organisation's Awards Committee.^[6] He is also a founder and board member^[7] of the Pan Am Path, an urban project to create a multi-use path that connects Toronto’s trails and creates an active-living legacy for the 2015 Pan Am/2015 Parapan American Games. In 2012, Merchant was named one of 28 DiverseCity Fellows in the Greater Toronto Area.^[8][9] He also serves on the advisory council^[10] of Proud Politics.

Merchant lived in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, New Delhi, and Delft before choosing to study and live in Toronto.

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