This thesis is an investigation of Don Mills, the new town built outside the City of Toronto in 1953. Don Mills became the comprehensive model for the next three decades for resolving conflicting issues in the Toronto region; issues such as building metropolitan infrastructures protection, and ensuring the availability, quality, and affordability of housing. The new town's success in 1954 lay in the unlikely resolution, through its design, of conflicting purposes; the business goals of Argus Corporation, and the ideals and policies of academe and government. Personal relations between Don Mills' protagonists, and the evolution of a practical trust between the business and design, allowed those differences to be overcome. Macklin Hancock, who was interviewed for this thesis, was a student at Harvard's Graduate School of Design in 1950 and emerged, with his family connections to Karl Fraser, as the figure best suited to design the new town.