Presented by PR News, the leading publication covering the public relations trade, the CSR Awards recognize people and companies that successfully demonstrate that altruism, philanthropy and employee commitment to "do good" can go a long way towards making an impact on a community, key stakeholders, and a company's bottom line. .

NOT IN MY BACKYARD

An alternate title for the Arts Guild of Rahway exhibit "Sprawl: A Look at the Overbuilding of New Jersey" might have been "Look at What's Become of Us."

The show, one of several on the subject cropping up this year across the state, is a caustic visual critique of the Garden State's changing landscape. Look for exhibits at the Hunterdon Museum of Art and at The Shore Institute of The Contemporary Arts, among other venues.

Woe to strip malls, active adult communities and McMansions � those supersized homes that, rightly or wrongly, are demonized in the popular consciousness along with Wal-Mart and trans-fats.

Most of the work in "Sprawl" emanates nostalgia mixed with exasperation, tinged with anger � perhaps at Eminent Domain, developers, the state's swollen population and waning rural character.

Budget 2008: Maybe Next Year

Toronto is mentioned 35 times in the 2008 provincial budget that was tabled this afternoon. Tellingly, however, seven of those 35 Torontos are in the context of "Greater Toronto Area" or "Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area," six mentions are in background information, two are actually "outside Toronto," another two are in footnotes and one is in the address for the provincial publication store.

-$497 million for public transit in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area as part of the MoveOntario 2020 plan, which equates to all of Metrolinx's “quick win" projects (all of which have been previously announced). For Toronto this means projects titled “TTC Transit City Light Rail Transit Head Start" ($7.1 million), “Yonge Subway Capacity Improvements" ($293 million), “Yonge-Finch-Steeles Bus Rapid Transit" ($5.7 million).

Shows of note

Mark Hooper His new show at Quality Pictures is a continuation of a kind of performance art photography: staged tableaux set in the ruins of buildings or in slightly ravaged patches of nature. The mood is always quiet and desolate, with usually a sole individual peering intently at something, somewhere. Mysterious and creepy in the way that Gregory Crewdson's terribly affected images are, Hooper's photographs evoke the lovely surreal, bending reality into a dream world signifying the vague. Is he trying to express something profound or just an ironist speaking through the language of ennui? Quality Pictures, 916 N.W. Hoyt St. Continues until April 26. (D.K. Row)

John Calvelli A prototype of the kind of Portland transplant that has enriched and deepened the local cultural scene in the past decade.