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Talking About Toronto's Waterfront

Urmi Desai in Urban Issues

 

He was a young guy, fresh-faced and eager - to talk to me.  Not necessarily odd, but odd for a dimly-lit subway car after a long work day.  "Is that what you work on?" he wanted to know, pulling out his ear phones.  In my arms, growing heavier by the station, were thick, glossy reports bearing colourful titles - "Developing Around Transit" and "Remaking the Urban Waterfront."  "There is nothing more important than that stuff," he declared as my stop approached.

Transit.  Waterfront.  Toronto.  It seems that we just can't get enough of this stuff.  I was actually returning from an after work event hosted by the Urban Land Institute, a forum which brings together a wide range of professionals in the real estate and planning industries to discuss things like public transit and waterfronts.  A presentation from Waterfront Toronto had emphasized, among other things, the importance of European-style pedestrian streets to revitalization efforts currently underway. 

Back on the subway, my young friend had views of his own about what matters most when it comes to our waterfront - getting as close to the water as possible.

What about you?  What would you most like to see happen on Toronto's waterfront?

Urmi Desai is a policy analyst and a freelance writer specializing in urban issues.  She is editor of the Move Smartly blog. Email Urmi

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Violence and the City: Toronto the Helpless?

Urmi Desai in Urban Issues

It seems that a week in Toronto is no longer complete without that criminal act which appears to define the word ‘senseless’ as we understand it: the mundane day at the store or walk to the subway punctuated by the violence of strangers.

Yet in spite of the headlines, Maclean’s recent Canadian crime rankings (based on 2006 Stats Can data) underscore what the experts have been telling us – while Toronto is not squeaky clean, it may not be the lawless jungle that the media likes portray.  Out of a list of 100 major cities (with populations greater than 5,000), Toronto ranks 26th in terms of overall violence (from homicide and sexual assault to break-ins), well below Vancouver at 9th and Montreal at 19th.  While homicide rates climb in smaller urban centres in Canada (Winnipeg tops the list), the reverse is true in the US where large urban centres are home to the highest rates of homicide.

What’s more, a 2006 Stats Can report reveals that 83% of murders in Canada are committed by at least one known to the victim.   And more of these crimes, say police forces across country, involve gang activity.  While Toronto may not be experiencing a crime wave, the increasingly sensational nature of gun crime in the city – bloodying icons such as the Eaton Centre and the TTC – has made its mark (according to Maclean's, Toronto accounts for one-fourth of the nation’s gun crimes).  In response, the Mayor has launched a campaign to ban hand guns in Canada.

Is 'Torontoness' the Answer to the Canadian Identity Crisis?

Urmi Desai in Urban Issues

Over the weekend, Tom Kent's widely-read piece on Canadian citizenship, "Canada is much more than a hotel," appeared in the Globe and Mail.  Kent, a former assistant to Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, argues that Canada's citizenship and immigration laws require updating.  Kent raises some important points which deserve an honest vetting, but - typical of the genre - his conclusions are ultimately confusing.  One can't demand loyalty, but can "encourage it" through taxation and obligatory citizenship.  Loyalty, in turn, serves to strengthen our flagging sense of identity, a weakness that is "our special Canadian problem."  Only when we believe ourselves to be Canadian - and only Canadian - can we make a difference in a complex and interdependent world.  Less interconnectedness apparently goes further in an interconnected world.

Several weeks ago, I attended a Maclean's debate featuring New Yorker writers Adam Gopnik and Malcolm Gladwell on - wait for it - Canadian identity.  As we settled into our seats, a sense of giddy apprehension pervaded U of T's Convocation Hall.  One has to wonder if a society that readily commits to congregating to discuss identity problems (even paying for the pleasure) doesn't share the same masochistic loyalty of couples chronically in therapy.  Perhaps Mr. Kent need not worry.

Thanks to Maclean's attempt to engender a livelier debate by recruiting "new voices" - those of Canadian writers who haven't lived here for the past ten years or more - not much was added to the cannon familiar to debating clubs across Canada.  With such threadbare material, the debate was ultimately one of style.  While Gladwell offered buzz-word theories to admirably distill complex ideas into uncomplicated Kool-Aid, Gopnik relied on his gifts of close observation (read people-watching) and lyrical oration.  Ultimately, Gopnik held us in rhythmic sway, describing his recent ascent of Montreal, where he saw not a city, but a kaleidoscope of contributions made by individuals with strongly-hued identities of their own - shards of brightly-coloured glass that together mesmerize and inspire us. 

It was only later when I tuned into the weekly broadcast of Laurie Taylor, BBC's sociologist of the people, that I realized that I had failed to observe something key about the debate. Gopnik's crowning moment - to which the audience responded with the loudest applause of the night - wasn't about a country, it was about a city. 

Last One Out, Turn Off the Lights: Toronto's New Museum Station

Urmi in Urban Affairs

In the end, being in the new Museum subway station was like being in, well, a museum.  Or perhaps a coatroom in a museum.  Amidst harsh ceiling lights and old floor tiles that had more than one observer wondering if the job was done (below, compare the original artist's rendering, left, to the real thing, right), curious travelers examined new pillars representing the art collections of the Royal Ontario Museum and the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art housed above.  This brought the total number of people on the platform to about ten, a very good haul for 5pm - and for culture.  As I strolled around the platform, I exchanged Mona Lisa smiles with others, pausing and side-stepping, sharing in the rituals of plaque readers with determinedly open minds.

We have already heard a lot from experts and pundits about the new station, unveiled yesterday ahead of a massive, system-wide station modernization project.  Typeface enthusiast Joe Clark doesn't appreciate the remake which was made possible in part by donations, seeing it as a break away from the iconography that makes the TTC part of our aesthetic GPS, a subterranean map stamped onto the subconscious.  While Matthew Blackett of spacing magazine champions the tile patterns unique to each station in the form of collectible buttons, Councillor Joe Mihevc, a TTC commissioner, rather pigeonholes the work of tilers in declaring that the entire system looks like a giant bathroom.  But what do commuters think?

It was hard to find anyone that actually commutes to or from this particular station, as most had taken detours to check out the renos.  While Burl Crone, an Architectural Masters student at the University of Toronto, feels that aesthetic facelifts make high-traffic public spaces more "civilized," his companion felt the display looked a bit underwhelming - dare we say cheap?  Tianna Uchacz, a U of T Art History student, quickly picked out visible pillar seams and noted the lack of glass displays which lend an air of authenticity to similar underground displays in Europe.  When it came to objets d'art, a glass-cased fire extinguisher along with a pay phone is as close as we got (see photo left).

Richard Florida and Toronto's Openness Paradox

Urmi in Urban Issues

Richard Florida, doyen of all things city, has a new book out – Who’s Your City?  While I have yet to read it, publicity materials and early reviews suggest that Florida has drawn on psychological analysis to answer his long-standing query: what is it that makes cities attractive to the “right kind” of people? (Florida’s entrepreneurial, wealth-creating creative class seems to include everyone from IT workers to ballerinas….come to think of it, the only people it doesn’t seem to include are teachers, lawyers and dentists – unless, of course, they are creative).

In an excerpt published in the Globe on Saturday, Florida explains that cities have personalities and that we flock to the cities that match our own, thereby reinforcing the city’s original (or ‘settler’) psychology.  Commendably, these observations are backed by statistical analysis. (Veracity yet to be determined.  Interested to see how the index for "neuroticism" is constructed – psychiatrists per capita plus rate of self-identification with Woody Allen or George Costanza?) 

Florida finds the personality trait of being “open to experience” to be positively correlated to high regional economic growth based on “jobs in computing, science, arts, design, and entertainment; overall human capital levels and high-tech industry, income, and housing values.”  So if “regional leaders must become more aware of how their region’s collective personality shapes the kinds of economic activities that it can do and the kinds of people it can attract, satisfy, and retain,” they should also know that being open makes you the richest.

How to Get Your House in Order: Expert Panel Reports on Toronto's Financial Situation

Urmi in Urban Issues

The last few weeks have been a good refresher on the importance of public policy making, with newly-released budgets introducing landmark measures, such as BC's new carbon tax scheme.

Toronto is badly in need of some astute policy making, particularly when it comes to its dire finances.  On February 21, an expert six-member panel, including representatives of big business and unions, issued a 86-page document, which, summarized the Globe, delivered a simple message: "It's time for city hall to grow up and take responsibility."  Hopefully, City Council, led by Mayor David Miller, who ordered the review in October 2007, is ready to think long and hard about policy - and push aside that other p-word.

The doc, 'Blueprint', features these notable recommendations:

-setting fiscal targets to realize $50 million in savings in 2008 and $150 million in 2009

-increasing the city's revenue base by encouraging more development and introducing user fees

-reduce the ratio between residential and commercial property taxes

-unlocking high value by taking a unified management approach to the city's entire real estate portfolio

-transferring or otherwise managing key assets, using proceeds to pay down the current debt

-exploring cost-share arrangements with other orders of government, particularly in the area of public transit

-establishing a comprehensive review of HR strategy, including restructuring compensation for senior officials and constraining the growth of salary and benefits for city workers

Above all, the report instructs Council to behave, citing the high prevalence of "petty bickering, grandstanding to score points, mistrust, bad blood and remembrance of past grievances."  Some measures, particularly the one asking the City and unions to work together to contain compensation costs, are predicated on yet to be seen demonstrations of the 'sharing and caring' principle (though it should be noted that Jim Stanford, economist for the Canadian Auto Workers Union, was a panel member).  And while some of the panel's other recommendations, to strengthen the Mayor's Office and the Executive Committee, are intended to help settle Council cat fights - they could merely get animals of a different stripe involved.  While the vision is grand, a lot stands in the way of making groundbreaking policy for Toronto.

Urmi Desai is a policy analyst and a freelance writer specializing in urban issues.  She is editor of the Move Smartly blog. Email Urmi

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TTC - the Costlier Way? Opening Up Toronto's Transit Debate

Urmi in Urban Issues

Last month, Michael Fenn, CEO of the Metrolinx - the agency charged with overhauling the patchwork of GTA transit systems - had some interesting things to report following a trip to Europe.  Of particular interest was a comparison of Toronto's Sheppard extension with Madrid's recently completed subway extension (see map above).  I've pulled together some of the Star's reported highlights along with a few general facts:

Subway/Metro System Facts	Toronto	Madrid
City Area in km2 (Greater Metro Area)	630 (6,200)	607 (8,000)
Population in millions (Greater Metro Area)	2.5 (5.1)	3.2 (6.1)
First subway line opened	1954	1919
Total subway km	68	282
Annual subway passengers in billions (year)	445 (2006)	647 (2005)
Recent subway line extension	Sheppard	Various
New subway km	5.5	150
Cost per new km in millions	200	90
New line started-completed	1994-2002	1995-2007

Most notable is the cost per km difference: it took approximately $200 million per km to build a new line in Toronto vs. $90 million per km in Madrid. 

Fenn and Metrolinx were quick to point out that this comparison is a necessarily compromised one, having taken place in the real world and not a lab.  Geographical differences, such as the relative pliability of Madrid's soil, have an impact on construction costs and should be taken into consideration.  Other differences cited are less compelling.

Suburban Treasures: Is the End of Richmond Hill's David Dunlap Observatory Near?

Urmi in Urban Issues

Ed. Note:  Thanks to a sharp reader for pointing out that the total area of the David Dunlap Observatory Lands is 190 acres, not 90 acres as originally reported.  In addition to the observatory, the site is also home to the Elvis Stojko Arena.

Friday's snowstorm resulted in the postponement of a planned rally in support of the David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill.  But as every school kid knows, snow days can be a good thing.  More citizens now have the opportunity to learn about the pending sale of the observatory and consider joining efforts to save it. 

In spite of the myriad of "save the" efforts taking place across our city-under-renovation any given weekend, it is rare that I can actually feel for - not just think about - the objects in peril.  This is because I spent most of my time growing up in a suburb (or in this case, a suburb masquerading as a town).  The suburbs tend to be littered with public buildings notably lacking in public affection, so it's rare to bemoan the demise of anything out there (the exception to this being nature).

But hearing that the Dunlap was a step away from the auction block made my hard heart stir.  For those of us who grew up in the Hill when its major high schools could be counted on one hand, trips to the observatory were not uncommon.  More memorable than the sanctioned curriculum-filler that was the elementary field trip to the observatory were later evenings on the surrounding grounds.  On dusky evenings, we laid out our picnic blankets, unleashed a smattering of badly-tuned guitars (cue Zepplin's "Friends") and got up to the kinds of things that politicians clumsily find themselves denying years later.  It was that rare suburban species - community.

The observatory has played an even more important role in the scientific community.  Owned by the University of Toronto, it marks the spot where Toronto astronomer Tom Bolton first discovered the existence of what had been a fancy theory only thirty-five years ago - black holes.  The pivotal discovery was made after a determined Dr. Bolton bunkered down in Richmond Hill, not the first time a genius has had to do time in the burbs en route to greatness.

Toronto Neighbourhoods Increasingly Defined by Schools

Urmi in Urban Issues, Lifestyle

Yesterday, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) approved a controversial proposal to open an alternative "Africentric" curriculum-focussed school in an attempt to combat an alarming 40% dropout rate amongst students of English-speaking Caribbean descent.  The win could be seen as a citizen victory, as a mother, Angela Wilson, and a community worker, Donna Harrow, originally brought the proposal forward.  Opening day will be September 2009; details as to curriculum, results-based targets and location are forthcoming.

Opinions were mixed amongst the trustees who ultimately approved the proposal.  Some unimaginatively took exception to the money - who will cover the estimated $850,000 required for the new facility?  Others were more forthcoming about policy concerns - is self-selected segregation really less harmful?  The debate picks up where a particularly volatile provincial election, largely defined by one candidate's positive stance towards publicly-funded alternative religious schooling, left off.

The school, when formally opened, will join 30 alternative schools already in existence in Toronto.  These schools have come to define their respective neighbourhoods, and there can be no doubt that this latest addition will do the same.  But it's not just religious and community schools that have become ultra-focussed. 

Recently, my chat with the mother of a soon-to-be teenager underscored the fact that a home buyer's search is often tethered to school quality and specialization - goals which are not restricted to the private domain.  Toronto's public high schools have increasingly taken the business of career prep seriously.  And serious means more specialized.  In a 2008-09 TDSB course selection guide for parents and students, aptly titled "Choices," familiar names - Georges Vanier SS and Albert Campbell CI - sit under the rather reticent banner of "Transportation Technologies."  With more pinpoint precision, Social Studies period has morphed into "Genocide: Historical and Contemporary Implications" and "World Geography: Urban Patterns and Interactions."

Whether public, private or alternative, Toronto's schools are increasingly distinct.  They offer diversity but along sharply drawn lines.  As schools define their own boundaries, the pressure to be in the "right" neighbourhood can only increase - can Toronto handle the momentum? 

For more on schools in the GTA area, visit Realosophy for local school and housing stats by neighbourhood.

Urmi Desai is an economic analyst and a freelance writer specializing in urban issues.  She is editor of the Move Smartly blog. Email Urmi

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Photo: Jarvis Collegiate Institute, Toronto

Unstoppable Drive: More Canadians Relying on Cars Today

Urmi in Urban Issues, Lifestyle

Stats Can's recent release, Dependence on Cars in Urban Neighbourhoods, reveals that car culture is alive and well in Canada - understandable to those that live the morning rush hour, daunting for those who wish to see this trend reversed.  The report, part of the Agency's Canadian Social Trends series, notes that overall levels of car dependency grew from 1992 to 2005 across Canada.

In this snapshot, 'dependency' generally means using the car for all trips in a single day.  Looking at the urban/suburban divide, the report confirms that there is a strong correlation between car dependency and living in low-density neighbourhoods (defined as areas in which 66.6% of dwellings are traditionally suburban - e.g., single, semi-detached or mobile homes).  Ditto for living further out from city centres.

Given that current growth plans put a high premium on high-density growth that promotes the use of public transit, you would think that we are only correcting mistakes of old.  Instead, rapidly sprawling cities of today such as Edmonton and Calgary are most car dependent - with 77% and 75% residents making all trips in a single day by car. In older, once bounded-by-water Montreal (see left), only 65% of residents indicate such usage.

 And it appears that it is hard to escape the destiny of that initial housing footprint.