denfromoakvillemilton
Senior Member
Ontario has all powers over the cities anyway. Nothing happens until the premier said so.
I'm not scared. Not at all. Although I wouldn't vote for him today based on his policies I believe that Mayor Ford will be better for the City of Toronto than Mayor Miller has been. His accountability platform seems genuine to me and there's no denying the enormous fiscal waste coming from City Hall. Smitherman strikes me as more of the same and his ties to the provincial government leave me feeling quite uncomfortable with him.
I believe much of the negativity towards Rob Ford emanates from superficial judgment of his physical appearance (ie discrimination) and his unpolished delivery.
Hudak could if the caucus pushes him.
Absolutely, the Megacity is dysfunctional.
Pretty much the only ones complaining are those downtown because they have less control in choosing the mayor. Feeling privileged and entitled is just a fact of life for some. I believe the technical term for that is a Massive Suck.How?
It's essentially exactly the same as Metro since 1967, only without the duplication of services and the two levels of government getting in each other's way. What, exactly, worked then that doesn't work now?
The problem with picking the perfect size for a city is that there is no perfect size. Some issues, like rapid transit, need to be dealt with on a large scale. Other issues, like local zoning standards, need to be dealt with on a much smaller scale. The trick to picking the best size is to maximize the number of issues that can be appropriately dealt with and making your city that size. Having two or more levels of government, each with specific responsibilities, can give a community two or more separate scales at which to operate. The problem with Toronto at its current size is that it is too large for local issues and too small for regional issues. It is however just the right size for many services like policing and fire protection.
Personally, I think dissolving the local municipalities in favour on one Toronto in 1998 was a mistake. They should have dissolved Metro Toronto, York, Durham and Peel, and made all the urban areas (those area that are now within the green belt) one large super region. They should have kept all the small local councils to deal with local issues and given all the large over-arching issues to the new super regional government. A similar system could have been implemented for Hamilton, Wentworth and Halton.
Pretty much the only ones complaining are those downtown because they have less control in choosing the mayor. Feeling privileged and entitled is just a fact of life for some. I believe the technical term for that is a Massive Suck.
You know people downtown don't go on this mission to destroy suburbia.......
If anything, they want it to keep developing into a real city rather than stagnate. Downtown is our greatest city-building achievement; unsurprisingly there's a vision for the rest of the city that originates from urban Toronto. The suburbs tend to emphasize a downtown that's more convenient for driving, even if it means compromising what makes it successful and great.
But that's unfair because plenty of suburbanites respect the way downtown works and visions of urbanization.
Thing is, the hot button issues that suburbanites and downtowners disagree on tend to revolve around downtown - bike lanes, narrowing streets, culture funding, streetcars, social services, etc. Etobicoke stays largely unchanged no matter who's in charge, but a lot of damage can be done to downtown when the people in charge don't understand urban issues.But you are perfectly ok with people from downtown making decisions for the suburbs? Say Etobicoke or Scarborough?
The firms that assess Toronto's fiscal well being might disagree with that.there's no denying the enormous fiscal waste coming from City Hall.