Tewder
Senior Member
I know, I wish I had something better to say to mark the occasion ![Wink ;) ;)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
|
|
|
Two streets form what I refer to as the big t": Bay Street from Dundas to Richmond, crossed by Queen Street from Church to University. The "big t" aesthetic needs a refresh, redo, rethink, to pull it into context with the city that surrounds. Right now, everything about the "big t" is piecemeal and clumsy. Landscaping work and perhaps some public art could pull it all together. Hopefully the NPS renovation will be a catalyst.
The Yonge initiative put forward recently by Kristin Wong-Tam is ideal. A rethink / revamp of the "big t" would be a great followup.
To add:
The urban, walkable city was the template upon which cities were built, spontaneously, for millenia. Even when the car was an available technology, low-density auto-centric development was an exception, rather than the rule, and was only available to a small percentage of people who could afford it. Walkable neighbourhoods prevailed.
Suburbia as we know it was only possible due to very left-leaning, Keynesian policies initiated in the 1930s under FDR. Before then, it was nearly impossible for a private company to build all the amenities of suburbia: public freeways and access roads, parking lots, a more spread out utility infrastructure, because it was not worth the risk. It might have struck the homebuilder of the 1920s as completely ridiculous to provide all these amenities just to build low density housing that had to be moderately priced.
Of course, suburbia stuck because we made regulations that forced it to be the default way of building communities; that doesn't mean it's cheaper or more efficient to do so.
The difference is that Queens and Brooklyn aren't really suburbs, not in the same way that Scarborough and Etobicoke are. They're densely populated, urban places and they're a lot like central Toronto. If New York suddenly got amalgamated with Long Island then you'd probably see the same kind of fighting that happens in Toronto.
We have all heard the voluminous justification pumped out ad nauseum by professors who are required to publish or perish. Their output generally consists of pages and pages of foot notes linking their current volume of drivel to that of their fellows and little original thought, after all, they are not going to call into question the status quo that provides them with a nice living are they?
If density is so desirable, why is it suburban North York entered amalgamation with a healthy bottom line instead of proving to be a millstone around the neck of the original City of Toronto? Just askin'.
The first step is to educate idiot voters who vote in idiot mayors.
One final thought-I like the term "Metro" to describe the Toronto area much better then the GTA moniker...Thoughts from Long Island Mike
Isn't this what the Places To Grow plan is supposed to be about? Too bad they don't seem to be advocating for it! There are lots of little 'urban' nodes throughout the GTHA region and it makes so much sense to link them together through transit.
Just to clarify, the term "Metro" was only ever used to refer to Metro Toronto, not to the GTA (at least as far as I remember). "Metro" has simply been replaced by "City of Toronto" and old "City of Toronto" has been replaced with "former City of Toronto" or simply "downtown".
Because North York did not have to deal with all the issues Toronto did such as with social services and so forth. If you were down and out was it better to be in Toronto or North York? Toronto had so many more services that it offered and had to deal with than North York. Never saw people sleeping on the streets of North York. I think Mel Lastman even made a comment once when he was mayor of North York that the city (North York) had nobody that slept on the streets of North York