here's the Hume article for those who didnt see it yet. Some very colourful yet accurate writing... I agree with Hume, the fact that someone like Ford could even be considered as a potential mayor says a lot about the state of our society. I think people are becoming misguided in their frustration with the pace of change in our world, just like the Tea-party crowd in the US. We can't turn back time and revert to old ways, we have to move with change and be progressive...
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/tor...-rob-ford-don-t-you-know-fears-are-not-enough
Hume: Rob Ford, don’t you know fears are not enough?
By Christopher Hume
Urban Issues, Architecture
Rob Ford may be a joke to the rest of the world, but in suburbia he’s anything but funny.
Of all the mayoral candidates, he alone has tapped into a deep well of exurban fear and loathing, which he is exploiting it for all it’s worth. He is the inevitable consequence of a flawed amalgamation process that has left the former municipalities feeling ignored and left out.
That should come as no surprise — they are ignored and left out. Indeed, Scarborough, North York, Etobicoke and the rest were never taken seriously by the city, and for obvious reasons. But before amalgamation, it hardly mattered; they all had their own councils and Mel Lastmans to make them feel good about who they were and where they lived. Though the flaws in the whole suburban phenomenon have long since been revealed, residents have too much invested at this point to feel they have a choice.
While city council focuses on transit, bicycle lanes and green roofs, suburbia suffers though the worst traffic congestion in North America and an emerging economic reality that will leave them, literally, out in the cold.
Though Rob Ford has no platform and is poorly informed, he understands that fear and frustration. It doesn’t matter that he is an inarticulate, self-aggrandizing blowhard; suburbanites love him for it. He personifies anti-urbanism, which makes him a hero.
Change doesn’t come easily even at the best of times, but the kind of upheaval facing suburbia over the next few decades will be truly wrenching. Only Ford and Rocco Rossi, who’s simply too cosmopolitan for the ’burbs, are willing to argue otherwise. Of course, neither is doing voters any favours, but in a mayoral race, claims don’t have to be true and promises need not be kept.
The forces at play go well beyond Toronto, let alone Ford and Rossi. They can bluster all they want, but in the end, it’s those very green roofs, bike lanes and transit that will keep us afloat. Ford is a politician too caught up in his anti-government blather to see beyond his own rhetoric. This is a man who would rather shoot the messenger than become one himself.
Most Ford supporters understand that as mayor, he would be a disaster and an embarrassment. The thing is they don’t care. Such is the extent of their rage, they would be happy to bring down the whole house of cards even though they would suffer the most. Cutting off their nose to spite their place.
In the end, Ford won’t win. But the fact many take him seriously should be a wake-up call to all; he is a symptom of malaise that runs deep throughout Toronto, a city his legions never wanted to be part of in the first place. How ironic that it was one of their heroes, former premier Mike Harris, who inflicted such an ignominious fate upon them.
Yet Ford’s impact would be a whole lot worse; all those misguided suburbanites who think he’s their champion, the one who would stand up for the little guy, couldn’t be more off the mark. It will take a whole lot of government intervention and public spending to turn their ruinously wasteful communities into something remotely sustainable.
It will also require intelligent and honest leadership, not a sideshow barker like Ford to lead Toronto — all of Toronto — into the future. With any luck, the new mayor will be part of the solution, not, like Ford, part of the problem.
