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CHALLENGING STEREOTYPES
TheStar.com | GTA | Don't call it `Scarlem'
Scarborough councillors to debate today if area gets fair shake from city
Jan 15, 2008 04:30 AM
John Spears
city hall bureau
Are they just whiners? Or are folks in Scarborough unfairly deprived and disrespected by their Toronto cousins who live west of Victoria Park Ave.?
It's a topic that vexes Scarborough politicians so much they've decided to debate, at today's community council meeting, whether their community gets a fair shake.
The talking points:
A report commissioned by the council that delves into city statistics to see whether Scarborough gets its fair share of city services.
An invitation to Toronto Life magazine representatives to discuss an article portraying the former city as a bleak, gang-infested "Scarlem."
A frustration that, once again, the city's Winterlicious restaurant promotion has bypassed every eatery in Scarborough.
Councillor Norm Kelly, who chairs Scarborough community council, decided to face the area's stigma head-on following the 2006 elections. During the campaign, Kelly said he found a "widespread and deeply held apprehension" that Scarborough has been shortchanged.
At Kelly's urging, the councillors hired two University of Toronto students to measure whether Scarborough's share of 10 city services is appropriate.
The result: It's hard to tell.
The students concluded that, statistically, Scarborough gets a fair share of children's services, long-term care services, roads and social housing. They could only say it's "uncertain" whether Scarborough's share of hostels, libraries, parks, policing, transit and water service is appropriate.
For example, Scarborough has fewer library branches, but has more books in its library collection than other parts of the city – and Scarborough residents are Toronto's biggest library borrowers.
As for policing, Scarborough has 20 per cent of the city's police officers but 24 per cent of the population. But the students also found that Scarborough has a lower crime rate than the rest of the city, which might explain the lighter policing. (The report is unclear about what yardstick it uses to measure crime.)
Kelly said in an interview that the exercise demonstrates why stereotypes ought to be challenged: "The more they (researchers) got into it, the more all of us realized it was a much more complex issue than most people think it is.
"The facts are, by and large, we are getting our fair share, and we're not Scarlem," Kelly said. "It's safer to live east of Victoria Park than west."
Moreover, he said, fields where the researchers found deficiencies were mainly those that had been controlled by the local Scarborough council prior to amalgamation.
But some councillors say irritants persist. Councillor Michael Thompson noted the city's Winterlicious program has once again left out Scarborough restaurants. Most of the participants in the fine-dining promotion are in the city core.
Thompson, in an interview, laid much of the blame on criteria used by city staff to define who's eligible. To be eligible, restaurants must be rated by two of three specified publications: the Zagat Survey, Patron's Pick and Toronto Life Annual Eating and Drinking Guide. Thompson said restaurants outside the city centre are less likely to be rated.
A city official said 260 restaurants qualified for Winterlicious – with only two in Scarborough, and both declined the invitation.
*****
I know one of the authors of Kelly's report, but I haven't discussed at length with her about the report. She lives just across the Scarborough border in Markham, yet most of her daily activities take place south of the border... school, church, dining, etc. So she is viewing Scarborough both as an outsider and an insider.
The whole thing about Scarborough's nicknames (Scarberia and Scarlem) is just ridiculous. What the media and the councillors are making of those names isn't how the average Scarberian (or is it "Scarborougher" now?) see it. The average person from Scarborough would probably laugh off the nicknames, rather than get offended by them, just like the nicknames of Scarborough neighbourhoods like "Asian-court" and "Wo-brown". Some people are even proud of being from a place called "Scarlem"... for example, another one of my friends (
see photo).
There used to be one Chinese restaurant in Scarborough that was involved in Winterlicious (Dragon Dynasty, at Brimley and Huntingwood). I'd like to see some more Chinese restaurants get into Winterlicious (like Sam Woo, which I heard is Unimaginative's favorite Chinese restaurant). Problem is, prices at Chinese restaurants are already so competitive that they can't lower their prices any more for Winterlicious.
. Hmm...