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*Huge* inequities in service in this city. My area at Mount Pleasant and Davisville is pretty much pristine now. Davisville, for instance, has been swept three times this past week alone. Driving north to work at York University, you pass over the 401, enter Downsview, and there is trash *everywhere*. The area around UTSC is also pretty bad, doesn't look like any cleaning has been done in the area at all. And don't get me started on the 401 embankments and ramps. 'Landfill' doesn't come close to describing them.
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Yea...I can see where that might cause some concern...but in this case, i think it's a little too early in the spring thaw to expect all 600+ sqkms of the city to be thoroughly cleaned simultainiously.

This doesn't mean I'm happy with the year-round resources at work keeping the city clean. The city has indeed gone from a deserved global reputation (to the point of being poked fun at it like we were obssessive compulsive about it and urban myth stories like the one about the film shoot) for being spik and span...to being more or less as untidy as your average city.


No one is talking about converting the place into Paris.
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Good...cause I don't think I could hack transplanted Haussman oppressiveness.



I'd offer the Kingsway as a case in point. However pretty Home Smith's residential streets are, the retail strip on Bloor has always been a standard, materialistic afterthought.
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Yea...that's something that has mystified me too...doesn't fit the usual pattern. As upscale residential nabes go, the Kingsway is one of the most exclusive, yet unlike all the other exclusive nabes, the local commercial "village" does not match the demographic.

Is it because it is Etobicoke, and they prefer driving to more suburbanesque style places? Is it because BWV is that much better and more entrenched, and too close..so why bother?
 
freshcutgrass said:
Yea...that's something that has mystified me too...doesn't fit the usual pattern. As upscale residential nabes go, the Kingsway is one of the most exclusive, yet unlike all the other exclusive nabes, the local commercial "village" does not match the demographic.

Is it because it is Etobicoke, and they prefer driving to more suburbanesque style places? Is it because BWV is that much better and more entrenched, and too close..so why bother?
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I think it might be that (a) Home Smith conceived it primarily as a speculative commuter suburb, with planned retail an afterthought that "just happened naturally" along Bloor; (b) if Home Smith *did* have commercial-nucleii ideas of some planning pretension, they'd have gotten nipped in the bud by the Depression; and (c) it wasn't until the postwar shopping-plaza era that such a planned nucleus was made possible, i.e. nearby Humbertown.

If anything, it's probably the lingering stodgy-old-Etobicoke culture that's weighed down Bloor in the Kingsway; otherwise, it'd have the pep of Bayview in Leaside...
 
I'm also inclined to think it is some kind of odd Etobicoke-specific reason. I mean, anyplace that continuously votes in Rob Ford can't be normal.
 
freshcutgrass, if you read my previous posts in this thread I allude to the same issues of affordability and expectation you raise. But maintenance and investment in physical space takes money. It is difficult to have affordability, equity and high levels of investment. Ultimately someone has to pay the price, either in high taxes, erosion of affordability, or erosion of wage equity. In Toronto like in all ways we strive for a medium level. Medium levels of maintenance and affordability, medium levels of investment, medium taxes, medium erosion of affordability and medium wage equity. So what is going to give to realize our expectation of a better physical environment?
 
It is difficult to have affordability, equity and high levels of investment.
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Yes it is...it's much easier to be on one side of the fence or the other, than to ride it. And Toronto manages to have done that reasonably successfully for a long time. It was easier before, because of various reasons (lower costs of services, less complicated focus and juggling on services & politics, plain luck).

Look at any "livability" study, and you will find Toronto near the top. Usually, you will find "livable" cities to be of the boring variety, and exciting, cosmopolitan cities to be farther down the list. Toronto is usually the only city that manages to juggle both with better than "medium" success.
 
nfitz said:
You should check out the Bronx. Less than 20% of the population of New York City lives in Manhattan. It's hardly representative of the city as a whole.

And personally, I've never smelled things in Toronto subway stations and exits, that I've smelled in Manhattan subway stations and exits.
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i can so totally relate, i was in new york last year standing at the base of the empire state building waiting for someone, and all i could smell was stale dried up urine. it was disgusting. and i like the smell of our subways.
 
Re: Manhattan. Not that it's cause to be smug, but in general when I've travelled I've seen lots of stuff that has given me pause. I stayed near the Place de la Republique in Paris about a week ago and noted a large homeless community there, complete with seemingly a semi-permanent tent city. Needless to say, the square was not very tidy, though, neither was it scary.
 
Check out also the area around Les Halles. It's pretty grungy. Definitely not the scrubbed-up landscape you would expect so close to the centre of Paris, complete with trash and broken fountains (sacre bleu!) in the park.
 
Point taken at re Les Halles. But what I think is noticeable about Toronto, unlike other large, popular cities, is that we don't have one area that is uniformly high end and beautiful. As an example, Bloor St. and Yorkville, succeed in places...but are intermingled with sketchy retail, broken down sidewalks, rusty poles etc.
 
unimaginative2 said:
I was just in the Beach today, and the place was absolutely beautiful and packed with people. Unfortunately, the ambiance is somewhat ruined by the ghastly overhead power lines. Some of the overloaded wooden poles are tottering so much that they look unsafe. Unfortunately, they just redid the streetcar tracks so they missed a magnificent opportunity to just go out and bury them.

I was also walking along the magnificent Kew Beach. It really looks spectacular, and is a real asset to the city. That being said, it's in pretty rough shape, even considering the season. Areas are enclosed with chicken wire, the single snack bar building looks pretty badly run down, and the sand has an unfortunate amount of litter. The latter eis a much more severe problem on my summer vists. Tropical beaches see vastly greater numbers of people, and yet they still manage to keep the beaches clean and tidy. I'm guessing it's because of the priority placed on maintaining and grooming the beach. They know that people come down there and spend fortunes because of their beautiful beaches, and they take care of them. I wish Toronto would show the same consideration on its own magnificent beaches. I really think that it's the litter that makes people think that the water is too gross to swim in. I did appreciate the (now-dry) skating rink that was built down there to make the park area well-used even in winter months.

I couldn't care less about the state of various shops. The last thing I would want is a monoculture of chain and high-end shops. It's kind of sad, though, that people think that lower-end shops must inherently be located on a poorly-maintained street.

The Clean and Beautiful City project is one of the best things the mayor has done, and it's even been surprisingly well executed. The plantings on University are gorgeous. It just needs to be expanded a hundredfold and spread across the city.
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Some of you may wanna kill me, but I don't consider the Beach part of the city. It's a suburb of sorts on the other side of the Don River; an upscale Ajax or Whitby.

The City, is bound by Bloor Street to the North, Parliament to the East, Dufferin to the West and the Lake to the south. The other regions are basically suburban sprawl. Sometimes rich sprawl. And sometimes poverty sprawl. But sprawl nonetheless. How do I know it's sprawl? Because there is no " there " there.
 
^String him up!

Just kidding.

The Beach is certainly out of the way, so I can see how it's psychologically apart from the rest of the city. Whenever I want to visit that area - which is about twice a year - I have to psych myself up for the journey.
 
I agree.

I live downtown, and the return cab fare for a trip to the Beach is about $65.00's. And once you're in the Beach, you may as well be in another place entirely. It's not really urban at all. But rather like a small town, with a quaint -- well not that quaint - trolly car trolling through the main street.

Getting in and out of there is a real pain. Whether by foot, bicycle or car. I can see the appeal, of living there in a way. But it's so cut off from everything -- maybe that's the point? -- as to be an impossible place to visit or live.

I noticed they have a different accent and dialect out there too. Has anyone else noticed it?
 
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