Waterfront Toronto, incrementally on its own, through condo development and small privately paid for public parks, has not so far been able provide a public park and public amenities on the scale of places like Central Park or Mount Royal Park. Governments have stopped making these public investments that all can enjoy, regardless of social class. Man does not live on bread alone. We need places for the public to enjoy. Not everyone can afford a half million dollar condo with a lake view. I'm not sure how you propose to address all the infrastructure deficits. We need more than roads and bits of subway that take decades to build. That's it. I don't believe that dumbing the argument down to the "Bread, Not Circuses" debate resolves the question of whether a bid for a World's Fair is worthwhile. The question is, Could a World's Fair make a difference to the quality of life for Torontonians? How? What is the vision?
Any New Yorker can tell you the value of Central Park and the Museum Mile on 5th Ave., which includes the Met, one of the world's greatest museums that allows visitors to pay nothing if they discern that they cannot afford admission. Don't underestimate the value of public cultural and recreational attractions. Toronto doesn't have enough of them. High Park is not downtown. A World's Fair doesn't have to work at cross purposes with plans already in the works. Waterfront Toronto would remain at the heart of planning any grand public project. I also suggest attracting as much private sponsorship as possible. Something tells me that leaving development of this massive lakeside brownfield to condo developers will be a missed opportunity, probably the last chance for the city to get it right on a large scale. If you want something truly special, much larger than the sum of its parts, government has to intervene.
