junctionist said:
There's nothing wrong with using a word in a new way if useful and there's some social consensus on it.
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I don't think you're getting consensus on this. Alternate meanings for words are only useful if the correct meaning can be sussed out from the context. Otherwise you are muddying the waters and making language less precise. We use appropriate words so that our messge can be understood, not confused.

This is not blockbusting.

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interchange42 said:
I don't think you're getting consensus on this. Alternate meanings for words are only useful if the correct meaning can be sussed out from the context. Otherwise you are muddying the waters and making language less precise. We use appropriate words so that our messge can be understood, not confused.

This is not blockbusting.

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Many people have used the word in this sense on here and elsewhere in Toronto, so there is some consensus, if not full consensus. The correct meaning can be understood from the context. The context is urban development and city blocks. City blocks have been cleared of their buildings for a single large development, hence "busted" or destroyed. This meaning actually seems more intuitive than than the Wikipedia definition as "a business practice of U.S. real estate agents and building developers meant to encourage white property owners to sell their houses at a loss, by implying that racial minorities were moving into their previously racially segregated neighborhood, thus depressing real estate property values". This Wikipedia definition also doesn't seem relevant to our culture. When there's no word available, we have to come up with something or our language will fail to express something we want to express. That's muddy language--when we don't have the word to say what we want and can only resort to descriptions of the practice every single time we talk about it. By demolishing everything in the block bounded by King, Pearl, Ed Mirvish Way and John Street, there will be blockbusting.
 
You can only claim consensus if you ignore all the people telling you that you are simply wrong.

You are simply wrong. That is not what the term means, no matter how much you want it to.

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interchange42 said:
You can only claim consensus if you ignore all the people telling you that you are simply wrong.

You are simply wrong. That is not what the term means, no matter how much you want it to.

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Then give me a satisfactory term to use, or I'll keep using it in that way. There's really nothing that can stop me, and I really don't care as a free and social person. The point is moot. Some people might find it convenient to use it as well. If no one understands or uses it, I'll stop using it. ("Point is moot" is another recent example of a phrase used in a way that by historical definitions is "simply wrong" but was redefined because people needed to use language differently than in the past.)
 
junctionist:

The forum really isn't in the business of perpetuating information that is simply incorrect (at best) and emotionally manipulative (at worst). I am confident you will be able to come up with a term that is both accurate and less emotionally charged?

AoD
 
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I agree that the term "blockbusting" is stigmatized by past practice (the US examples, + pre-Crombie Toronto)--though there may be vague parallels to the fears of a "domino effect" resulting from Mirvish/Gehry). But if "blockbusting" doesn't completely fit, neither does "megastructure" for vaguely parallel past-association reasons--though one thing I *do* fear here is the same tripwire that compromised a lot of past megastructures (or, for that matter, early c20 City Beautiful civic schemes); that is, fatal incompletion. If only one tower out of Gehry's three is built, that'll make for a pretty anticlimactic fragment, IOW--you're really locked into an "all or nothing, ASAP" situation here.

Though speaking of nomenclature...

AlvinofDiaspar said:
One thing to remember is that preservation cost money - and presumably, it will eat into Gehry's budget. In any rate, not all the buildings along the stretch is worth saving, perhaps they could just preserve the facade of Anderson Building and use it elsewhere?

AoD
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I think it would be less charged if you spoke in terms of "impractical to save" rather than "not worth saving". Because under practically any lesser (i.e. Gehry-free and all of that) circumstance, to speak of the existing buildings as "not worth saving" would be obtuse, to say the least. OTOH I can understand the Gehry/Mirvish team's concerns about retention; and even I've stated as much in the past through fears of postage-stamp facadectomy in Anderson's case, or that the other buildings'd properly require retention as "volumes" rather than facadectomies...
 
I vote for blockbusting to be used here. I agree that it's been used in this context on this very board many times.

If people on this board can get away with writing Mark 111 instead of Mark III and haft instead of half, then there's no reason we can't use blockbusting here.
 
Blockbusting has a significant history in St. James Town. It was used by developers to drive people out of their homes when their neighbours sold to the developers but they didn't. The developer lets the properties they own fall apart, causing the value of the holdouts properties to drop. If you don't sell, you end up with a nearly worthless property.

That's blockbusting, and the term should not be diluted by mis-using it here.

Where pray-tell are these other many alleged mis-uses on UT?

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As has been stated numerous times already, what is happening here is not blockbusting, by any stretch of the imagination.
 
adma:

I think it would be less charged if you spoke in terms of "impractical to save" rather than "not worth saving". Because under practically any lesser (i.e. Gehry-free and all of that) circumstance, to speak of the existing buildings as "not worth saving" would be obtuse, to say the least. OTOH I can understand the Gehry/Mirvish team's concerns about retention; and even I've stated as much in the past through fears of postage-stamp facadectomy in Anderson's case, or that the other buildings'd properly require retention as "volumes" rather than facadectomies...
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As I see it, it is less "impractical" (given the fact that it can be done) but more of an issue of "worth" - relatively speaking - to a compromised end product, as well as whether the most likely forms of preservation (facademctomy) would be worth the effort, as you've mentioned.

AoD
 
interchange42 said:
Blockbusting has a significant history in St. James Town. It was used by developers to drive people out of their homes when their neighbours sold to the developers but they didn't. The developer lets the properties they own fall apart, causing the value of the holdouts properties to drop. If you don't sell, you end up with a nearly worthless property.
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Hmm. Perhaps something of this sort has been going on in this case. For such a prime location, I'm surprised that 5/6 buildings are covered in a bland taupe or grey paint. Almost all the other old properties along the "Two Kings" have exposed brick, which IMO increases their value more than one would think. Maybe the drab shroud of paint is to lower their value and get people to dislike without thinking twice about their preservation.

Edit: I take it my post will ruffle some feathers. Naturally. But other than setting fire to them, what better way for the owner to get rid of them than to make them look like shit so the public wouldn't care for their removal?
 
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¿Seriously?

That is not even close to the history of this block.

Adma, you'd be one of the best to answer this one. (Don't blow your top though.) (Actually, others may have the patience to answer that. Sorry, but I don't right now.)

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I wouldn't say it's that kind of deliberate "devaluing" gesture; but more of a holdover from when this was established as Mirvishian "signature frontage" in the 1960s and 1970s--and in fact, this plus the flashy marquee-light signs was more of a *revaluing* thing, back when gentrifiers were often called "whitepainters" and the like. To ascribe something more heritage-slumlordy here is overzealous IMO.

Oh, and Alvin...

As I see it, it is less "impractical" (given the fact that it can be done) but more of an issue of "worth" - relatively speaking - to a compromised end product, as well as whether the most likely forms of preservation (facademctomy) would be worth the effort, as you've mentioned.
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Nonetheless, that's still a kind of "impracticality". And once again, it's because to brand "not worth saving" does, broadly and extra-Gehrily, a gross injustice to the properties in question--i.e. back to the whole notion of whomever'd say "I'd sacrifice them for much less"...
 
I am intrigued as to the conversations that must be going on now on the money side of things between Gehry's staff and Mirvish's team. Just how much splash can they afford in this design with the sq.ft. of condos they could potentially sell. I am sure there are # of floors vs. design/material options scenarios that are being made up to take to the planners and Councillor Vaughan as teasers ie. "we could make this really beautiful if you give us these # of floors". And just how much is Councillor Vaughan willing to chew in return for his desire for the John St. Cultural Corridor? Interesting times these are!!
 
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