From today.

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If I worked for Toronto Hydro and regularily read this blog I am pretty sure therapy would be in order. I’m not sure I have ever read a positive piece about TH. Perhaps they just do not appreciate change upsetting their status quo…
 
Yeah it's crazy how much something as simple as the look of the ground can affect the look and feel of a place
It would be more puzzling if it didn't matter what it looked like. The ground (public realm) makes up close to a third of what we see/interact with as we walk around. When we lay down asphalt, concrete, ugly utility poles, etc. the only thing left to save us are architecturally beautiful buildings. Public realm matters and why the construction of attractive buildings is only part of the solution in building a beautiful, attractive, appealing city.

As much progress as has been made, 90% of the streets in our city need to be re-built. It's a monumental undertaking but at least the process has started. Those few blocks of Yonge downtown? I'm eagerly awaiting the re-build. We need to get this right. After that, it's time to turn attention to Queen, College, Dundas, King, Front, Sherbourne, Jarvis, Church, Bay, Spadina: literally 100s of streets.
 
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If I worked for Toronto Hydro and regularily read this blog I am pretty sure therapy would be in order. I’m not sure I have ever read a positive piece about TH. Perhaps they just do not appreciate change upsetting their status quo…
They see their SOLE role as being to provide hydro to the City and, for THSL, to light the streets to standard. They have ZERO 'civic sense" and even when they are offered $$ (from Section 347 etc) to improve how stuff looks they seem incapable of incorporating it!
 
It's probably been mentioned before, but the design of the podium(s) is really well thought out in the sense that it keeps your attention down and on a human scale, with the towers almost appearing as an afterthought, yet still seamlessly blending in with the complex. Really fascinating to see it all coming together
 

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