taal
Senior Member
Why will it cost so much, nothing seems to elaborate here?
larger skating rink - strange, considering the current one is only busy for a few hours a day, a few months of the year.
True, but a larger one would likely attract far more people since Mississaugans would then be less inclined to go downtown or to Brampton's beautiful Gage Park to get their outdoor skating fix.
The current rink really is tiny.
The idea of a "public piazza" just doesn't fly with the suburbs. This is the realm that believes in the private realm... private schools, private cul de sacs, private swimming pools, private swimming lessons.
The idea of a "public piazza" just doesn't fly with the suburbs. This is the realm that believes in the private realm... private schools, private cul de sacs, private swimming pools, private swimming lessons. Its one thing to physically change a landscape to make it more European and pedestrian-friendly, but its another for the locals to jump on board.
Anyone been to the "bustling" streets of Cornell lately?
You apparently don't live in Mississauga. Not everyone lives in Lorne Park and sends the kids to private school. Miss. is pretty resolutely middle class, and there are in fact actual pockets of poverty not far at all from this location.
I, too, wonder at how well-used this square will be used. We can take a look at one square in the GTA that is already in this configuration and in almost the same environment... Mel Lastman Square in North York Centre. It's got a reflecting pool/rink and a bandshell, and it's located next to a civic complex, a library, and is within walking distance of many condo towers and Yonge Street, which has a level of urbanity that MCC is looking for. However the square is usually empty outside of special events (and some events only draw a handful of people).
I hope Mississauga can do better, but "build it and they will come" rarely applies to civic squares outside the downtown area.
Let me rephrase myself. By private I wasn't necessarily referring to an affluent lifestyle (poorly using private schools and pools as an example), but rather as a spectrum-wide preference for the private domain. As someone who has spent nearly half his life in the burbs, I can tell you that I did not visit a community centre until the age of 9, and only used a public park under the watchful eye of soccer moms in houseleague soccer, only to be whisked away in a Caravan the moment nightfall hit. In my life, the TV rec room was the area of play, not the front yard or the local parkette.
You're missing the point. In central Toronto the parks and public spaces tend to be more widely used and better integrated into their communities than in the suburbs. People use the public realm more in central areas, while in suburban areas people are more restricted to the private realm. This is well documented and not exactly controversial. And it's one of the main reasons that the design of suburbs has been changing to a more traditional built form, like in Cornell or Oak Park.Just because you had an unsatisfying childhood doesn't mean everyone else had the same. The fact is that there is a lot private space in the city as well. After all, isn't Dundas Square private as well?