Another Grass-is-Greener Everywhere Else tête-à -tête-à -tête-à -tête

[taal]

Yes Bloor street looks awesome, but look what it took to build that. The richest landlords in the city had to chip in their own dime. And they had to do it kicking and screaming with an interest free loan from the taxpayers. Likely won't see anything like that happen again anywhere in the city except perhaps on the downtown stretch of Yonge.

Hence my comment regarding I wish people would just accept it

 

[TonyV]

Whatever these posts have to do with 1 York/90 Harbour, I don't know, but I'll wade in (primarily because I have time this morning). I don't worry about cracked sidewalks, messy overhead wiring, or street signs that lack distinction. If you want to focus on the hole instead of the donut, then go ahead if that is your choice.

I've travelled, and returned home to Toronto many times, and I can say with a degree of authority that you pick your poison. The bad is outweighed by the good here. Travel, and you'll discover that all great cities have warts, serious warts, and the warts take on different forms from place to place. I think we have a great society here in Toronto, and for that reason I've chosen to stay here, during the times that I have had choices. I'm happy with my choice. So many posters have cited other cities, including our "rivals", so to speak. So many of these cities (and their respective nations) are seriously in debt. There may be a show of appearance, maintenance, but that can't go on forever. Eventually the "cracks" begin to show, so to speak, in one way or another.

To me, Toronto's big picture is impressive. This city is a great seat of learning and culture, a place that is recognized internationally as an emerging destination with myriads of things going on. To grab a sentiment expressed by Frank Godrey, it is going to become a top five destination on this continent. The fact that we are situated in a city-unfriendly country and province makes it even more amazing. What a stunning contrast.

Frank Godfrey gets closer to the point, though, because his comments smack somewhat of Thatcherism (i.e. personal responsibility). While I didn't particularly care for most of Thatcher's approaches, it is very likely that given the state of the world economy we are probably headed into a Thatcher-style era of restraint, so don't expect those cracked sidewalks and overhead wires to be addressed anytime soon.

Back on topic, I want to see the 1 York proposal rejected. I get the impression that the current administration will take anything, though. Not good.

.. and how we got saddled with the current administration is an entirely different topic.

 

[UrbanAffair]

Totally agree with your post Tony, I also enjoy travelling around, but will continue to call Toronto my home. I have a swiss girlfriend, and although their cities are beautiful and the country is light years ahead of us in terms of transit, there are as you mentioned cracks there too that become noticeable if you are actually staying there as opposed to touring or siteseeing. I don't think however that the debt issues has much to do with the cities and more to do with larger macro issues of the econmic life cycle, and its my personal beleive that govts just don't have enough political backbone to deal with the ups and downs of the cycle well by injecting stimulus in the hard times, and raising taxes. I don't think strong funding of city services has been the reason for the recent financial issues in most of these places.

 

[mrgrieves]

Whatever these posts have to do with 1 York/90 Harbour, I don't know, but I'll wade in (primarily because I have time this morning). I don't worry about cracked sidewalks, messy overhead wiring, or street signs that lack distinction. If you want to focus on the hole instead of the donut, then go ahead if that is your choice.

I've travelled, and returned home to Toronto many times, and I can say with a degree of authority that you pick your poison. The bad is outweighed by the good here. Travel, and you'll discover that all great cities have warts, serious warts, and the warts take on different forms from place to place. I think we have a great society here in Toronto, and for that reason I've chosen to stay here, during the times that I have had choices. I'm happy with my choice. So many posters have cited other cities, including our "rivals", so to speak. So many of these cities (and their respective nations) are seriously in debt. There may be a show of appearance, maintenance, but that can't go on forever. Eventually the "cracks" begin to show, so to speak, in one way or another.

To me, Toronto's big picture is impressive. This city is a great seat of learning and culture, a place that is recognized internationally as an emerging destination with myriads of things going on. To grab a sentiment expressed by Frank Godrey, it is going to become a top five destination on this continent. The fact that we are situated in a city-unfriendly country and province makes it even more amazing. What a stunning contrast.

Frank Godfrey gets closer to the point, though, because his comments smack somewhat of Thatcherism (i.e. personal responsibility). While I didn't particularly care for most of Thatcher's approaches, it is very likely that given the state of the world economy we are probably headed into a Thatcher-style era of restraint, so don't expect those cracked sidewalks and overhead wires to be addressed anytime soon.

Back on topic, I want to see the 1 York proposal rejected. I get the impression that the current administration will take anything, though. Not good.

.. and how we got saddled with the current administration is an entirely different topic.

Tony, I agree that Toronto is an incredible and exciting city. Every city has its pros and cons, as you state. However, there is no reason why the "bad" (or warts) are necessary or need to exist at all. Just because the bad outweigh the good here doesn't mean that the bad aspects cannot be resolved or eliminated.

What specifically comes to mind are two things: the general aesthetics of the city, and transit (much larger issue). Improving the aesthetics will not bankrupt the city and its quite pathetic that places like Buffalo take much more pride in their cityscape. I don't see any overhead wires in their downtown core. Its nothing more than a reflection of the citizens of the city and the history of the city (Toronto as more of a backwater blue-collar hogtown) which I'm hoping will be improve as the city continues to progress.

Transit obviously is a whole other issue I'm not getting into.

Toronto is an amazing place but there is no reason except for being timid that it cannot take a step to the next level.

 

[scrapergeek]

Having lived in London, England and spent a great deal of time in Paris, France, I can assure you that a large percentage of both cities look like crap. The picture postcard scenes are not representative of the whole cities, just small sections of (mainly) central districts. The same applies to many cities in the world.

 

[Tewder]

Most of what's within the périph is pretty decent though, no? London has lots of great nabes too where things are pretty well maintained, not just the heart of tourist London.

 

[kkgg7]

Completely agree ... having said that we can still improve ... look at Bloor ... look at the new waterfront development ... plans for Yonge.

Have these changes paste and future put us in the same league as New York and the like ... nope ...

I wish people would just accept that though. I understand that want to better the city, and we've seen that a little.

Not just Bloor, I believe King St (East and West) and College/Carlton are also nice east-west streets in the downtown part. Dundas and Queen are messy except between Yonge and University.

I agree Toronto will never be famous for beauty and will never be comparable to NYC and Paris, but there are a lot we can do to make the city more pleasing and inviting. The good thing is that the city seems to be aware of that and is moving toward the right direction, sometimes faster than we realize.

 

[kkgg7]

Paris, Vancouver, or Quebec City -- that's quite the range. In respect of Vancouver (I live in the West End), I would caution you not to confuse the natural terrain with inspired architecture of urban planning. Like everyone else, they do some things right out here and other things not so right. It's the same in every city across North America. Take away the mountain views out here and the actual architecture can be seriously wanting -- Coal Harbour and the relatively recent waterfront development is cold and rather soulless (a nice place to pass through without stopping). Yaletown has slightly more energy but, like False Creek, can be another plague of glass tower locusts. Take a walk down Granville Street or, even worse, West Broadway -- both architectural abortions and the worst of east Danforth-like strips of pizza-by-the-slice joints. To make matters worse, the locals are uniformly non-critical about it. Say what you want about Toronto, the locals can have differeing viewpoints. Say something even remotely critical about Vancouver (especially if you're from, god forbid, Toronto, and they go bat shit crazy). Toronto isn't perfect, but it aint bad. It takes the odd inspired risk, runs into the same problems as everyone, and has to move a hell of a lot more people on top of that. The analogy to Quebec City out here is Victoria (small-size city with a small historical core) -- but 10 cars in total and they STILL have traffic crawls (ditto the looming traffic congestion problem out here on the 'Surrey crawl'). No one's perfect. But comparing Toronto to Paris and its La Belle Epoch beauty, or Vancouver to Paris, is apples and oranges.

Agree.
Vancouver is considered "beautiful" only because its natural setting. If you strip the mountains and ocean from the background, you can hardly associate Vancouver with "beautiful" or "Paris". The whole downtown is like a CityPlace, just endless glass towers with little character.

 

[marcus_a_j]

The whole downtown is like a CityPlace, just endless glass towers with little character.

Haha, good one. True, there are quite a bit of forgettable glass towers (and some really nice ones too), but downtown Van doesn't just consist of Yaletown and Coal Harbour. Personally I like a lot of the older apartment buildings in the West End and overlooking English Bay, and there are a lot of decent low-rise and mid-rise buildings across the entire City and Region.

 

[urbandreamer]

Yep the West End is truly unique in Canada and is possibly one its best neighbourhoods. Failtown is a totally different thing...and is such a bore.

The West End has the incredible vibrancy that is perhaps found in parts of Montreal, only with c.1960s architecture instead of century old walkups.

 

[taal]

Say what you want about culture and vibrancy, but Vancouver does a better job then us all around in terms of their public / streetscaping. A lot more attention to detail in their developments.

Cityplace actually has some nice architectural details on the ground, in Vancouver, all developments have this and some ...

 

[isaidso]

Say what you want about culture and vibrancy, but Vancouver does a better job then us all around in terms of their public / streetscaping. A lot more attention to detail in their developments.

So does Montreal. Streetscaping/the public realm is one area that Toronto scores very poorly.

 

[67Cup]

Agree.
Vancouver is considered "beautiful" only because its natural setting. If you strip the mountains and ocean from the background, you can hardly associate Vancouver with "beautiful" or "Paris". The whole downtown is like a CityPlace, just endless glass towers with little character.

That's a bit like saying Jessica Alba is an ugly woman except for her face.

Vancouver has also worked hard at maintaining the views. And setting aside and then maintaining Stanley Park may have been the single best Urban planning decision in Canada in the 20th century. There are plenty of things wrong with Vancouver, eg the true blemish, the shameful Downtown East Side, but it is a gorgeous, livable, albeit too costly place to live.

- Torontonian, now resident on the Wet Coast.

Oh, and Scarlet Johanson has no figure, except for...

 

[Logan]

If you strip the mountains and ocean from the background, you can hardly associate Vancouver with "beautiful" or "Paris". The whole downtown is like a CityPlace, just endless glass towers with little character.

No ocean or mountains in this shot. Hmmm..

Photo by Lightbox on flickr.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/47033312@N08/6768217567/lightbox/

 

[Thanos]

Vancouver is king of Canada when it comes to the public realm aspect.
But it needs to work on it's entertainment aspect.