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Author Russell Smith Describes Toronto, perfectly on CBC's The Next Chapter.

Interesting how he mentions the stress of getting from point A to B. I always find myself to be so relaxed on subways and streetcars and I don't know why.
 
He's right about the messiness, but I happen to like the messiness. I also love the sweaty dog days of summer... the stress is internal, it's only inside you if you let it, and most people in the city helpful and at least pretend to be happy, so I don't know why he think we're all stressed. Learn some cardiac coherence methods to calm yourself down.
 
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Russell Smith is one of my favourite Canadian writers, particualrly because his sardonic attacks on the CanCon establishment are a pleasure to read, and something I missed after Mordecai Richler died.

I'm kind of with him on Toronto, too. I love this city and I hate this city. On one hand, this is a city of exuberant immigrants and big picture thinkers, and on the other hand it is the biggest collection of whiners, naysayers, debbie downers and people who will make an excuse - any excuse - as to why this city can't be just a shred better in a department that is failing at and only getting worse. There are areas of exceptional beauty in the city: the ravines, some of this city's best civic architecure, certain streetscapes and hidden fountains and cutaways in the urban fabric. But this city is also capable of exceptional ugliness: the rotting poles, crumbling facades plastered in cheap signage, disposable two storey commercial architecture and gas stations at prominent downtown intersections, oversize garbage bins and municipal electrical boxes scrawled in tags and slathered in wheat paste that look as if they were the bottom of your kitchen garbage can.

Anyway, I don't live in Toronto anymore and some days I feel that if all the people I cared about no longer lived there I would never come crawling back. On other days I find myself missing the city terribly and searching for elements of Toronto in foreign places that I visit. Toronto is a cruel and unusual mistress.
 
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Hipster Duck said:
Russell Smith is one of my favourite Canadian writers, particualrly because his sardonic attacks on the CanCon establishment are a pleasure to read, and something I missed after Mordecai Richler died.

I'm kind of with him on Toronto, too. I love this city and I hate this city. On one hand, this is a city of exuberant immigrants and big picture thinkers, and on the other hand it is the biggest collection of whiners, naysayers, debbie downers and people who will make an excuse - any excuse - as to why this city can't be just a shred better in a department that is failing at and only getting worse. There are areas of exceptional beauty in the city: the ravines, some of this city's best civic architecure, certain streetscapes and hidden fountains and cutaways in the urban fabric. But this city is also capable of exceptional ugliness: the rotting poles, crumbling facades plastered in cheap signage, disposable two storey commercial architecture and gas stations at prominent downtown intersections, oversize garbage bins and municipal electrical boxes scrawled in tags and slathered in wheat paste that look as if they were the bottom of your kitchen garbage can.

Anyway, I don't live in Toronto anymore and some days I feel that if all the people I cared about no longer lived there I would never come crawling back. On other days I find myself missing the city terribly and searching for elements of Toronto in foreign places that I visit. Toronto is a cruel and unusual mistress.
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Good description. Where do you live now? Don't say Mississauga. ;)
 
syn said:
Good description. Where do you live now? Don't say Mississauga. ;)
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Ha ha! No. I live in the biggest Mississauga there is: Phoenix. I don't have a "love/hate" relationship with Phoenix - more like a "occasionally very appreciative of/often completely-alarmed-by" relationship. I've found a position in Vancouver so I'll be moving there soon, though.
 
Hipster, you hit it on the head for me too. I don't live there and never have, but have worked there and always lived on its periphery... put off by it, often, but drawn to it too. Ah, Toronto!
 
Grew up in Toronto and it was here I learned to enjoy the urban environment. Still keep a small apartment and visit friends and family every few months. Live there again - unlikely.

The tragedy - in the true Shakespearian sense, is that it did not need to be this way. At one time Toronto was admired the world over as a city that worked. It is no accident that quotes such as "an American city that works" and "New York run by the Swiss" became standard.

Not meaning to swing OT but the following article of a couple of days ago in the NYT sums up what Toronto could have been. In fact, people did refer to Singapore as "the Toronto of the tropics."

Singapore Exports Its Government Expertise in Urban Planning

By SONIA KOLESNIKOV-JESSOP
Published: April 27, 2010


SINGAPORE — Last autumn, Singapore’s senior minister of state for national development and education helped officiate at the groundbreaking for a housing development in a new “eco city†that eventually will be home to 350,000 people. But the metropolis — featuring a power plant fueled by organic waste, pedestrian-oriented urban design and plenty of green space — is nowhere near Singapore: It is in northeastern China.

Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City is a $22 billion effort to turn an expanse of nonarable salt pan and deserted beaches into a 30-square-kilometer, or 11.5-square-mile, urban area southeast of Tianjin. For China, the project is intended to showcase resource-efficient technologies and serve as a model for other new cities in the country.

For Singapore, a city-state of five million with few natural resources and one of the highest population densities in the world, it is another chance for its companies to cash in on decades of government investment in urban planning.

In the 1960s, Singapore suffered from severe overcrowding, poor living conditions and a lack of infrastructure. Today, thanks to numerous public housing and land reclamation projects, a modern international financial and business hub stands where slums and squatters once resided.

“In the past 40 years, we’ve acquired a good reputation for our design and master plan for urban development. A lot of cities have come here asking us how we did it, and how we got where we are in this short span of time,†said Wong Kai Yeng, group director of Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority International, referring to growth since the former British colony gained independence in 1965.

Rapid, uncontrolled urbanization in developing countries is creating environmental as well as socioeconomic problems, including the growth of slums and increases in air pollution and waste. What the World Bank describes as possibly the biggest challenge of the 21st century is also a giant business opportunity for those ready to share their know-how.

While many engineering and architectural firms do business globally, Singapore is unusual in its systematic governmental efforts to export the country’s public-sector expertise — in effect, selling pieces of the Singapore Inc. model.

“What we see Singapore doing differently from other cities in the developed world is that in addition to offering technical assistance, it has cleverly harnessed these interests into its economic growth strategy,†said Abha Joshi Ghani, manager of the urban development and local government unit at the World Bank.

“It has increasingly structured the city’s competitiveness and growth around sustainable development with the aim of using Singapore as a test bed for future urban solutions,†she added. “It’s addressing areas of challenge that Singapore itself faces, and at the same time facilitating the export of knowledge and best practices among developing-country cities globally, thus creating jobs for its businesses and population.â€

Four years ago, the government set up a one-stop shop, the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise, to respond to foreign requests to tap its governmental experience, including urban planning and training in fighting corruption. Two years ago, Mr. Wong’s department, the Urban Redevelopment Authority International, was established to specifically deal with overseas enquiries on urban planning issues.

Each month, the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise, which has a full-time staff of 20, receives about 10 foreign delegations seeking expertise in areas like infrastructure development, master planning and water treatment. The agency organizes visits to relevant ministries and departments and puts on 5- to 10-day training programs.

So far, the enterprise has worked on more than 100 projects, including advising on master planning for the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil, advising Oman on the strategic development of its capital markets and training officials from Dubai’s Department of Finance. The government estimates that the enterprise funneled $40 million into Singapore’s economy in its first two years; more recent data are not available.
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Toronto could have been exporting its expertise as a city. Now it learns from Philadelphia.
 
Toronto is going through a prolonged and awkward adolescence right now, but eventually she will find her destiny and bloom into the great city we can now only see in faint outline.

Problem is, we're all likely to be dead when that happens.
 
While reading some material on negotiation I came upon the fun concept that opposition is a buying signal. The author muses that the opposite of love is not hate. Hate is opposition and means you care. The opposite of love is indifference. Gone with the Wind could only end not when Red Butler said "frankly my dear I hate you" but "frankly my dear I don't give a damn!" You can only hate this city because you care about it. It's the places you don't care either way about that you un-love.

The "golden age" of Toronto as I call it, that mythical time in the past when Toronto was "New York run by the Swiss" (I'm swiss and I don't know why I should be running a city) is a concept that should really be filed on the shelf. To some extent we must admire the optimism and big thinking of civic leaders during certain periods and try to seek a greater balance between collective and indivdual interests. On the other hand my area of the city was a total crap hole30-40 years ago vis-a-vis today. I deal with people and buildings in the area every day and I can say this with great confidence based on the legacy of those eras even though it was before my time.
 
not dead just not 28

Blovertis said:
Toronto is going through a prolonged and awkward adolescence right now, but eventually she will find her destiny and bloom into the great city we can now only see in faint outline.

Problem is, we're all likely to be dead when that happens.
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I'm from Toronto, and I think the speed of change here is
increasing exponentially. You'll be around when this city blossoms,
and you'll have gone through the exciting making-mistakes-to-learn phase.

Its fast. Its stressful, its vibrant, and its growing.
 
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