Buenos Aires - Cliché Bitching About Toronto Thread

[mrgrieves]

There's something about seeing a pole that's been papered or stuck with years worth of staples that suggests you're in an urban and lively space.

I understand that you think that the tired, stapled wooden poles have more character than something more sterile. And maybe you can make the argument that in some parts of the city (ex: Queen West or the Annex) they do add to the public realm. Since it was a discussion of Buenos Aires which kicked off this thread, in that city the Puerto Madero portside area was redeveloped but they kept the old cranes which were used to unload ships. They've been tastefully integrated into the public space and remind people of what the area once was. Maybe they'll keep two or three wooden poles around when they do finally get rid of them.

However in the vast majority of Toronto the wooden poles are just plain ugly and are more symbolic with a poor, struggling city. Some of the most affluent or architecturally beautiful parts of the city are scarred with the presence of ugly wooden poles, transformers and overhead wires. These are not grungy areas like the Plateau in Montreal or Greenwich Village where the wooden poles fit in with the surroundings.

Toronto is an affluent and very successful city and in my mind afraid of its own success. I think that people who grew up here are used to seeing ugliness, but for relative newcomers it can be shocking.

 

[MisterF]

I don't see the wooden poles in that way. I think in some ways they actually help enhance the public space and how we view the city. There's something about seeing a pole that's been papered or stuck with years worth of staples that suggests you're in an urban and lively space. Maybe it's because I'm not originally from Toronto, but I vividly remember my early visits to the city a decade ago and finding that the life attached to these poles contributed to the idea that I was "somewhere".

Don't get me wrong, I think design is incredibly important (The Music Garden is my favourite space in the city and I've long complained about the lack of respect for public spaces when it comes to maintenance of water fountains) but I just don't see street poles as making negative contributions to our city.

I remember seeing a photo thread on SSP of a neighbourhood in London. I don't remember which one but it was very trendy, with markets, spontaneous performances, and tonnes of streetlife. People were commenting on how lively and gritty it was in an almost third world kind of way, but in a good way. And all I could think was that in a neighbourhood that people were literally saying looked third world, there wasn't a single wooden pole or overhead wire in sight.

Needless to say I couldn't disagree with you more. Wooden poles covered in rusted staples don't enhance the public space, they detract from it. There are countless lively and even gritty urban spaces all over the world with no wooden poles. Someone from London or Tokyo or even Buenos Aires would be baffled by the idea that wooden hydro poles are an indication of being "somewhere". Do you think Picadilly Circus or Shibuya would be livelier with wires strung on poles?

 

[jn_12]

I remember seeing a photo thread on SSP of a neighbourhood in London. I don't remember which one but it was very trendy, with markets, spontaneous performances, and tonnes of streetlife. People were commenting on how lively and gritty it was in an almost third world kind of way, but in a good way. And all I could think was that in a neighbourhood that people were literally saying looked third world, there wasn't a single wooden pole or overhead wire in sight.

Needless to say I couldn't disagree with you more. Wooden poles covered in rusted staples don't enhance the public space, they detract from it. There are countless lively and even gritty urban spaces all over the world with no wooden poles. Someone from London or Tokyo or even Buenos Aires would be baffled by the idea that wooden hydro poles are an indication of being "somewhere". Do you think Picadilly Circus or Shibuya would be livelier with wires strung on poles?

People will always be baffled about why things are a certain way in other cities. What might constitute as a symbol or a contributing factor to sense of place in one city shouldn't necessarily be a factor elsewhere. Besides, I haven't suggested that they're the only symbol of "sense of place", and that their absence elsewhere indicates that those places are lacking but I would argue that in our case they certainly do contribute.

I'm pretty sure at this point i'm just going to agree to disagree about it.

 

[Tewder]

I agree completely with MisterF!... and no disrespect to jn_12 but that position just lends further credence to the all-too dominant mindset that blindly compromises design for functionality, beauty for pragmatism, and quality for frugality. Those poles persist because they are relentlessly functional, pragmatic and cheap, regardless of what they do to the quality of the urban streetscape, regardless of what they say about our relationship to the shared public realm... and the fact that they are marred by staples and poster remnants, and covered with city signage and wires etc. only makes the commentary worse. It says we are blind to our surroundings, apathetic to them. It is the same perspective that blinds us to the gum-stained and asphalt-patched sidewalks or the broken fountains and patchy grassed parks. It is the stubborn persistence of the frontier-town mindset of our Muddy York/Hogtown past over our Nathan Phillips era/City Beautiful aspirations.

... and it's not that I totally reject the academics of the messy urbanism-type defense of these eyesores, in certain contexts at least, but the thorough ubiquitousness of these things throughout the city sort of blows that perspective out of the water: Messy Urbanism isn't desired everywhere... and to put it simply there are better ways for people to announce their presence in their space, which is what design is, after all. The defense of the poles on these grounds (literally and figuratively) is not completely wrong but in the wrong context seems to justify a little too smugly what is just about the most abject and pathetic expression of this I can think of.

 

[allabootmatt]

I remember seeing a photo thread on SSP of a neighbourhood in London. I don't remember which one but it was very trendy, with markets, spontaneous performances, and tonnes of streetlife. People were commenting on how lively and gritty it was in an almost third world kind of way, but in a good way. And all I could think was that in a neighbourhood that people were literally saying looked third world, there wasn't a single wooden pole or overhead wire in sight.

Needless to say I couldn't disagree with you more. Wooden poles covered in rusted staples don't enhance the public space, they detract from it. There are countless lively and even gritty urban spaces all over the world with no wooden poles. Someone from London or Tokyo or even Buenos Aires would be baffled by the idea that wooden hydro poles are an indication of being "somewhere". Do you think Picadilly Circus or Shibuya would be livelier with wires strung on poles?

I agree with the broader point, but worth noting that virtually all areas of Tokyo have lots of wires strung on poles.

 

[Nick.]

I remember seeing a photo thread on SSP of a neighbourhood in London. I don't remember which one but it was very trendy, with markets, spontaneous performances, and tonnes of streetlife. People were commenting on how lively and gritty it was in an almost third world kind of way, but in a good way. And all I could think was that in a neighbourhood that people were literally saying looked third world, there wasn't a single wooden pole or overhead wire in sight.

Needless to say I couldn't disagree with you more. Wooden poles covered in rusted staples don't enhance the public space, they detract from it. There are countless lively and even gritty urban spaces all over the world with no wooden poles. Someone from London or Tokyo or even Buenos Aires would be baffled by the idea that wooden hydro poles are an indication of being "somewhere". Do you think Picadilly Circus or Shibuya would be livelier with wires strung on poles?

uh, the people from tokyo wouldn't bat an eye since they still have poles everywhere because of their frequent earthquakes.

 

[Tewder]

Well we don't typically have earthquakes in Toronto so let's burry the damn wires already!

 

[MisterF]

Tewder, "frontier town" is exactly what I think when I see the wooden poles along streets like Queen. It's something you'd expect to see in grainy century-old film footage, along with muddy streets, patent medicine and bowler hats.

I agree with the broader point, but worth noting that virtually all areas of Tokyo have lots of wires strung on poles.

uh, the people from tokyo wouldn't bat an eye since they still have poles everywhere because of their frequent earthquakes.

Even with all the earthquakes there are plenty of areas in Tokyo with virtually no overhead wires, especially on the busiest streets of Shibuya, Shinjuku, etc. They seem to put the wires in areas away from the crowds. At least they make an effort. Meanwhile in earthquake-free Toronto we continue to make excuses.

 

[pman]

I think perhaps one problem with the discussion is that when anti-wire people like me say it's just not normal for a first-world city to look like Toronto, some people find an example of a rich-country major city that does have overhead wires in peripheral areas or in residential back alleys. The Tokyo discussion is one example (though I never saw a wire in Shinjuku). My problem is that we have wooden poles and overhead wires almost everywhere in Toronto, including on most main streets downtown. We put them front and centre everywhere in a way that no other major city in North America, Australia or Europe does.

One also can argue that the frontier town look is ironic, or iconic, or messily urban, or a sign that we're somehow more sophisticated than the rest of the world because we curate vintage mid-air hydro infrastructure so well. Some people seem to argue that point and I suppose reasonable people can differ on taste and esthetics (though in this case I'd suggest these Torontonians are in a very small global minority).

But as a point of fact, can we at least agree that most major developed country cities simply don't have main streets that look like ours?

 

[Nick.]

Both sides are blowing the issue out of proportion. "Toronto has 15,000 kilometres of overhead wiring and 10,400 kilometres underground wires, which are more concentrated in the downtown core." So a large amount of wires are already underground. Also, most tourists will stroll along the lower portions of Bay and Yonge, Front St, maybe Queens Quay or downtown King and Queen and all of these have underground lines. People visiting likely won't notice and people who live here probably don't notice or care either.

 

[Tewder]

People visiting likely won't notice...

Wrong. People notice.

,,,and people who live here probably don't notice or care either.

Yes, which is part of the problem. As long as hosers have their hockey and healthcare they don't really care about things like design, by and large.

 

[mrgrieves]

People visiting likely won't notice and people who live here probably don't notice or care either.

I live here and I care. Otherwise I wouldn't waste my time posting on this forum. It doesn't really matter what tourists think anyways...as long as they spend money in the city.

Toronto is a cheap city. The overhead wires is the really in-your-face example of this. But you don't have to dig much deeper to see the real problem with the cheapness, which is the lack of transit infrastructure across the city.

I understand its expensive to bury all these wires, but why then are they not in back alleys like in most cities?

 

[Lenser]

I live here and it doesn't bother me at all. I do get what people are saying, though. I suppose I would prefer the wires were hidden away. But I simply can't see it as a particularly dire situation.

Given my druthers, I'd really rather the GTA got its act together and finally took serious, comprehensive action on transit. To me that's infinitely more important for the long-term health of the city.

 

[Register123]

^Amen, as much as I hate the wires I would except even more if we could get better transit. Btw did anyone read how Ford has been bragging about accomplishing his Stop the gravy" promise (was in the Sun, don't read this paper just happened to see it while riding the subway).

 

[allabootmatt]

Though Hydro is putting up plenty of ghastly new wooden poles, especially in north Toronto, they do seem to gradually undergrounding in a few places, notably along some of the main streets in the east end. Problem is, once this work's done the wooden poles aren't getting replaced with anything nicer; rather, the top portion, with the box-frame transformer and the bulk of the wires, simply gets lopped off, leaving the remainder of the pole. It's another one of these half-baked compromises that makes me wonder when, if ever, Toronto's government and utilities will start paying anything more than the most cursory attention to the public realm.