Scarborough needs a renaissance. It's a large part of the city, yet it's relatively stagnant. We need the "new town" 2.0: a post-suburban revitalization plan for the once-suburban places that have lost their original charms of newness and open space.
For the most part Scarborough as a whole is finally improving thru a series of "sporadic" plans recently that has started to take shape. Unfortunately its not a complete overall plan as some areas have been left out of focus and there is still transit uncertainty that will linger and affect a few pockets
Kingston road is improving quite a bit mostly due to small scale revitalization efforts in the south west which has seen it's success start to spread further east, the Crosstown is bringing some life to Eglinton West with exciting future proposals, the subway and Master plan will give the Scarborough Centre a sizable injection, the Bluffs waterfront is getting a massive trail system to connect to the Rouge and Beach, Agincourt has seem some momentum, UTSC is growing well with their detailed master plan further East. The City Centre will become a well connected commuter hub and will become more "urban" under the master plan. Like most plans inevitably it will take a few decades to either find a firm identity. If and when there is ever will to build a public or private attraction within this area (I always thought a cricket stadium could work) or find ways to compete with the highly focused 905 Centers for some business should the City choose to even bother it will reflect well on all of Scarborough. In the meantime the Centre will do very well being connected to the Core going forward for commuters.
There are a few tired areas (Malvern, most of Lawrence Ave) which the City should temper approving many new proposals until a future plan to revitalizes or transit comes along. Better to wait. They should halt any proposals as they are just digging a deeper hole with low quality projects, and areas around Kennedy station should unquestionably be unleashed for mixed use high-rise and midrise with addition of even more transit to this area.
The City core is getting more an more expensive and never going back, Durham is about to explode in growth and this suburb will do really well in the next 20-50 years. Other areas of the City succeeded in large part to solid investments and plans made decades earlier, Lots of reason this didn't happen in Scarborough with poor decisions from past planning and lack thereof post amalgamation. But progress is naturally starting to push East, Scarborough Centre is getting connected, the transit picture has another hurdle on Sheppard but focus can turn to local improvements once SSE is out of the way and with some better focus on the "tired"areas I see no real issues here. Rouge National Park, Zoo, Waterfront (Guild, Port union, Bluffs, UTSC) the extensive hiking, inner cycling trail system.... There's plenty to build around as the transit picture clears from the RT debacle and the City is able to move on from the trouble it has caused for all. You wouldn't ever see all that much information on Keesmats twitter feed
but some really good things have already started.
