How Can Toronto improve? How can Toronto become a better city overall?

[RC8]

I doubt that de-amalgamation will solve any problems any more than secession from Ontario or Canada would, this thread is titled "How can Toronto improve" not how can downtown Toronto improve.


Most of those people in the GTA did not live in downtown Toronto because they chose not to for reasons important to them then and still valid now. You may be surprised to learn that most suburban Toronto residents consider you "downtowners" a curious breed but we graciously tolerate your holier-than-thou attitude.

That's the whole point. Let suburban dwellers live in the suburbs without interference, and let those who want a more urban car-independent sustainable lifestyle live in more densely populated areas.

Let people in the suburbs pay for their roads, and people downtown pay for their transit. As things stand, downtowners are paying for suburban roads, and are not getting any transit OR roads in return.

Surely if 2,000 people (or taxpayers if you will) live in a street, it should get more service from all kinds and more money from the city than a street where 200 people live. As things stand, the one where 200 people live gets a similar priority. That's wrong. How can you justify it?

 

[arvelomcquaig]

I think de-amalgamation would solve our problems. There is a solution for every problem Toronto has that could be implemented if it wasn't for the idiots we currently have dominating council, preventing progress by pleasing the suburban individualists. Jarvis, for instance, is now going to be designed to suit suburban drivers, in spite of (and contempt for) the local residents. Suburban voters shouldn't decide what happens downtown.

The “holier-than-thou” attitude of which you speak is not arbitrary snobbery, as you suggest, but an undeniable fact: The denser downtown is a better, more sustainable, more ethical place to live. The suburbs are objectively worse in that they harm the environment, make cultural activity difficult, discourage a sense of community, etc.

 

[JoeParez]

The “holier-than-thou†attitude of which you speak is not arbitrary snobbery, as you suggest, but an undeniable fact: The denser downtown is a better, more sustainable, more ethical place to live. The suburbs are objectively worse in that they harm the environment, make cultural activity difficult, discourage a sense of community, etc.

Just letting you know, this is the dumbest thing I've ever read.
It also plays right into the "holier than thou attitude".

Then I looked at your avatar and thought "gee, what a surprise".

Sensationalist.
Objective.
Discriminatory.

Toronto's problem is that no matter what part of town you're from you're hated. In the four days that I was in New York, I couldn't believe the sense of community and how much everyone loves the city no matter what part of town you were from. It didn't matter if you were from Manhattan or Queens or Brooklyn, you were a "New Yorker" and you had an unequivocal love for your city. Here, Downtoners hate Suburbanites and vice versa and nobody wants to help build a better Toronto for everyone.

 

[W. K. Lis]

I bet the city spends more money in maintenance now than it did back then.

The real problem of Toronto is that it has to maintain the likes of North York, Etobicoke, and Scarborough on its back.

The real reason why those places are not greatly serviced by subways is because people there choose to live in low density levels that are just not enough to support it.

Suburban communities can't alone pay for their own streets, healthcare, and education. Sacrificing the funding for our cities to allow people to live in such an unsustainable way is nonsense.

(Metro/City of) Toronto has more roads, pipes, sewers, sidewalks, people, etc. than it did in the 1950's and 1960's. Also, there is more people coming in from the 905 using our roads and sidewalks for free than back then. So it would cost more to maintain the city. Downloading of services from the province also didn't help.

For example, the Gardiner Expressway from the Humber River to 427 used to be maintained by the province being part of the QEW mostly from gasoline taxes, but is now maintained by the city mostly from Toronto property taxes and zero from gasoline taxes. Guess where most of motor vehicles on the expressway come from?

 

[JoeParez]

Guess where most of motor vehicles on the expressway come from?

Buffalo?
Niagara Falls?
St. Catharines?

You know, the parts of Ontario that the Queen E stretches out to?

Hey, they could be coming in right from your own town entering from Kipling!

 

[Electrify]

I think the real problem isn't that there are too many suburbanites entering the downtown, but there aren't enough core areas in the burbs so people leech on to downtown Toronto. One of the better plans for the city was to construct new downtowns in North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke, and Eglinton and link them together with rapid transit. Unfortunately, the execution left much to be desired.

Even with such mega cores, we also need mini cores in between to create an urban lifestyle on a more human scale. Places like the Junction, Leslieville, Bloor West, etc. might not have mile high condos and office towers, but still have an urban form and in many cases are also linked by urban rapid transit.

 

[Thanos]

Toronto's problem is that no matter what part of town you're from you're hated. In the four days that I was in New York, I couldn't believe the sense of community and how much everyone loves the city no matter what part of town you were from. It didn't matter if you were from Manhattan or Queens or Brooklyn, you were a "New Yorker" and you had an unequivocal love for your city. Here, Downtoners hate Suburbanites and vice versa and nobody wants to help build a better Toronto for everyone.

You obviously don't know much history about NYC. You think that happened overnight or that it was always like that?
Too all those who are saying Toronto is hitting a wall and falling down, well do you remember NYC in the 70s and 80s. Look at it now.

 

[jn_12]

The other thing I think Toronto can do is to simply start being proud of itself. The lack of visible civic pride is glaring compared to most cities our size. No statues or hints of our history, empty fountains in prominent places (University Avenue, CN Tower), no Toronto Museum (even though one is in the works)... I think there's a lot we can do in this area that could go a long way towards creating a sense of pride in the city. Of course, all of these things are also seen as gravy nowadays.

 

[Tewder]

Yes, and in some ways the NYC of the 70s and 80s was more interesting than the NYC of today.

 

[Thanos]

It might have been more interesting to you and others. However, it did lack in civic pride, something it has today in truck loads.

Does the city operate the fountains at the CN tower?

 

[Hipster Duck]

To be fair, we should compare New York in 2011 with New York in 1975, and Toronto in 2011 with Toronto in 1975. It's true that New York city is a lot more gentrified and expensive to live in in 2011 than 1975, but for those poor suckers who got priced out of Manhattan, the city made up for it by improving the quality of life in other areas : crime is at its lowest since 1950, the subways aren't slathered in graffiti and generally run on time and don't break down, parks are immaculate and looked after - even in poor outer boroughs, and with a lot of the state-of-good-repair issues behind it, the city is investing in progressive programs and infrastructure, most notably its excellent bike network.

Lest we forget that Toronto is also a lot more expensive to live in in 2011 than it was in 1975. But think about the quality of life changes that have happened since then: in 1975 Toronto had one of the most celebrated transit systems in the world, was known for being spotlessly clean and was the envy of cities everywhere for the quality of its municipal governance. In 2011, Toronto's transit system is dirty, riddled with customer service problems and suffers from the highest fares on the continent; our roads are rutted with potholes and our sidewalks filthy, and our municipal governance is a cruel joke. Our violent crime rate hasn't worsened, but it is increasingly concentrated among a certain population in certain areas. I would argue that for many Torontonians, and for some Torontonians especially, quality of life has deteriorated since the 1970s.

Toronto is still more affordable and still has a better quality of life than New York, but increasingly I feel like we're that guy going down the down escalator and looking at a guy going up the up escalator and saying "Ha ha! I'm still higher up than that guy!"

 

[TonyV]

The other thing I think Toronto can do is to simply start being proud of itself. The lack of visible civic pride is glaring compared to most cities our size. No statues or hints of our history, empty fountains in prominent places (University Avenue, CN Tower), no Toronto Museum (even though one is in the works)... I think there's a lot we can do in this area that could go a long way towards creating a sense of pride in the city. Of course, all of these things are also seen as gravy nowadays.

I agree. And there is a new problem - this current mayor seems to want to kill civic pride. The city elected a mayor who hates the place.

 

[RC8]

I find people in the city of Toronto proper (historical boundaries) are usually proud and happy to live in Toronto. Up in North York or Etobicoke and of course in Mississauga and Vaughan, a lot of people don't feel particularly proud of anything.

When I walk down to harbourfront, I hear so many people walking and saying "I love living downtown" or "I love Toronto" in their conversations.

This is beyond anecdotal, but the other day in the go bus a homosexual indian man from Mississauga was talking about how he liked mississauga on the basis that it wasn't Toronto, and how Toronto should demolish the Royal York hotel because 'it looks old' and 'it costs money to maintain'.

How about this, let's all pay for what we use. If you and I use Bay St. we both pay for it. If you work elsewhere and live elsewhere, only those of us who use it will pay for it. If you live in a street with only 20 other houses in it, you and those around you should be paying for that, not me.

How is it that 'conservatives' are ironically incapable of understanding this problem?

 

[jn_12]

I think people are proud of the city, but I don't think the city does enough to show its pride. As I mentioned, things like empty fountains in prominent places are a sign of neglect and act as a symbol for they city's lack of pride in itself. You would never find the fountains at Trafalgar Square empty for an entire Summer. Similarly, look at things like the handwritten signs that the TTC makes when things go out of service or notices need to be posted or the lack of coordination between various utilities when roads and sidewalks get town up thereby causing a mismatch of patterns and materials.

 

[MisterF]

Just letting you know, this is the dumbest thing I've ever read.
It also plays right into the "holier than thou attitude".

Then I looked at your avatar and thought "gee, what a surprise".

Sensationalist.
Objective.
Discriminatory.

Toronto's problem is that no matter what part of town you're from you're hated. In the four days that I was in New York, I couldn't believe the sense of community and how much everyone loves the city no matter what part of town you were from. It didn't matter if you were from Manhattan or Queens or Brooklyn, you were a "New Yorker" and you had an unequivocal love for your city. Here, Downtoners hate Suburbanites and vice versa and nobody wants to help build a better Toronto for everyone.

The difference is that Queens and Brooklyn aren't really suburbs, not in the same way that Scarborough and Etobicoke are. They're densely populated, urban places and they're a lot like central Toronto. If New York suddenly got amalgamated with Long Island then you'd probably see the same kind of fighting that happens in Toronto.