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Let down by downtown

I think living downtown - and I mean right downtown - is what life is all about. (for me anyway.) it's not perfect, it's often ugly, but it is what makes it all the more interesting.

bla, bla, bla...something about the journey and not the destination.

If I ever move north of yonge, west of bathurst, or east of jarvis - it's because I've been moved into a retirement home. and I'm deaf and blind. and uncommunicative. and incognizant.

otherwise, it's not going to happen. no matter who pees on my cornflakes or curb. (hopefully not literally on the former. because that indeed might be grounds for a move.)
 
I have a few friends who would gladly pay to have someone pee an their cornflakes and then force them to eat it but to each their own I guess. I like the downtown eccentrics, what can I say. I might even be accused of being one, every once in a while. The suburbs boar me, shopping malls depress me and suburbanites (especially NIMBY's) nausiate me.
 
In other words, you wouldn't want anyone who isn't just like you in your backyard either.
 
I should add that there are more than enough boring people living right downtown; you certainly don't have to go out to the suburbs to find them. especially in toronto.

for one: with the amount of restaurants we have, you'd think we would have more of a culture of people eating out often. but it's just not the case. you can feel it in montreal more so than here.
 
Ah there we go, it's nice to see that balance of viewpoints again. But I'm still not convinced yet. 95% of the time grit = filth and neglect, which are not desirable features. Queen St. West and Yonge St. are two notable exceptions. But above all else, I can't stand seeing so much poverty right at my doorstep.
 
^?

In all seriousness and no flame-y-ness, i'd like to put on some kind of magic glasses for like an hour, to see the city the way you see it.
 
LOL. We probably have different standards and tolerances when it comes to terms like grit. To me, gritty means imperfect enough that an area doesn't look artificial, but not sketchy to the point that it resembles Regent Park. Based on my standard for what grittiness is, Bathurst south of College is the epitomy of urban grit. My tolerance is such that you'd have to pay me to live there.

As far as people go, I find it depressing seeing so many who don't even care enough about themselves to take a shower. And it makes me angry when they have the nerve to beg for handouts. I find it uplifting to live among people who, like myself, are trying to make the most of their lives. That characteristic is obviously independent of income, and it's a feeling that I certainly don't get downtown.
 
I have to side with Chuck on this one to a large degree. I have no problem with grit. Gritty neighborhoods are great places to live because they are often very interesting, vibrant, and dynamic places.

The problem is when these neighborhoods simply become static that gritty charm turns to decay. Ive lived in a variety of different neighborhoods from very pretty, established neighborhoods where most places had nicely tended gardens and people were well dressed, to places that were depressing due to the stagnant nature of not just the built environment, but the people. Its one thing when you are some place where on weekends people are out and about enjoying themselves, some students throwing house parties, middle aged people throwing dinners parties, and other activities that give life to the place. Its another when your neighbors are sitting on their front porch or balcony at 11:00 in the morning drinking from their tall boys. Its not that I lack compassion for people who might be in that situation for any number of reasons beyond their control. But when you see numerous people like that in your neighborhood with no sign of real progress, it becomes a drag.

Of the neighborhoods I have lived in my favorites are, with only one exception, the gritty neighborhoods. The ones were age and some neglect is apparent. But they were also neighborhoods were change was also taking place. New businesses, new buildings, new people, new life. It doesnt have to be wildly rapid change (such as my last apartment in Ottawa were within just a 2 block radius there were 4 or 5 condo projects underway in just that one year alone with another half dozen proposed at the time). But some sort of indicators that people and places around you are not just stuck in the same glut.
 
^I agree. To me it isn't so much where a neighbourhood is but where it is going, how is the momentum and is their a positive attitude. A hypothetical neighbourhood in say Paris that is a highly urban wealthy historical district that occupies a rigid physical and mental state somehow does not appeal to me. I enjoy change even if it is not rapid and the ability or perceived ability that I can participate in that change.
 
There is a ghoulish fascination, though, with neighbourhoods in a tailspin, like watching a car crash about to happen. Thirty years ago I knew several people who lived in old houses in the Dundas and Sherbourne / Jarvis area that they'd renovated. It was a rundown area, but we all assumed that by about 1990 it would be quite trendy - like Cabbagetown had already become in those days. But, my goodness, that part of town still doesn't appear to have hit bottom.
 
gritty is not pretty.

10 years ago college st was nothing even close to what it is today. actually, nevermind 10 years ago - 5 years ago. not that it was dirty or gritty back then, but I don't see anybody hanging out on college st west of ossington these days, and that's pretty much what it all looked like back then - run down sports bars with lots of old men playing cards with tiny little TV's in the background showing euro league soccer games. not necessarily run down, but it wasn't pretty either. now that street is packed on the weekends. (with a very particular crowd, mind you.)

toronto is still very young. and the concept of people actually living downtown is even younger, I think. up until recently, downtown was a strip here and there that people visited on the weekends; even for those who actually lived 'downtown'. (some exceptions do apply.) but the concept of having a manhattan style, lived in downtown - one that people are attracted to live in - I just think its very new around these parts. and it's going to take a while for it to happen. until then, you're going to find 'grit' all over the place. growing pains, I guess.
 
People have been living in downtown since the city was first founded. We're one of the few that didn't lose that in the 1950-1980 period when most North American cities experienced massive population loss.
 
that's exactly my point: downtown toronto often feels like you're just walking around in someone's backyard because, for the most part, you probably are. it hasn't really had that 'downtown' sort of feel to it.

people obviously live in manhattan, but tourists don't go there to hang out with the locals in their backyard. (well, some of them do.) they want some flash - people to see and things to do.

I think that's what our 'downtown' is in the process of transitioning into. the 'grit' is just the space in between. (which will always be there, by the way, to some extent - hopefully just in smaller quantities.)

or, I could be full of crap and completely going on a tangent that makes absolutely no sense. perhaps I shouldn't have that 4th cup of coffee after all.
 
I have to agree with Ed on the point of people living downtown. With the exception of intensely rural or remote places, most Canadian cities big or small grew up with a moderately strong sense of urbanity to them. Walk around any small town in Ontario and you can see that cities originally grew with plenty of people living in the centers with commerce, trade, and other activities taking place in them. And I am not talking about the 'Main Street' ideal either. Rather places that were communities with living, working and playing/shopping/leisure.

It was really on from the 1970's onward, and up the mid 90's that cities and towns 'lost' their downtown areas. Growing up in the 80's in Ontario it doesnt take much to think back and remember the terrible shape that many city centers were in. Aluminum and vinyl siding over old brick buildings. Plywooded windows, broken windows, paint entirely peeled off. They were pretty crumby places to be. When I happen to go back to some of the places I remember from when I was a kid, it is actually quite amazing sometimes at how much those crumbling downtowns have started to come back to life and be filled with people, both playing in them and living in them.

If Canadian cities were not historically urban places, than Vancouver, a new city, and one that has experienced a huge amount of growth since the 1970's, would have never grown the way it did.

So while I think some parts of downtown Toronto are likely to become a little less gritty, a little more 'downtown' in the commercial America sense of the word, more than likely it will retain a lot of that 'backyard' feel to it.
 
We're probably in agreement on most stuff -- the folks at 11am with their tall boys....not so nice maybe....i don't wish to celebrate the grit for it's own sake, to fetishize it. but it doesn't overwhelm me when i think about geographic locations. even on that crappy stretch of Bathurst, south of dundas...because one street over are nice houses on markham that i've been to, and all those elements start to compete in my head when i think about "what is that neighbourhood".

above all there is safety in the city, for people to be who they are. sometimes they are tall boy people who will eventually be gentrified out by people like....us/me, who have found they enjoy the comforts of a starbucks sometimes. the safety, and freedom, of downtowns is messy sometimes but it exists in diminishing degrees, with nodes of exception, as you get away from the core.

the espresso machines and paint jobs of gentrification don't worry me, it's the threat of that loss of city-safety that worries me. it may work out fine in the end though.
 
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