Toronto Nathan Phillips Square + Spirit Garden | City of Toronto

Actually I am well travelled. I've been to the US and different countries in Western Europe. Show me these places. And please don't bring up some third world city in Africa or elsewhere.

Houston, Atlanta, Detroit, Phoenix and San Antonio all* come to mind as the most prominent examples of the many dumpy, suburban oriented cities that fill the heart of America. Let alone the vast majority of cities in S America and Asia.

Nobody's saying we're Florence or Vancouver. In fact, I agree our public realm is mediocre, especially given our size, economic growth and ongoing development boom. (One sometimes wonders where all this new condo tax revenue is going...) I just disagree with your hyperbole.
 
Houston, Atlanta, Detroit, Phoenix and San Antonio all* come to mind as the most prominent examples of the many dumpy, suburban oriented cities that fill the heart of America. Let alone the vast majority of cities in S America and Asia.

Nobody's saying we're Florence or Vancouver. In fact, I agree our public realm is mediocre, especially given our size, economic growth and ongoing development boom. (One sometimes wonders where all this new condo tax revenue is going...) I just disagree with your hyperbole.

Why mentioned those places when people already know those are the worst places in America. Why not mentioned New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco? When in fact Torontonians have been trying hard their best to compare TO with Chicago and worst with New York???
 
Why mentioned those places when people already know those are the worst places in America. Why not mentioned New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco? When in fact Torontonians have been trying hard their best to compare TO with Chicago and worst with New York???

I happen to live in Chicago (unfortunately, and only for under one month more until I move back to Toronto) and it frustrates me beyond to hear UTers go on about Chicago and its supremacy to Toronto. No. Tourists get to see the 3 square miles or whatever that millions have been poured into, and then go home and lament all that Toronto is not. How about a visit to the South Side, West Side, North Side, any side that doesn't immediately surround the Magnificent Mile. Mmm yeah those burn-outs and blocks of vacant lots are great. Plenty of fountains don't work here either. Imagine the criticism if the City funnelled $300 million into, let's say, Queen's Park while simultaneously shoving the middle finger in the face of the rest of the city? Let's be constructive about what can and should be improved upon, but let's not be ignorant. Toronto's pretty damned amazing.
 
Houston, Atlanta, Detroit, Phoenix and San Antonio all* come to mind as the most prominent examples of the many dumpy, suburban oriented cities that fill the heart of America. Let alone the vast majority of cities in S America and Asia.

Nobody's saying we're Florence or Vancouver. In fact, I agree our public realm is mediocre, especially given our size, economic growth and ongoing development boom. (One sometimes wonders where all this new condo tax revenue is going...) I just disagree with your hyperbole.

I don't know about the other cities but I have been to Atlanta several times. I mean sure it's suburban but I would put it above Toronto at least the downtown, midtown, and Bukchead areas. For example look at the area around Lenox Square Mall which is one of their high end malls compared to how dumpy the area surrounding Yorkdale is.
 
I happen to live in Chicago (unfortunately, and only for under one month more until I move back to Toronto) and it frustrates me beyond to hear UTers go on about Chicago and its supremacy to Toronto. No. Tourists get to see the 3 square miles or whatever that millions have been poured into, and then go home and lament all that Toronto is not. How about a visit to the South Side, West Side, North Side, any side that doesn't immediately surround the Magnificent Mile. Mmm yeah those burn-outs and blocks of vacant lots are great. Plenty of fountains don't work here either. Imagine the criticism if the City funnelled $300 million into, let's say, Queen's Park while simultaneously shoving the middle finger in the face of the rest of the city? Let's be constructive about what can and should be improved upon, but let's not be ignorant. Toronto's pretty damned amazing.

The American cities make sure that the areas that tourist will visit look or their prominent areas look good but in Toronto we let everywhere like 1 or 2 exceptions.
 
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Why mentioned those places when people already know those are the worst places in America. Why not mentioned New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco? When in fact Torontonians have been trying hard their best to compare TO with Chicago and worst with New York???

My entire point was that, contrary to what is often said on this forum, Toronto does not have the worst public realm of all time. The cities I mentioned are among NA's most egregious examples and are certainly not in the same league as Toronto. Whether or not Toronto is in competition with America's best is another conversation entirely.
 
Public Realm Shaming Campaign

We are expected to "welcome the world" (or at least the Americas) for the Pan-Am Games this summer and put our best foot forward, yet this fountain sits covered up, with little repair activity going on. This fountain has been broken for a long time and the city seems to be in no hurry to change that. Like I said before, something is very wrong with the way things are done in Toronto.

Maybe we need a public realm shaming campaign, sort of like the dog/cat behaviour shaming pics posted on the internet! A photo of the University fountain for example with a sign saying 'I have been broken and neglected for 7 years. There are no excuses left. The city is as broken as this fountain'... or something like that.



My entire point was that, contrary to what is often said on this forum, Toronto does not have the worst public realm of all time. The cities I mentioned are among NA's most egregious examples and are certainly not in the same league as Toronto. Whether or not Toronto is in competition with America's best is another conversation entirely.

I'm not sure what your point is? We should celebrate and high-five ourselves that we're not the worst? Wow, that's aiming high.


I happen to live in Chicago (unfortunately, and only for under one month more until I move back to Toronto) and it frustrates me beyond to hear UTers go on about Chicago and its supremacy to Toronto. No. Tourists get to see the 3 square miles or whatever that millions have been poured into, and then go home and lament all that Toronto is not. How about a visit to the South Side, West Side, North Side, any side that doesn't immediately surround the Magnificent Mile. Mmm yeah those burn-outs and blocks of vacant lots are great. Plenty of fountains don't work here either. Imagine the criticism if the City funnelled $300 million into, let's say, Queen's Park while simultaneously shoving the middle finger in the face of the rest of the city? Let's be constructive about what can and should be improved upon, but let's not be ignorant. Toronto's pretty damned amazing.

They have fountains on the south side?

Toronto is amazing, no need to reiterate that no matter how homesick you may be. If you want to start a thread where we sing the praises go ahead. The point here is the waste, corruption, malaise, apathy that hold us back from being even better. Toronto could blow Chicago out of the water but we need to stop looking like an unmade bed, a broken unmade bed. It may be a safe and cozy place where we slumber in ignorant bliss, but it's still broken and unmade.
 
Toronto is amazing, no need to reiterate that no matter how homesick you may be. If you want to start a thread where we sing the praises go ahead. The point here is the waste, corruption, malaise, apathy that hold us back from being even better. Toronto could blow Chicago out of the water but we need to stop looking like an unmade bed, a broken unmade bed. It may be a safe and cozy place where we slumber in ignorant bliss, but it's still broke and unmade.

Last time I checked, this is a thread on NPS, not on the general state of malaise of the public realm - there is a dedicated thread for that in Toronto Issues. So let's not tell others to start their own thread when the current discussion was OT in the first place.

As to a broken unmade bed metaphor, well, the example you have used is facing some challenges of its' own.

AoD
 
I'm not sure what your point is? We should celebrate and high-five ourselves that we're not the worst? Wow, that's aiming high.

My point was pretty clearly in response to someone saying Toronto has one of the worst public realms of any city, period. I was going for the "negative hyperbole is not constructive" angle, and gave examples (Atlanta etc.) to make my point of how patently untrue that is. In fact, my prior post explicitly states that our public realm is mediocre. If you choose to translate that into "let's high five cuz we're not the worst", that is your prerogative.

Toronto is amazing, no need to reiterate that no matter how homesick you may be. If you want to start a thread where we sing the praises go ahead. The point here is the waste, corruption, malaise, apathy that hold us back from being even better. Toronto could blow Chicago out of the water but we need to stop looking like an unmade bed, a broken unmade bed. It may be a safe and cozy place where we slumber in ignorant bliss, but it's still broken and unmade.

I agree that Toronto is broken in many ways. I think people from Paris to Pittsburgh would tell you the same of their cities. Fixing our roads, beautifying our streets and humanizing our development should be top priorities, and our transit woes need not be reiterated here, for we all know how serious these problems are.

But enough with these comparisons! What makes you think Toronto should blow Chicago out of the water? The fact of the matter is that Toronto is still growing up. Forty years ago, nobody would put Toronto and Chicago in the same sentence, and for damn good reason. We had a couple of skyscrapers, some cool heritage structures and some neat neighbourhoods, but our size, infrastructure and culture were not even close! Of course, tides are turning, and Toronto's growth has been unprecedented for well over a decade now. Consequently, we are having a sort of renaissance in this city, with thriving cultural/food/entertainment scenes, surging population growth, huge infrastructure projects underway and some massive modern and preservationist development, both good and bad.

I'll be the first to agree that our public realm has not kept up to this growth as well as it should, and for years development in this city has needed a paradigm shift. Traditionally, our projects were about satisfying the buyer and the buyer alone. Look at our oldest waterfront condos. Ugh. But I'll also argue that this is quickly changing, and new projects are finally giving back to the city, and not in the form of some kitschy art piece on a sidewalk. The Distillery seemed like a one-off at the time, but now projects like the Well, Bloor/Bathurst, 400 Front, Mirvish Gehry, etc. indicate that public realm improvements have become central to our next wave of development. Woonerfs, LEED-certified buildings and public plazas are becoming the norm. The City of Toronto may not be keeping up entirely, but let's not forget the dolt of a mayor we've finally rid ourselves of. This is a time for renewed optimism, if nothing else!

Ultimately, if the complaints come down to our concrete curbs, potholes and utility poles, I mean, well, duh. They're gross, ubiquitous, and definitely reflect badly on the city. But are we really surprised that these issues exist? Ideally they wouldn't, and we're right to strive for constant improvement, but need we really be so entitled? 40 years ago, our downtown was literally mostly parking lots. 20 years ago, we were lucky to have a single highrise project under construction. Adding to this, harsh winters and city-wide construction to accommodate all this growth are putting our roads through hell. But now all of a sudden we deserve buried wires and granite sidewalks on every block? These should ultimately be priorities, and new developments should be forced to make these efforts. But I don't know how the heck anyone thinks that Toronto's newfound status as a world city means that our history as a frontier town dominated by parking lots and nasty urban sprawl should instantly disappear.

EDIT: Apologies for going so off-topic. That'll end here. But I think my points stand. As for NPS, it does stand as a particularly bad example of public realm improvements. The city is clearly acknowledging this and is embarrassed by it. With a little luck, maybe it will serve as a case study of how to do it better next time.
 
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ardwold1 is absolutely right. I have lived in Chicago for 8 years and in Toronto for 13 years, and I have been to Paris multiple times visiting family. So I know Chicago and Paris way beyond the glamour that these cities try to sell to tourists. And let me tell you...Toronto blow them all out of the water.

People tend to focus on the glamorous side of the so called world class cities such as Paris and Chicago because that's what those cities try to sell you in order to get you to come as a tourist. And therefore, they spend billions of dollars on their public attractions/realms and on marketing in order to maintain that glamorous image. But believe me it's all a mirage -just like Hollywood tries to sell the LA lifestyle- because these are cities you'd enjoy visiting but wouldn't enjoy living in.

For example, the only really nice parts of Chicago are the waterfront along lakeshore drive and the downtown area (including Michigan avenue). All the other areas are average at best and some even look like the worst areas of a developing country, something you almost never see in Toronto.

The same goes for Paris; in fact, living in Paris is as difficult/stressful a life as you'll see in the western world for an average joe.

When relatives from the U.S. came to visit in Toronto and I showed them Dundas and Sherbourne and told them that it was one of the worst areas in Toronto, they were shocked. And that's because in Chicago and Paris, the worst neighbourhoods look like the worst areas of a developing country. And why you ask? Because they spend more money than they should on maintaining the glamorous image of their cities, rather than spending that money on improving the lives of their citizens.

Toronto may not be perfect and has room for improvement, but I'll choose it over any other city around the world except for some of the Australian cities.
 
When it comes to Paris, I always think of what Buck 65 has to say (he lived there off and on for years):

"The taxi ride from the airport tells the story of Paris. To reach the city, you must crawl through miles and miles and hellish ugliness - char, graffiti, ruin, tack… Then, after it begins to feel impossible, you enter the city and it smiles its broken, golden smile. It says, “I used to be king” and its breath smells like death. Paris is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen sitting on top of the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen. It’s the winner of the Westminster dog show shitting on the floor. The ugliness makes the beauty shocking and vice versa."

But like the others mentioned here, Buck 65's thoughts are his own anecdotal opinions. To the extent that we make comparisons to other cities on this thread, maybe we should focus on nuts and bolts comparisons that pertain directly to NPS (e.g. "City X has a new maintenance program for its public realm that has led to significant improvements", etc.), rather than overarching and hyperbolic comparisons ("Toronto is the worst" vs. "No, Toronto is among the best") that don't really elucidate the topic at hand. Just a suggestion.
 
Toronto has very little to compare with the best public realms in the world, and very little to compare with the worst. Our built form is a reflection of who we are: more equal, less flashy than other cities and countries. Ironically, as the city booms Toronto is actually becoming more like other world cities: we are seeing the emergence of run down areas (particularly in the Tower Communities outside the core) and of beautiful areas (the waterfront for instance). Income inequality is on the rise, and it is geographically distributed unequally. I think we have to fight to keep our society from having the extremes that are so prevalent all around the world while somehow finding the resources to make our city beautiful. If the rest of the world is any precedent, it will be a difficult undertaking. The only countries I know of that are pretty successful are in Scandanavia and Australia, and of course even there run down areas exist - though general levels of upkeep are still better than Toronto's, which has a shabby quality downtown that reflects Torontonians' general attitude toward the city as a workhorse, not a showpiece.

(Oh, and those wondering where the tax revenue from our building boom has gone: general revenue, to keep the city from sliding into absolute dysfunction in the face of declining real property taxes vs Toronto inflation).
 
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