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AlvinofDiaspar
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From the Post:
We shape our city's streets in unseen ways
Toronto streets are shaped largely by small decisions and items, like public garbage bins, benches and public maps.
Jacques Parisien, National Post
Published: Monday, June 19, 2006
Think of the last great city you visited. Paris, or London, maybe. But also smaller cities like Boston or San Francisco. Now what was it that made that city ''great'' for you?
I'll bet it wasn't a specific site or attraction. But rather a neighbourhood, a waterfront, a downtown, an entire city.
What makes them so attractive?
It turns out you can walk around these places and just soak up the atmosphere, that's what. The history, the energy, the buzz, the action. What we remember when we visit other cities isn't so much ''the sites,'' but ''the streets.''
Now Toronto is unlike any other city on Earth right now because there's a billion dollars of new arts facilities going up all around us. Already, it's bringing new life to our dormant civic pride. But just as important as a new opera house is a new view of the streets around it. The Sydney Opera House is the signature of that city. But I submit it's the streets and neighbourhood around it that make Sydney Harbour so appealing. Certainly this is the case for visitors, and Sydney has 146 million of them a year, six times more than Toronto, even though we are larger in terms of population. But there's a broader economic benefit to Sydney's streetscape, as there is to Toronto's.
It's not just what we see when we look way up at the CN Tower that counts, but when we look left, right and straight ahead as we're walking down the street.
In fact, cities that have great streetscapes create the conditions for being great to live and work in. Cities that have awful streetscapes, don't and aren't. It's that simple. How our streets look is a function of zoning, building codes, fiscal health, ratepayer associations and many other factors. But those same streets, and the city they connect, is also shaped by something else.
Things like how our bus shelters are designed, what our public garbage bins look like, where our park benches are, how our visitors can find their way in our strange city. All of this is called ''street furniture.''
Don't be fooled by its folksy name. Street furniture is hugely important to what makes a city or a neighbourhood succeed or fail. I say ''hugely'' without exaggeration. How many pieces of street furniture does Toronto have? A thousand? Ten thousand? No, Toronto has 21,000 pieces. So it's big business, with even bigger impact on business.
Great streetscapes don't happen by accident. They require planning. They need guiding principles. But most of all, they take perseverance -- because the temptation always is to say: ''It's just a subway sign. What difference does it make?'' But have you seen the Metro signs in Paris? They look like they did in the 19th century when Hector Guimard painted them. And they remind us we're in a great historic city, whose ambiance draws us back time and again. Old isn't always best. Have you been in the public toilets of Berlin? Maybe not. They're sleek, ultra-modern, clean and incredibly efficient. The very image that city wants to convey of itself -- to new visitors, new investors and new businesses.
One sector we know is hugely reliant on ambiance is tourism, the world's largest industry, though only Canada's sixth largest and one we're having a hard time competing in.
Every year for the last four years, fewer and fewer visitors have come to Toronto. Sure, our rising dollar, post-9/ll border issues and the side effects of SARS are all sharing the blame. But are our streets as cool as Chicago's? Do American and European visitors exclaim to their friends back home: ''Toronto's got this terrific ambiance. I'd go back in a flash.'' Montreal, sure. Vancouver, absolutely. But Toronto? Maybe. On a good day.
You may know of the Bilbao Effect -- what happened to the sleepy port city of Bilbao, Spain, after Frank Gehry designed a wild and crazy new Guggenheim Museum in the middle of a rail yard there. But there's been an after-effect to the Bilbao Effect.
The Bilbao After-Effect is that many of its visitors are back for a second, third, fourth time. The number of visitors has steadily climbed each year since 2002. Why? Because so much of the city has been restored. Because the streetscape is so lovely that people will come for the Guggenheim, but stay longer because the streets, the atmosphere, the ''scene'' are all so relaxing and refreshing. In exactly the same way, once Toronto's Frank Gehry's new Art Gallery of Ontario and those five other pleasure domes are all built, Toronto should be ready not just for the Toronto Effect, but the After-Effect.
- Sudbury native Jacques Parisien is the president of both Astral Media Radio and of Astral Media Outdoor, and currently chair of the Board of Tourisme Montreal. This article was taken from a speech this month to the Economic Club of Toronto. The City of Toronto is in the midst of setting its street furniture policy. Astral expects to respond to the Request for Proposal that will follow.
© National Post 2006
AoD
We shape our city's streets in unseen ways
Toronto streets are shaped largely by small decisions and items, like public garbage bins, benches and public maps.
Jacques Parisien, National Post
Published: Monday, June 19, 2006
Think of the last great city you visited. Paris, or London, maybe. But also smaller cities like Boston or San Francisco. Now what was it that made that city ''great'' for you?
I'll bet it wasn't a specific site or attraction. But rather a neighbourhood, a waterfront, a downtown, an entire city.
What makes them so attractive?
It turns out you can walk around these places and just soak up the atmosphere, that's what. The history, the energy, the buzz, the action. What we remember when we visit other cities isn't so much ''the sites,'' but ''the streets.''
Now Toronto is unlike any other city on Earth right now because there's a billion dollars of new arts facilities going up all around us. Already, it's bringing new life to our dormant civic pride. But just as important as a new opera house is a new view of the streets around it. The Sydney Opera House is the signature of that city. But I submit it's the streets and neighbourhood around it that make Sydney Harbour so appealing. Certainly this is the case for visitors, and Sydney has 146 million of them a year, six times more than Toronto, even though we are larger in terms of population. But there's a broader economic benefit to Sydney's streetscape, as there is to Toronto's.
It's not just what we see when we look way up at the CN Tower that counts, but when we look left, right and straight ahead as we're walking down the street.
In fact, cities that have great streetscapes create the conditions for being great to live and work in. Cities that have awful streetscapes, don't and aren't. It's that simple. How our streets look is a function of zoning, building codes, fiscal health, ratepayer associations and many other factors. But those same streets, and the city they connect, is also shaped by something else.
Things like how our bus shelters are designed, what our public garbage bins look like, where our park benches are, how our visitors can find their way in our strange city. All of this is called ''street furniture.''
Don't be fooled by its folksy name. Street furniture is hugely important to what makes a city or a neighbourhood succeed or fail. I say ''hugely'' without exaggeration. How many pieces of street furniture does Toronto have? A thousand? Ten thousand? No, Toronto has 21,000 pieces. So it's big business, with even bigger impact on business.
Great streetscapes don't happen by accident. They require planning. They need guiding principles. But most of all, they take perseverance -- because the temptation always is to say: ''It's just a subway sign. What difference does it make?'' But have you seen the Metro signs in Paris? They look like they did in the 19th century when Hector Guimard painted them. And they remind us we're in a great historic city, whose ambiance draws us back time and again. Old isn't always best. Have you been in the public toilets of Berlin? Maybe not. They're sleek, ultra-modern, clean and incredibly efficient. The very image that city wants to convey of itself -- to new visitors, new investors and new businesses.
One sector we know is hugely reliant on ambiance is tourism, the world's largest industry, though only Canada's sixth largest and one we're having a hard time competing in.
Every year for the last four years, fewer and fewer visitors have come to Toronto. Sure, our rising dollar, post-9/ll border issues and the side effects of SARS are all sharing the blame. But are our streets as cool as Chicago's? Do American and European visitors exclaim to their friends back home: ''Toronto's got this terrific ambiance. I'd go back in a flash.'' Montreal, sure. Vancouver, absolutely. But Toronto? Maybe. On a good day.
You may know of the Bilbao Effect -- what happened to the sleepy port city of Bilbao, Spain, after Frank Gehry designed a wild and crazy new Guggenheim Museum in the middle of a rail yard there. But there's been an after-effect to the Bilbao Effect.
The Bilbao After-Effect is that many of its visitors are back for a second, third, fourth time. The number of visitors has steadily climbed each year since 2002. Why? Because so much of the city has been restored. Because the streetscape is so lovely that people will come for the Guggenheim, but stay longer because the streets, the atmosphere, the ''scene'' are all so relaxing and refreshing. In exactly the same way, once Toronto's Frank Gehry's new Art Gallery of Ontario and those five other pleasure domes are all built, Toronto should be ready not just for the Toronto Effect, but the After-Effect.
- Sudbury native Jacques Parisien is the president of both Astral Media Radio and of Astral Media Outdoor, and currently chair of the Board of Tourisme Montreal. This article was taken from a speech this month to the Economic Club of Toronto. The City of Toronto is in the midst of setting its street furniture policy. Astral expects to respond to the Request for Proposal that will follow.
© National Post 2006
AoD
