Rob Ford's Toronto

[RC8]

Such as?

Your argument not that the Megacity is to large to be operable (such as you are suggesting above), your argument is that people in Etobicoke don't think the same way as people who live in Parkdale, or share the same values. While I grant you a kernel of truth to that, it is largely not the case.

It's not that they don't think the same way, but rather that they have different priorities.

People in Parkdale and the Financial District would benefit hugely by an increase in bike-lanes, increased streetcar frequency, and the pedestrianisation of many streets.

People in Etobicoke would benefit only marginally from those, but would benefit hugely by increased GO transit service, new GO stations, new subway stations, and the creation of new employment and shopping centres a la Woodbine Live.

As I said, the barrier is not social but political. Etobicoke should be allowed to focus on improving their quality of life without consulting with North York first, and the same goes for the rest of the municipalities. We need a formula allocating a budget to each municipality so that the discussion of resource allocation and resource spending is not one and the same.

I don't care if we are still all part of The City of Toronto or whatever, but we need a political mechanism of some sort to administer these very different realities according to their own needs.

 

[bobbob911]

It's not that they don't think the same way, but rather that they have different priorities.

People in Parkdale and the Financial District would benefit hugely by an increase in bike-lanes, increased streetcar frequency, and the pedestrianisation of many streets.

People in Etobicoke would benefit only marginally from those, but would benefit hugely by increased GO transit service, new GO stations, new subway stations, and the creation of new employment and shopping centres a la Woodbine Live.

Valid points, but only if you believe that some priorities are being served at the expense of others, or if you believe that infrastructure projects solely define the priorities of a community. Besides, all parts of the city have representation and a voice at city council.

I'm not sure what you are suggesting the constraint is - is it fiscal? (as in, one part of the city feels they should have more project funding than others because the tax base is broader there?) If you believe in that, then you must also believe that equalization payments across provinces are a bad thing and should be abolished?

Look, I agree with you that the Megacity was conceived under less than auspicious conditions. That being said, I don't for a second believe that a city of 2.5M people is "too large", or "too diverse" to thrive. There are lots of advantages to being a city of our size, and there are lots of examples of thriving, successful cities of our size and larger.

 

[RC8]

Usually large cities that thrive do so under a 'strong mayor' system. In Toronto we have a powerful council which makes resource allocation decisions very exhaustive. It is thanks to this that Ford has been constrained, but it is also due to this that Miller and Lastman accomplished so little of what they promised.

The constraint is a flawed political structure that does not allow elected politicians to act on the immediate geographical area they represent without having to convince most other councillors that doing so is absolutely necessary.

It's not the transfer of wealth that hurts Toronto, but rather that each former municipality can't use their own resources in a way which best fits its people without consulting others who have nothing to do with it. Let's suppose that the mayor of Oakville wants to install a bike-lane through a portion of Trafalgar Rd. Do you think that councillors from Brampton should be allowed to veto this nearly-insignificant investment since it represents, in their opinion, wasteful spending that contributes to gridlock? It's ridiculous... and yet we continuously have to put up with in Toronto.

I know many people who commute downtown from Mississauga and Oakville, and we don't give them any voice whatsoever. If you ask them how they feel, they'd say they shouldn't have a voice... they'd hate downtowners telling them how to do things where they live in return.

 

[adma]

Mayor Ford is a disaster, but even he would probably be able to accomplish something good if he was working only for the people of North Etobicoke.

Probably not--at least, not beyond his former role as ward councillor.

Now, if Ford were more like him...

 

[bobbob911]

Usually large cities that thrive do so under a 'strong mayor' system. In Toronto we have a powerful council which makes resource allocation decisions very exhaustive. It is thanks to this that Ford has been constrained, but it is also due to this that Miller and Lastman accomplished so little of what they promised.

Well so fine - don't complain about the Megacity, complain about the governance structure. Miller took steps to strengthen the role of Mayor in our city. And personally I think that Miller was primarily constrained fiscally - he had no trouble getting a majority vote on council.

 

[malvern2]

Miller was far more decisive a mayor than Ford is currently. He was the one responsible for basically splitting the city into two. Those from the core vs. those from the inner burbs. Had he actually been a mayor for the entire city Ford would have found his path to the mayor’s office much harder. I do thank Miller for being such an awful mayor that he got me involved and interested in municipal politics however.

 

[doug]

Miller was far more decisive a mayor than Ford is currently.

You're right, he was also intelligent and well spoken, somthing that ford could only wish for.

 

[bobbob911]

Worst freudian slip ever!

 

[malvern2]

LOL! Auto correct can be your biggest enemy sometime. As curious as i am about the next mayor race, i wonder if many of those on the council who lean more to one side will be brushed aside as well. Interesting to see how Toronto votes after these past few years.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

LOL! Auto correct can be your biggest enemy sometime. As curious as i am about the next mayor race, i wonder if many of those on the council who lean more to one side will be brushed aside as well. Interesting to see how Toronto votes after these past few years.

Which part of Miller's record turned you against him? His towers policy? His transit policy designed to spread transit across the inner suburbs? His attempts to convince higher level of governments to dedicate VAT revenue, which automatically grows with inflation and eliminates the caterwauling every time property taxes are raised to account for inflation?

Miller made a spectacular hash of the garbage strike because he thought his allies wouldn't stab him in the back. And the Conservatives, since they didn't like him, screwed him over on his bridge to the CC airport silliness and cost the city some big bucks for no particular reason with the lawsuits by the Harbour Commission. But your main meme -- Miller was a downtown mayor -- is spectacularly backwards. You might not like his suburbs policies (notably transit instead of cars), but his suburbs policy making was LIGHT YEARS ahead of Ford's abandoning of anyone without an Escalade.

 

[malvern2]

Ummm the net debt after Miller left office was more than a BILLION dollars more than when he took over in 2003! For that alone he should have been run out of this city. His handling of unions, constant tax hikes, the MFP computer scandal, his introduction of the land transfer tax, the bike lanes on Jarvis, the fact no one in the burbs wants his vision of light rail...and his attendance in council was a joke. Gimme Ford over that bum any day.

 

[jje1000]

Ummm the net debt after Miller left office was more than a BILLION dollars more than when he took over in 2003! For that alone he should have been run out of this city. His handling of unions, constant tax hikes, the MFP computer scandal, his introduction of the land transfer tax, the bike lanes on Jarvis, the fact no one in the burbs wants his vision of light rail...and his attendance in council was a joke. Gimme Ford over that bum any day.

Some very bold statements, there sir.

 

[RC8]

Well so fine - don't complain about the Megacity, complain about the governance structure. Miller took steps to strengthen the role of Mayor in our city. And personally I think that Miller was primarily constrained fiscally - he had no trouble getting a majority vote on council.

That is exactly what I'm complaining about, and allocating specific budgets to each former city according to a formula accounting for their total population and share of produced income (with wealth distribution on the education and social services front) would do wonders for that structure. This is how the likes of Paris and London work in many respects.

De-amalgamation would accomplish all that and it would be easier to execute than changing the way our city hall works, I would imagine. I have no issue with the city keeping its name and size so long as its former cities are provided much larger amounts of independence in practice.

 

[ttk77]

Ummm the net debt after Miller left office was more than a BILLION dollars more than when he took over in 2003! For that alone he should have been run out of this city. His handling of unions, constant tax hikes, the MFP computer scandal, his introduction of the land transfer tax, the bike lanes on Jarvis, the fact no one in the burbs wants his vision of light rail...and his attendance in council was a joke. Gimme Ford over that bum any day.

So you, as someone who lives in the inner suburbs, want more of a say into what kind of transportation mechanisms are available in your area - the desire at least I can understand even if I don't agree with the feasibility of subways in the suburbs. What I don't understand is how you can say that in the same breath that you disagree with bike lanes on Jarvis. You want more self determination for your own neighbourhoods, but you don't want to afford the same luxury to the people living on and around Jarvis st. who overwhelmingly support the bike lanes over the reversible middle lane. In other words, you don't want the downtowners telling you how to live, but you have no problems telling the downtowners how they should live.

There's some serious double standards that Ford's inner suburb supporters seem to have.

 

[doug]

There's some serious double standards that Ford's inner suburb supporters seem to have.

just look at his absence over the past 10 pages, where's his defence of ford for kicking paying passengers off of a TTC bus for his football players?