Seven ways to make Toronto a world-class city again

[yin_yang]

It's highly subjective. To some, Toronto is an amazing world class city, one of the most diverse cities in the world. To others, it's meh. Can't please em all.

exactly. i have heard it all. it's too loud, it's too quiet, it's too prissy, it's not prissy enough...i think it's one of the world's most well-rounded cities, mostly due to immigration and hard work. i love it. just got back from a 4hr walk around downtown and i love it more and more every time.

 

[M.R.Victor]

Having just gotten back from Paris, I could echo these sentiments and have since stopped finding fault with Toronto. The banal beauty of central Paris consists of an all encompassing monotonous urban fabric where one neighbourhood looks by-and-large like all the other neighbourhoods. Charming. In exactly the same way. I've come to appreciate Toronto's polymorphous urban fabric as a result.

 

[Tewder]

'All encompassing'? 'Banal'? Hey I agree there is a cohesiveness to much 19th century in-fill in Paris, but come on did you get out much? The Marais? The Latin Quarter/St. Germain? Montmartre? La Defense?... to name just a few! Within the peripherique there are many areas characterized by differing histories, differing styles of architecture or the presence of differing social, ethnic and cultural groups. Don't get me wrong I love Toronto but is its urban fabric really all that polymorphous? One downtown commercial stretch pretty much looks like another, one condo like another, etc...

 

[M.R.Victor]

I did and my post was not meant as a dig against Paris itself. Rather I realized how quickly beauty becomes banal through every-day exposure. Parisians themselves are not in constant awe of their own city; they talk instead of political issues, infrastructural issues, job security, traffic congestion, etc. They go to work and raise families and basically live out lives normally. Not that different from what Torontonians would do, I wager.

Ultimately I feel beauty, or fun, or world-classness are highly subjective personal opinions that are more reflective of the individual's momentary state of mind than anything else. How quickly did my sense of awe diminish when, having moved from Toledo to Toronto, university coursework and regular life began to take precedence as my top priorities over the soaring skyscrapers, well-dressed people and fancy restaurants I initially fawned over.

 

[Tewder]

M.R. Victor, I understand your point but make no mistake about it the Parisians are unequivocally proud and protective of their city, its built form, its heritage, its standards of upkeep and design etc. It is engrained in their identity and culture, and they 'walk the walk' where it comes to funding and investments and improvements etc. It is not a city marked by the sort of apathy we see in Toronto. Yes, people go about their lives on a daily basis - and nobody likes to bitch more than the French - but when the chips are down they would take to the streets if anything of Toronto quality were ever proposed there.

 

[the lemur]

Just listened to those professors from Ohio. Absolutely unbelievable.

My favourite part is where there go on about how Toronto should logically be located closer to the US border.

They also have another trait I sometimes notice in Americans. When they don't know something, they just stick with their ignorance with complete confidence rather than just taking five seconds to look it up.

A lot of Americans aren't terribly knowledgeable about their own country either. As Canadians we almost can't help being exposed to information about the US on a constant basis, so we're in an unusual situation where we're familiar with our own country and our neighbours'.

Having said that, I don't think Canadians should be patting themselves on the back for their knowledge of places outside North America. One thing that really stands out is the propensity to talk about 'Europe' as if it's some monolithic uniform entity where culture and attitudes are so identical you don't even have to bother mentioning individual countries: 'In Europe they have ____, you can get ____, they like ____, people say ____, etc.'.

 

[the lemur]

On the whole I don't think it's true that Americans are more ignorant than any other group on Earth. The way the global and American media works though, the baseline ignorance that is present everywhere actually makes news in America. Put another way, a Canadian will hear it when an American is being ignorant since we're inundated with American opinions, but odds are an American will never be exposed to your typical Toronto Sun letter-to-the-editor author.

And, really, what do I know about Dallas? That's the closest sized American city to Toronto. In my head it's all Dallas Cowboys, the Alamo, King of the Hill and steakhouses. Is the Alamo even near Dallas? My point being I don't think we're necessarily that much less ignorant.

The Alamo is in San Antonio, a few hours from Dallas. And King of the Hill is set in a fictional small town with a deliberately vague location, variously described as being a few hours from Dallas ... or Houston ... or Austin. So there you go.

 

[AlbertHWagstaff]

A lot of Americans aren't terribly knowledgeable about their own country either. As Canadians we almost can't help being exposed to information about the US on a constant basis, so we're in an unusual situation where we're familiar with our own country and our neighbours'.

This reminds me of the line from the Naked Gun 2 1/2 where Frank Drebin (Leslie Neilsen) says to the villian Hapsburg (Robert Goulet): "You're a dying breed Hapsburg, like people who can name all fifty states."

 

[WislaHD]

Having said that, I don't think
Canadians should be patting themselves on the back for their knowledge of places outside North America. One thing that really stands out is the propensity to talk about 'Europe' as if it's some monolithic uniform entity where culture and attitudes are so identical you don't even have to bother mentioning individual countries: 'In Europe they have ____, you can get ____, they like ____, people say ____, etc.'.

Visit Budapest, Prague, Krakow, Belgrade, Ljubjana, Sofia, Zagreb, etc.

All much higher standards are placed on their public realm than here. Generalizing is bad, but in this case I feel comfortable suggesting that the majority of Europe practices a much higher standard, culture and attitude for what constitutes public realm projects than here. To the point where the generalization is actually more useful than counter-productive.

Yes, Denmark and Netherlands are definitely far ahead of the game of even their fellow Europeans when it comes to cycling infrastructure and other things, but even the cycling network in places like London or Warsaw blows Toronto out of the water.

 

[the lemur]

Visit Budapest, Prague, Krakow, Belgrade, Ljubjana, Sofia, Zagreb, etc.

All much higher standards are placed on their public realm than here. Generalizing is bad, but in this case I feel comfortable suggesting that the majority of Europe practices a much higher standard, culture and attitude for what constitutes public realm projects than here. To the point where the generalization is actually more useful than counter-productive.

Yes, Denmark and Netherlands are definitely far ahead of the game of even their fellow Europeans when it comes to cycling infrastructure and other things, but even the cycling network in places like London or Warsaw blows Toronto out of the water.

I can go along with your statement regarding standards for the public realm (which I take to mean upkeep, design, heritage protection, etc.) to a certain extent, having visited two of those cities (Prague and Budapest). It's partly a function of awareness of history and a sense of importance. Having said that, there are surely examples of shabby public realms in Europe, even in a place as steeped in history as, say, Athens.

It's hard to compare London and Toronto in terms of scale and layout. London seems to be moving faster in terms of cycling infrastructure that covers long distances across the city, but some of the cycling facilities in between are very underwhelming: having to share a lane with buses and taxis, short bike lanes, dangerous intersections, puzzling obstacles and interruptions, etc.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=crap...X&ved=0CBwQsARqFQoTCMK2m6jn78cCFYl-kgod1LcC5g

 

[freshcutgrass]

M.R. Victor, I understand your point but make no mistake about it the Parisians are unequivocally proud and protective of their city, its built form, its heritage, its standards of upkeep and design etc. It is engrained in their identity and culture, and they 'walk the walk' where it comes to funding and investments and improvements etc. It is not a city marked by the sort of apathy we see in Toronto. Yes, people go about their lives on a daily basis - and nobody likes to bitch more than the French - but when the chips are down they would take to the streets if anything of Toronto quality were ever proposed there.

Hmmmm. I'd say Paris is very good at maintaining its antiquities, and is just lucky to have them in the first place...we aren't so blessed. Paris has also acquired some fantastic big ticket modern items. But pound for pound, I'd say Toronto has done a better overall job at post-war city building in general.

I have a recent tenant who is a born & bred Parisian, and really likes living (and working) in Toronto. Paris is Paris, but Toronto does have its own zeitgeist, and people do notice it, and in many cases....prefer it. We do incredibly dumb things here like not investing enough in transit and voting for particularly stupid politicians, but we do incredibly brilliant things like infinite quantities of festivals, diversity and deep lake cooling. And we manage to do good things sometimes on surprisingly small budgets.

Parisians are used to over-paying for everything.
Torontonians are used to being cheap.

I'd say the one thing that would help Toronto improve, is getting over being so bloody cheap and start willingly wanting to fork over more taxes and start enjoying the rewards of doing so.

 

[Tewder]

Fresh, I knew a couple from Paris who relocated here for a contract, with child in tow, and barely lasted a year before they returned. It was no contest for them. They lived and worked right downtown and appreciated certain things, no question, but overall it just wasn't their tasse de thé. They missed Paris dreadfully.

Anybody would admit that life in Paris is far from perfect, and it can be downright gruelling at times, but nobody is indifferent to it, it brings out the best and worst. Toronto is the opposite. Nobody is very passionate about it, most being quite apathetically content with its middle-of-the-roadness. There's a case to be made for both, it just depends on what you're looking for and what you prioritize... I do agree with you wholeheartedly that we need to get past the cheapness. I'm just not sure how this will ever happen?

 

[the lemur]

Fresh, I knew a couple from Paris who relocated here for a contract, with child in tow, and barely lasted a year before they returned. It was no contest for them. They lived and worked right downtown and appreciated certain things, no question, but overall it just wasn't their tasse de thé. They missed Paris dreadfully.

Anybody would admit that life in Paris is far from perfect, and it can be downright gruelling at times, but nobody is indifferent to it, it brings out the best and worst. Toronto is the opposite. Nobody is very passionate about it, most being quite apathetically content with its middle-of-the-roadness. There's a case to be made for both, it just depends on what you're looking for and what you prioritize... I do agree with you wholeheartedly that we need to get past the cheapness. I'm just not sure how this will ever happen?

That sounds kinda devastating to our fragile New World egos, but what exactly did they miss? What was not to their liking here?

 

[freshcutgrass]

That sounds kinda devastating to our fragile New World egos, but what exactly did they miss? What was not to their liking here?

Why relocate your family from Paris to Toronto....and expect Paris??? Why move anywhere from Paris if you weren't interested in something different than Paris?? It's not like Toronto is some 3rd world hell-hole that you need to flee after discovering what a huge mistake you made coming...Toronto doesn't end up at or near the top of every QOL survey ever conducted for nothing.

And I'm not sure "right" downtown is going to be everyone's idea of the ideal family home. What Toronto is known for (and will continue to get more important as time goes by) is its abundance of leafy residential nabes complete with great schools and other local family accoutrements Had they chosen to stay there, perhaps their experience would have been very different? Hard to say unless we have the details.

Another, admittedly anecdotal story, is the couple from the UK (both doctors) with two small kids in tow, who moved to Lakeview Ave (Little Portugal) and couldn't believe their luck...they are definitely staying. Unless you are very wealthy, there's no chance in hell of living in a lovely victorian house on a residential street lined with giant century old tress, with great schools, shopping, transit, etc within walking distance in inner-city Paris or London.

 

[Tewder]

Why relocate your family from Paris to Toronto....and expect Paris???

I'm not sure that was the case. I just don't think they had ever considered that they would miss Paris, only to find that they did. In reality, not a lot of Parisians immigrate to Toronto, for whatever reasons. If they feel they are missing a quieter life in a heritage house among tree-lined streets they will likely buy or rent a village cottage in Normandy or Provence or anywhere in 'la douce France' and spend their weekends and summers there. The idea of a house in Paris would be strange.

Yep Toronto is lovely, I'm convinced of it. It comes with its own frustrations though, as does Paris. Again, it really just depends what you're familiar with and what you're looking for.

That sounds kinda devastating to our fragile New World egos, but what exactly did they miss? What was not to their liking here?

What didn't they miss is the better question. I get the feeling that to a frenchman Toronto feels like a frontier town. It lacks the gravitas of French society and style... that said, they really were complimentary about Toronto, it just wasn't for them.