Nice reductio ad absurdum argument. I'm a huge fan of WT's work, and I had season's passes to the AGO and ROM when I lived in Toronto. I specifically was railing against UT posters who continually clutter decent threads with ineffectual and nonsensical complains about Toronto's overhead wires. I, for one, think a modest rise in property taxes to fund WT again and pay for more transit would be a great thing.
One could make the same argument about the ROM or the waterfront as you made about the hydro wires, that they're so far down the priority list as to be meaningless. I'd disagree with that argument of course, but it's the same logic.
While public realm is important, and that there is malaise in the current approach, let's not pretend it is the bread and butter of "alpha city" - it is ultimately it is the economic, social, knowledge and political prowess that determines whether a city is alpha, not how pretty it looks. In fact one can argue that these problems arose precisely because the city is increasingly large, dense and economically active. That's what's straining our infrastructure and make us reconsider how our public realm affects our standing in the world. Not the other way around.
As someone once said when I was in Rochester awhile ago - their rush hour only lasts 10 minutes. Enough said.
AoD
You make a good point about alpha cities, which tend to be though of in economic terms. But since this thread is talking about the fuzzy phrase "world class", that means different things to different people and doesn't necessarily mean alpha. Cities can be world class for different reasons. And when we're talking about a concept so subjective, the public realm does play a role. In any case, I disagree with your point about the public realm becoming an issue because the city is growing so quickly. Take your example of Rochester, a city in decline. Yet overhead wires are rare on their urban main streets. And that's just what people in Toronto don't seem to get - things like this are done in other cities without a second though. They don't become an issue because they bury wires just as readily as they pave the streets. Only here is it an issue.
The fact that Rochester does a better job of this than Toronto is kind of sad.
One way for Toronto to make Toronto a world class city again? Stop navelgazing at itself long enough to contemplate whether or not it is a world class city or not.
Bonus round: don't use the term world class city. Ever.
This happens everywhere. I've seen New Yorkers have the same conversations about their city.
Are Bloor (Annex) or the Danforth (Greektown) more "world class" than Queen West or Kensington because of wires / no wires?
Does it even make much of a difference at all?
I don't know, but I can say for sure that the public realm is a lot nicer and more inviting. And burying the power lines in those neighbourhoods hasn't made them less interesting as some on this thread seem to be suggesting, with ridiculous allusions to Disneyland.
I think you guys are missing the point.
London is by far an uglier city than Barcelona, yet it is also far more powerful, economically and politically. Toronto is uglier than Montreal, yet also far more powerful and influential.
Bucharest has no overhead wires in the historical core while Toronto does. So what? The correlation between public realm and what establishes a city as world-class is somewhere close to nil.
Nobody's saying that making the city look nicer will make us more economically powerful. But it will make the city, you know, look nicer. And function better too, as Tewder pointed out - seriously those wooden poles take up a lot of room on the sidewalks. By the way, London may be far uglier than Barcelona, but Toronto is far uglier than London despite a lot of the architecture being similar. That says a lot about Toronto.
