Northern Light
Superstar
Perhaps you could file a work order under 311?
Or you could phone or email your Councillor to ask that question.
Toronto 464 Queen West Parkette | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto
- Thread starter PMT
- Start date
Perhaps you could file a work order under 311?
Or you could phone or email your Councillor to ask that question.
yin_yang
Active Member
I might do that. I also am losing patience with the tent city in that park, it's been a year now...was ok with it, but they can't be there forever.
ProjectEnd
Superstar
picard102
Senior Member
Parkland here is still a huge mistake.
UtakataNoAnnex
Senior Member
How so?
p5connex
Active Member
I disagree. How is this a huge mistake?
The little parkette interventions that have been cropping up along this stretch of Queen (Denison, Ryerson etc.) have been great for the street - so long as the city can maintain them. This will tie in perfectly with them - and if designed properly could end up becoming a really great little square/plaza, which opens up to the future house and community space to be located on the Green P.
p5
picard102
Senior Member
It's a waste of space on a major street. Denison and Ryerson are great examples of how little "park" it will provide and how neglected it will become.
This should be retail/office/housing.
concrete_and_light
Active Member
Are public squares on main streets in cities around the world wastes of space? We severely lack these types of spaces. Why should every main street be building building building building and a narrow sidewalk forever? I agree that the fine-grain rhythm of the street is also good, but some little gaps like this for people to be in can be part of that fine-grain rhythm and human scale and I think is exactly what we need more of on our streets, especially as population grows.
EDIT: Agreed though it needs to be designed and maintained well. Also the spaces you cite as examples are much smaller than this site, but I still see them as a net positive for providing some much needed breathing room and places to sit.
picard102
Senior Member
Are they also this small, and also have no cultural significance? Then yes, probably.
I don't agree. People aren't clamouring for public squares in the middle of busy streets. Wright Square this will not be.
Extend the public housing project to here.
concrete_and_light
Active Member
Public squares don't need cultural significance to be good. Most public squares or plazas around the world I would say people enjoy for their utility as a space to hang out rather than any cultural significance they may have. And are often this size or smaller.
Also people clamouring or not clamouring for them doesn't really have bearing on their value or not. We culturally and due to the ways our cities are built here just don't do them, so this type of space probably isn't even on peoples radar as a thing we should have. But I think if we had more of them people would use and enjoy them. People aren't clamouring generally for higher density public housing either, but we still should do it.
Extend the public housing project back into the residential neighbourhood instead IMO. And lets convert some other streets into commercial as well.
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picard102
Senior Member
Which ones?
True, we don't have a culture of public squares. The idea we need too is a little odd
Lack of affordable housing is a huge issue in the headlines. People are asking for it.
UtakataNoAnnex
Senior Member
Waste of space seems more of an opinion though...as in reality parks are never really a true definition of "waste".
...that said, this is the only merit I see of it being actual waste is here. So if you are advocating for that, then more power to you...as opposed to just throwing that up there to conveniently support your narrative on this space being wasted.
concrete_and_light
Active Member
Many thousands of public spaces like that which exist pretty much everywhere in Italy as an example, many of which I'm sure had wonderful history, but were primarily distinguished by being great spaces to spend time in, or a practical place to eat lunch, meet someone, or stop for a moment to rest.
Odd? I mean, have you been to a place like Italy or cities in countries built in a similar way to there where there are plazas all over the place and that associated culture of public life? It's an incredible experience IMO, a really wonderful way of being out in the city that we don't have here. If you've never been to a place like that I hope that you get to experience it one day! Because it's really nice! If you have but don't enjoy it, well, to each their own but I am a bit surprised haha because the experience just seems so inherently great to me an in a particularly more open way to how we experience life here.
Our approach to city life is so compartmentalized and closed off here. Where can you spend some time out in the city in Toronto? You can go into places like bars or restaurants or a store, go to grassy parks, yes, but that's very different type of place and experience than a square. Besides that I guess it's just walk down a narrow sidewalk or be in your car or on a transit vehicle. There's very little sort of middle city space where people can just be in the city. Toronto life: go into a private establishment, be on dangerous hostile unpleasant streets, be in a grassy field.
People in other parts of the world just hang out in public, being social spaces or just places of quiet contemplation sitting by yourself as the world goes by. People have a drink out in the square sitting together, people (of all ages, children too with adults) exist together in a state of relaxation or socialization in a city space long in to the night — all sorts of wonderful things! It's a deep tragedy to me that we don't have these types of spaces here, and they can be hard for sure to graft something similar onto the way our city has been designed, but I think it's certainly something worth striving for in a way that works for Toronto — and IMO definitely not odd! The fact that it seems odd seems to reveal a bit of our lack of conception here of what a city and city life can be.
Agreed for sure that people are finally somewhat waking up to the severity of the housing crisis. What I meant by that was that often still projects of housing at the density scale required to address it in a meaningful way receive a great deal of pushback, even from progressives who are asking for affordable housing. And in particular also public high density affordable housing gets even more pushback from those in the neighbourhood it is to be built in. But hopefully that too will change.
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picard102
Senior Member
Yes. That Italy does something is an odd reason to decide we are doing something wrong. It's transplanting something from an entirely different culture and geographic realities.
We have squares, but they are largely empty because people aren't looking to hang out in a space that isn't a park or indoors unless there is programing happening.
And the ones that do have people in them, are half park space.
