bloor street revitalization
I agree with you Building Babel to the extent that it should be the city spearheading these efforts, if the city could be trusted to do so. Unfortunately, good urban design tends to take a backseat and as others say, we have engineers designing our streetscapes at the city level, not designers with an urbane sensibility. The other point is money. Personally, i think that the city should spend heavily in this area and redo the entire downtown streetscape because it brings a big return in terms of property values and tourism. I also think that it should borrow big funds and build a comprehensive subway system, but that''s whole other issue. However, if the city sees itself as short on cash, then improve the public realm, especially in high priority area, however you can. They can be a lot more innovative than they have to date. In Montreal, you have big pension funds, that invest in real estate, co-funding major streetscape projects, because the value of their property will increase. Montreal's a lot poorer than Toronto, but they are fashioning themselves as a major international tourism centre and their efforts are far more impressive to date than anything Toronto's done. They've got it right even to the extent of how they plant and care for downtown street trees.
