Toronto in decline..... (Back in MY day we had respect!)

[GenerationW]

Prove to me, by some method, that there are more cigarette butts in the street today than in say, 1984 or 1974.

Obviously impossible to prove, but to me it's a no-brainer that the great cigarette-butts-in-the-street menace was much greater in '74 and '84 than today.

Well, get on any TTC bus.... Thirty years ago, was the TTC used as a garbage dump by low class lazy fools?

Worse today I'd say, but does that mean it really is worse or that the TTC is less diligent about cleaning buses?

As I said before, I think it's great. Participating in cleaning up just about everything we've done wrong as humans up till this point gives a bunch of meaning. And if you ask me, it's a way better alternative to living the pointless, wasteful lives of the previous generations.

So everyone before you were idiots, and your generation has achieved perfection and final enlightenment. Wonderful. Just when I thought that only the baby boomers could push the b.s. meter up to eleven, you have one-upped them and reached twelve.

 

[Hipster Duck]

One of my memories of mid-80s Toronto as a five year-old was when my mom got upset with me for playing with the hundreds of smashed cigarette butts on the floor of the old Terminal One.

Litter still exists, but it's different now: it mostly consists loose pages of the dozens of free newspapers that are handed out on our subway system floating around.

 

[sodapop]

i think toronto is in decline, but alot of cities are. people are becoming more arrogant with how they treat there surroundings. i don't think its just toronto.

 

[tkip]

This person either has anger issues or likes throwing mud at other people when they disagree with them. I'm talking about this_girl_there....

I have no idea why they're apparently so angry. Other than they're apparently thinking they have to personally answer for an entire generation which was never asked of them. Within a short period of time, this person has resorted to calling me names and other unpleassant things.

They have posted several times now and expressed frustration in that they felt they had to explain and defend their generation due to my comments about how I perceive the state of society and how it's changed over the course of my lifetime but they've become angrier and angrier.

If you think I'm wrong, then fine. However.....

If your method is to throw temper tanrums and resort to calling people names, you show your true colours as someone who is extremely immature. And you don't win debates and discussions this way. That's why talk show hosts tend to hang up on inviduals who act in such a manner.

And this is the last I have to say on this topic. I can recognize a losing cause when I see one......... But thanks to sodapop and others for recogizing that something has changed and not necessarily for the better....

 

[SlickFranky]

Once a few months while I waiting for the bus 38 Creditview northbound at Burnhamthorpe in Mississauga on the way home from Square One I saw this really old man sitting in the bus shelter drinking Tim Hortons coffee. While drinking coffee he starting constantly horking and spitting on the floor of the bus shelter for about 5 minutes then he pulled out a cigarette and started smoking inside the bus shelter despite all the No Smoking signs on the glass of the shelter and after he finished his coffee and his cigarette he threw his empty coffee cup and cigarette butt on the floor of the bus shelter. It took considerable effort for me to retrain myself from snatching his cane and beating his wrinkled ass to a bloody pulp right there but I suddenly remembered that young people are supposed to honour the elderly and pay them respect and appreciate their existence and celebrate them.

Hmm...must have been a youngster dressed-up in some sort of disguise.

 

[GenerationW]

...And this is the last I have to say on this topic. I can recognize a losing cause when I see one......... But thanks to sodapop and others for recogizing that something has changed and not necessarily for the better....

You're commenting about society in general rather than things relating specifically to Toronto, such as transit, roads, city governance, police, garbage pickup, etc. Toronto has no chance but to be in decline when you make an argument like that.

 

[tkip]

You're commenting about society in general rather than things relating specifically to Toronto, such as transit, roads, city governance, police, garbage pickup, etc. Toronto has no chance but to be in decline when you make an argument like that.

I'm confused.

How does a city decline based entirely upon my not being specific enough? I can see the arugment being made that I didn't provide enough examples of specifics to Toronto and what's declined outside of people's behaviour. That would make sense. And there goes my not commeting any further on the topic promise in my previous post.

I'm a glutton for punishment it would seem.

 

[shilly]

I'm confused.

How does a city decline based entirely upon my not being specific enough? I can see the arugment being made that I didn't provide enough examples of specifics to Toronto and what's declined outside of people's behaviour. That would make sense. And there goes my not commeting any further on the topic promise in my previous post.

I'm a glutton for punishment it would seem.

What it seems is that...you are a douche.

I just sat here for 20 minutes reading through the entirety of this thread, Nothing can come of it. So...I can understand TGT's anger directed at people like you tkip and Fresh Start. I'm not going to sit here and argue semantics with you...so here is the pudding, so to speak. You will not be around in say, 20-30 years, and our generation (TGT, GM, myself and others) will clean up your mess and raise our kids the way WE like. We shouldn't and frankly dont care what you think. If you don't like the way the downtown looks...I'm sure your buddy Rob Ford could hook you up to live in a certain long term care facility in northern Etobicoke. No need to go outside! They play songs too! Sing Alongs also! Enjoy the decline..your body is going down along with your values that your generation apparently failed to teach us.

 

[Second_in_pie]

So everyone before you were idiots, and your generation has achieved perfection and final enlightenment. Wonderful. Just when I thought that only the baby boomers could push the b.s. meter up to eleven, you have one-upped them and reached twelve.

No, but we can see where the last generation seriously wrong and in general seem to be more questioning and ready to tackle these issues than the boomers. Obvious reason for that, the Boomers won't be living with the consequences of their actions and have been socialized into that ideology. Doesn't make them evil or stupid, just in the wrong place at the wrong time (so to speak.)

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Some people are basing decline on a perhaps dubious perception of moral decay, but they're no more off than someone who thinks Toronto is absolutely perfect because they just bought a condo downtown and are excited about their new neighbourhood (this is like half the forum). Poll the perceptions of 10,000 people and then we'll turn these anecdotes into something useful.

Re: cigarette butts. Who else has noticed that those cylinders filled with sand or metal cigarette sconces seem to have disappeared from public places and doorways? Yes, in some places there are visibly larger piles of butts, but there also seem to be fewer smokers, so the problem could resolve itself in a few decades. Some garbage cans have also been removed, including ones in parks where they were once plentiful. Sure, garbage cans can be eyesores and nosesores, but more than the alternative of increased litter? Though if garbage cans are going to exist, they need to be emptied once in a while, or the overflow blows around and creates litter, anyway.

EDIT: now that I think about it, perhaps my generation being the first globalized generation has something to do with it - too many people "thinking globally" without translating that into "acting locally."

So much for consciousness. Yes, people "buy green" and they join Facebook groups, but is their behaviour really changing? The real change is certainly not increased concern for 'public' issues things like overpopulation or urban decay or whatever (after all, we didn't run out of oil, or get nuked by the Soviets, our cities didn't collapse, except for Detroit, diseases are managed better than ever, we saved the ozone layer, saved the pandas, and so on) but for issues of pure personal safety (smoking, fatty foods, bottled water, sunscreen, even some terrorism like not getting yourself blown up on a plane). Who feels any personal harm or threat from littering anymore? Cartoons don't teach children that litter is shameful anymore (the Carebears did such things). Wall-E tried to push the eco-angle of littering but I'd be shocked if kids walked away from it thinking of anything other than how cute the robots were or wishing they lived on that space liner. People today are either impossibly hopeless or eternal optimists...in the 80s and 90s I think there was a level of practical pessimism that's sorely missing now. Littering is often seen not as an aesthetic or environmental problem, but as simple rude behaviour...and in a city where we have no culture of human contact other than please, thanks you, and the occasional apology, rudeness can run amok.

 

[tkip]

Again...

What it seems is that...you are a douche.

Again.

Someone else felt it necessary to resort to name calling because they're frustrated with me. If the only way you can debate with me is by name calling....

Well, what am I suppose to say to this? If you don't like my posts or what I have to say, then fine. But name calling belongs in elementary and highschool school where kids engage in this sort of thing. If anything, the increasing incidence of name calling sort of reinforces my original assertion that people these days lack any real manners or civility when they just resort to using ugly language to show their displeasure with someone.

Anyway. Back to the topic. Values and social norms have shifted and I'm arguing that it hasn't necessarily been for the better. Dispite supposed higher tolerence for others, I see disturbing trends out there, regardless.

No doubt the previous generations created something of a mess for the future generations. And it's not just blowing resources and leaving a decidely less secure world behind. We've also conditioned a new generation to expect anything and everything, to be catered to and when they begin to realize that they can't always get what they want?

And we've also allowed policticans and urban planners to totally mismange this city and butcher the urban landscape so I'm also laying blame at their doorsteps as well.

So I agree that these generations before have dropped the ball and let social norms shift so much that they allowed very questionable behaviour to flourish and become glorified and glamorized as you see portrayed in tv shows, music, entertainment and just about anything else in our culture now.

Just look at Miley Cyrus. She was an underage minor whose father exploited, vamped her up and then basically pimped her out so that money could be made and then she performed with a stripper pole in front of an audience filled with underage girls who want to emulate this. What's the message here?

Now these questionable behaviours have crepted into our public sphere and I'm going to give you 2 examples that happend today that illustrate precisely how this impacts the social fabric of our city and how people conduct themselves.

Perfect example. I got on the train today.

Train was crowded and I saw a empty seat beside a guy but a young woman was sitting with her legs stretched out on the seat and I asked if she could remove her leg so that I could sit. She gave me a stern look, mumbled and then took off across to the other side of the car where she prompty put her feet up on another empty seat. This is a daily occurance now. This was very rare when I was a child and as a youth. Now it's commonplace.

Second example. Again, today on the train. A girl who couldn't have been more than 12 boarded the train and she was wearing shorts so short and scandalous that they might as well have been underwear. It's totally inappropiate but some parent thought it was fine for their daughter to leave the house looking like this. Who thinks this is okay? Apparently a lot of people since I see more and more of this.

When did this become the norm?

And don't get me started on the food left behind on transit vechicles, people spitting on the tracks at stations, graffiti everywhere and numerous other examples of dispectful behaviour taken for granted now. There have been debates on the out of control behaviour of club goers down in clubland for exmaple, where people on this board have argued that people clubbing simply go nuts when partying these days.

Numerous people on this board made the case with their remarks about how these clubbers are extremely obnoxious, behaved like trash and just destroyed the streets and property as they leave the clubs. Another exmaple of people acting badly and treating the city like crap and money being spent on cleaning up the mess....

And no one wants to take a closer look at the values that allow this sort of behaviour. Let's face it people. We're living in the age of excess and it's not pretty.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Second example. Again, today on the train. A girl who couldn't have been more than 12 boarded the train and she was wearing shorts so short and scandalous that they might as well have been underwear. It's totally inappropiate but some parent thought it was fine for their daughter to leave the house looking like this.

When did this become the norm?

After Taxi Driver came out?

 

[doady]

Last week I was walking along Queen West near Spadina and I saw a young topless woman holding a microphone and talking in front of a camera. I think she was a news reporter or something, but didn't notice which channel it was. Anyways, I thought it was awesome. I'm glad my generation isn't full of prudes.

 

[tkip]

Last week I was walking along Queen West near Spadina and I saw a young topless woman holding a microphone and talking in front of a camera. I think she was a news reporter or something, but didn't notice which channel it was. Anyways, I thought it was awesome. I'm glad my generation isn't full of prudes.

I think what you saw was a reporter from Naked News? Not sure. What can I say? If people want to call me old fashion or say I'm clinging to the past or not being progressive enough, then so be it. I refuse to lower my standards and just accept what passes for the norm now out in the streets and not challenge it. And asking people to have some modesty is hardly being a prude. And did I ever watch Taxi Driver? I honestly can't remember.

 

[Fresh Start]

What it seems is that...you are a douche.

I just sat here for 20 minutes reading through the entirety of this thread, Nothing can come of it. So...I can understand TGT's anger directed at people like you tkip and Fresh Start. I'm not going to sit here and argue semantics with you...so here is the pudding, so to speak. You will not be around in say, 20-30 years, and our generation (TGT, GM, myself and others) will clean up your mess and raise our kids the way WE like. We shouldn't and frankly dont care what you think. If you don't like the way the downtown looks...I'm sure your buddy Rob Ford could hook you up to live in a certain long term care facility in northern Etobicoke. No need to go outside! They play songs too! Sing Alongs also! Enjoy the decline..your body is going down along with your values that your generation apparently failed to teach us.

Why the heck do people keep throwing my name into conversations that I had nothing to do with? You and kettroll are precisely the reason why society's going downhill. When someone says something you don't agree with, you snobbishly call them a douche or suggest that they lack frontal lobe mental capacity. I also hear a hint of age discrimination in your tone as well.

It is the biggest generation gap yet - the time before the digital age and now - but you ain't seen nothing yet. By the middle of the century, one generation will not even speak the same language as another. Kids and parents won't be able to talk to each other, because there will be no words that they both know. Civilization is a continuum, and it advances only because there is connectivity between one generation and the next. When that link breaks, that will be the crash point. Everyone will have to re-invent the wheel, because a generation that knows will not be able to communicate what they know to the next. The lessons of history (which we ignore now anyway) will cease to exist. So you will suffer dearly because in a world without boundaries or limitations, nothing will be able to sheild you and your loved ones from your mistakes, mistakes that'll make Gen X/Y's faults by comparison look mole-hillish.