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

[ladyscraper]

He also told a story about a conversation he overheard in Dallas between 2 women who, one had just recently returned from a business trip who talked about our dirty streets, litter everywhere, the homeless and the unfriendly citizens.

Oddly enough, I overheard a woman from Dallas saying that the Empire State Building is much taller than the CN Tower so I wouldn't put too much thought into what random southern strangers might think.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Maybe we're in a bit of a decline since, like, 2008? That seemed like a good year. 2009 was probably a little less enjoyable and now 2010 has this crazy G20 stuff in the middle of it, though the Olympics were pretty cool with all the celebrating and stuff. In conclusion, no one cares.

I wasn't really around in the 80s/90s, but it seems absolutely crazy to me that vast swaths of downtown were considered sketchy places that no one went to.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

it's all a matter of perspective. if you're standing on the lake shore and you're looking north, toronto's on an incline. if you're standing on steeles ave and you're looking south, i totally agree with the subject of this thread.

 

[doady]

tkip, I've seen you post the exact same sentiment over and over and each time I weigh it with my experiences and come to the conclusion that the Toronto you've been living in is not the Toronto that I'm living in. By any real measure (economic output, cultural institutions, safety), the city is leagues ahead of itself in the '80s and '90s.

Aside from too-cool-for-school complaints as in the post above:

- Yes, garbage pickup and street cleaning could be better. The new garbage containers are NOT helping the situation in some neighbourhoods. I'll also suggest that the majority of littering assholes do not live in Toronto, but are actually visiting from the 905 area.

Yeah the 905er has no manners, no repsect for his fellow human beings at all. The city should just build a wall at the boundaries to keep these barbarians out. Littering problem solved.

 

[SimonP]

For central Toronto the years from 2005 to 2010 will be looked back upon as the one of the city's greatest. A tremendous amount of construction has reshaped much of the core. If you look at the 20 tallest buildings in Toronto 10 of them have been built in the last five years. That period also saw the rebuilding of many of the city's most important landmarks, most notably the ROM, AGO, and Four Seasons Centre. Older core neighbourhoods like the Annex, Cabbagetown, and the Beaches saw huge increases in home prices as they became ever more desirable places to live. Once troubled neighbourhodos have begun a complete reinvention in the new Regent Park and the Distillery District.

This boom hasn't extended to the entire city. It's been countered by a sharp decline in the inner suburbs and in the economic position of new immigrants. Commie block towers built in the 1970s scattered across town are in trouble, while outside the city sprawl has continued to create endless tracts of car dependent subdivisions in once rural areas. While some plans are in place, we are just the beginning of what's needed to make up for thirty years of failure to expand the mass transit system.

 

[Edward Skira]

it's all a matter of perspective. if you're standing on the lake shore and you're looking north, toronto's on an incline. if you're standing on steeles ave and you're looking south, i totally agree with the subject of this thread.

Quote of the day!

 

[W. K. Lis]

On the negative side, twenty years ago we had garbage collection twice a week, today its once every two weeks... with restrictions. Weeds are growing everywhere, because we are forbodden to kill them with herbicides, or use pesticides to control insects. We can't send the homeless to shelters, because that would be cruel.

On the positive side, we have more frequent bus service and new low-floor streetcars are on order. We are getting bicycle paths created, would be more except for the NIMBY's. We are finally getting more rapid transit being constructed, instead of canceling them. People are turning away from the sprawl of the later half of the 20th century, more transit orient development coming on board.

 

[Hipster Duck]

This boom hasn't extended to the entire city. It's been countered by a sharp decline in the inner suburbs and in the economic position of new immigrants. Commie block towers built in the 1970s scattered across town are in trouble, while outside the city sprawl has continued to create endless tracts of car dependent subdivisions in once rural areas. While some plans are in place, we are just the beginning of what's needed to make up for thirty years of failure to expand the mass transit system.

Yes, Simon, that's very important for people on this downtown-centric forum to realize. While downtown's growth has been fantastic, there are many parts of the outer-416, particularly south Scarborough and northern Etobicoke where things might as well have stood still over the last 20 years (or declined, actually...). Maps that document demographic and income trends paint a depressing picture of an increasingly stratified city.

Yes, invariably someone is going to respond by saying that that's what's been happening in cities across the US since 1980. Frankly, though, if we want to aim toward creating a city that strives towards social accountability and equity, the US is not exactly the kind of country we want to compare ourselves to.

On the negative side, twenty years ago we had garbage collection twice a week, today its once every two weeks... with restrictions. Weeds are growing everywhere, because we are forbodden to kill them with herbicides, or use pesticides to control insects. We can't send the homeless to shelters, because that would be cruel.

On the positive side, we have more frequent bus service and new low-floor streetcars are on order. We are getting bicycle paths created, would be more except for the NIMBY's. We are finally getting more rapid transit being constructed, instead of canceling them. People are turning away from the sprawl of the later half of the 20th century, more transit orient development coming on board.

The negatives you list are, frankly, the things I really appreciate about Toronto. I am happy that we have to pay for different-sized garbage bins and divert enough of our organic waste and recyclables to no longer require twice-a-week garbage pickup.

I am overjoyed that we no longer spray harmful pesticides in our urban environment so that we can maintain lawns that appeal to some bizarre aesthetic values.

In both of these categories, I delight in telling my American friends about how far ahead we are.

On the other hand, your positives aren't positives because we aren't doing them. We aren't building bike lanes, we aren't investing in rapid transit and bus frequencies are not noticeably better than they were in 1989, and often they're worse.

 

[nfitz]

On the negative side, twenty years ago we had garbage collection twice a week, today its once every two weeks... with restrictions. Weeds are growing everywhere, because we are forbodden to kill them with herbicides, or use pesticides to control insects. We can't send the homeless to shelters, because that would be cruel.

One might argue that those were positives. Garbage production has been dropped to the point that it only needs to be collected once a fortnight; heck we really only fill a medium bin once every 4 weeks (but it's pretty full at that point).

And there certainly seems to be less homeless on the streets than there was in 2002/2003 when I started being in Toronto a lot again.

 

[tkip]

The stench of decay....

Maybe I should have named this thread the decline of our culture rather than the decline of Toronto. That being said I'm going to say it again because I don't like what I'm seeing out in the streets now. Toronto is in decline or rather it's the behaviour of the citizens that's in delcine and it's not just limited to the physical condition of our streets, parks, transit and infrastructure. Something else is going on and I think it's a cultural shift.

People use to have manners. Not seeing too much of that these days. I said before people are ruder, well they are. Especially the younger people. Definitely mouthier and more vulgar acting than when I was young. Far more so. Frankly I find a lot of the behaviour of many young people to be extremely trashy and I get the feeling that many on this board have noticed and experienced it firsthand down in the club district for example.

People are most certainly dirtier now. Otherwise you wouldn't see discarded cigarette butts in the hundreds everywhere. Or litter on the sidewalks, in the streets, on floors of transit vechicles and so forth. People treat the public like it was their living room. Stretching their legs out and you can't pass. Listening to their music out loud and refusing to use headphones. Not stopping for red lights and running pedestrians nearly down.

Allowing their dogs to defecate on someone else's lawn. In broad daylight. With neighbors watching. I've been seeing a lot more of this lately. At least in my neighborhood. People walking in groups on the sidewalk and you simply can't get by other than barging through and getting looks or jumping onto the road to avoid them. They refuse to make room for you.

Lewd behaviour where 12 yr girls allow their boyfriends to feel them up in plain view on the subway in front of a packed train. The non-stop gutter talk again, mostly from younger people. People cutting in front of the line ahead of you. Cars that won't stop for pedestrians exiting streetcars. Or people riding their bicycles on the sidewalk at high velocity and you have to dodge them or be hit. And I'm not talking kids. I'm talking grown adults.

Speaking of lewd behaviour, does anyone think it's disturbing to see so many kids, especially very young girls, wearing stripper outfits out late at night in groups down in the club district or on a school night and it's 1 in the morning. Where the hell are the parents?

Very few people give up their seats now to older people, people with disabilies or pregnant women. It's embarassing to see a packed streetcar and not one person will offer their seat to the old lady with a cane struggling. People are openly spitting in the streets, on the tracks in subway stations, out the windows of their cars and of course, people throw their waste and cigarettes out the windows instead of keeping their trash in their car.

The list just goes on and on. I don't remember any of this happening when I was a kid growing up here.

I think what's happened is that there has been a erosion of values that use to include modesty, ethics, dignity, manners, self respect and common sense and it's being manifested as part of the urban decay out in the public sphere.... And judging from the remarks of many of my immigrant co-workers who moved here in the 70's and 80's, they've noticed this disturbing trend as well.

Somehow I doubt we're all sharing the same delusion.

 

[nfitz]

Hasn't every generation been saying this for thousands of years?

Your just getting old!

 

[GraphicMatt]

Kids today get off my lawn in my day we had respect

 

[adma]

I was listening to Jim Richard's replacement today on the radio.

A guy who is from Toronto and has lived away from the city for a number of years and recently he returned and said he was appalled at the deterioration of the city.

Especially the condition of the streets and the litter everywhere. He also told a story about a conversation he overheard in Dallas between 2 women who, one had just recently returned from a business trip who talked about our dirty streets, litter everywhere, the homeless and the unfriendly citizens.

Not sure who the replacement host was, but...consider the source. CFRB. Commercial talk radio, where Sun-like hyperbole tends to be habit...

 

[Chuck]

Toronto just needs infrastructure investment, and then the rest will happen naturally. The growth will stop dead in its tracks if people can't get where they need to go quickly. Must improve east-west travel times in downtown, must add north-south subway capacity, and the only way to do so is through subway construction.

 

[kettal]

http://www.nfb.ca/film/10_7_for_life/

A NFB documentary from 1995 about a downtown policewoman who laments what has become of the city. IMO there has been improvement compared to how things were in this video.