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

[adma]

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.

Interestingly enough, I'd argue that Rob Ford's representative of such a shift--at least insofar as he represents far coarser stuff than his father's generation. His bankrupt usage of the f- and s-word in his taped phone convo's evidence enough of that...

 

[tkip]

Actaully....

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

I like listening to CFRB because they have hosts that talk about common sense and point out stupid behaviour. I don't see this hyperbole you're referring to.

We need a dose of common sense in our society now anyway. My one big pet peeve these days. That and bringing back tough love because it worked. Kept people in line and you didn't have this culture of entitlement where so many now want the rest of us to cater to them. And while we're at it, let's bring back shame too because no one is embarassed by anything they do these days. No matter how stupid or trashy, no one feels embarassed.

Anyway. While the station is more right wing, personally I see nothing wrong with this.

And I know I sound like a broken record and it's annoying to some but I will keep on repeating this message. The one thing I will say is that yes, it's all relative when discussing the condition of cities and attitudes and behaviours of people living there. That being said, Toronto is the not the same city I remember 20yrs ago and people these days act far worse than what I saw growing up around me.

Again, I think this is mostly due to a cultural erosion of values..... And yes, I am older and just don't have the patience for dealing with things the way I use to.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Yes. Common Sense! You might even say that it's time for a Common Sense... Revolution?

 

[CHAMMY]

As a lifelong Torontonian, I have said and will continue to say that for a city its size Toronto is one of the cleanest places around. I think a lot of the litter and graffiti around is a direct result of certain immigrants coming in to our city and treating it like back home. Daily I see littervacs on our streets and also the 311 service is great for getting things done including litter pickup, the biggest scrouge regarding litter is the TimHorton coffee cup,ban them and you will see hardly any litter.

 

[Fresh Start]

Toronto's definitely in decline, but to admit so will probably get you labelled a philistine.

 

[adma]

Again, I think this is mostly due to a cultural erosion of values..... And yes, I am older and just don't have the patience for dealing with things the way I use to.

Yet rather ironically, as per my point, said erosion may be more evident on the political right than the political left--there's a wider gulf btw/the Rob Fords of today and the Bill Davis/John Tory political culture, than there is btw/Adam Giambrone and *his* forebears...

 

[SimonP]

People always describe the Toronto of the past as this clean and glorious place, then I look at pictures like this one and the galleries here and here and the city looks like a grey and declining industrial town. More like Buffalo than the city of today.

 

[Rowe]

Ya, cities get a bit worn out. Toronto is growing, give it time.

Streets are just as dirty in NYC, London, Dallas etc. That is just what happens to a big city.

I love TO and I can't wait to move onto a dirty, litter-filled street.

 

[SteveMunro]

Earlier tonight I was sitting in Roy Thomson Hall, a building that sits on what used to be a railway yard. Everything south of King was industrial land. One thing I do feel about the city is that the media war on City Hall spills over into the sense that "the city doesn't work", and last year's garbage strike didn't help one bit.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

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.

Using more sand than salt in the winter + basically stopping streetcleaning in some areas = veritable sandstorms in the spring on streets like Brimley. Yet, downtown puke seems to be cleaned quicker than ever.

I don't want to say moving around the deck chairs on the Titanic, because that's not what's happening to Toronto (if the city was actually "declining," we'd sure as hell all recognize it), but I will say it's like trading pawns in a game of chess where neither player really knows how to defeat the other. We are kind of fortunate that the outer 416 is still so new and so firmly middle class (which it is despite recent 'Three Cities' doomsaying).

The Four Horsemen of Toronto's apocalypse are the casino, the Gigamall, the maximum security prison, and the toxic waste conversion plant...Woodbine Live! could be the first, the Eaton Centre revamp could be the second, and the G20 prep & fences could be the third, but that's as far as it goes

 

[golodhendil]

The stench of decay....

snip

What's with this. Broken/in fragments sensationalist newspaper writing style. Very dstracting. Wrong grammar. Must be declining culture.

I think it's a case where you should probably go out to the world (or at least, turn on a TV) and actually *see* what's going on in the rest of the world, because the "problems" you pointed out are hardly limited to Toronto. Or Canada. Or North America. From a social conservative's standpoint, the fact that it's not unique to Toronto probably isn't going to sway your opinion much. But I guess no 19th-century Victorian-era gentleman told you when you were growing up how abhorrent your behaviour was. And imagine how low a Mediaeval noble would have thought your generation had fallen to.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Fresh Start:

Speaking of being a philistine - over to you:

Since I likely will never be able to afford to (or frankly even want to) live along the Central Waterfront or brownstones adjacent rail corridors, what they're building there is of minimal concern to me. That doesn't mean that I'm against urbanity, but so long as a building has the standard windows and four walls I'm indifferent on one's particular aesthetics.

http://urbantoronto.ca/showthread.php?13020-Rob-Ford-Why-the-Supervillian/page28

AoD

 

[OttoSchloss]

I get the dirty thing, especially if it's coming from someone from Dallas, with a 9to5 central core and pretty much all social activity taking place at large indoor and outdoor suburban malls. But everyone I've always spoken to finds people here friendly. I always cock my eye and say "really"? because we could be doing a better job on that front and I do find us uptight with each other (Torontonians remind me of the Sandra Bullock character in Crash when she asks "why am I angry all the time"), but the general consensus is that it's a friendly city for tourists.

As far as decline goes, it's a more interesting and fun city to live in now than at any other time. The 80s had their moments but this place was so dreary during that period it hardly mattered.

 

[SimonP]

That is a good point, Toronto's streets are far busier with pedestrians than anything I've seen in the sunbelt. In cities where everyone zips from place to place in their air conditioned SUVs the city will always be much cleaner.

This is also been a change that has occurred in Toronto. There is a lot more street life than there was a few decades ago. I was talking to a fellow who'd been a municipal activist for a long time, and one of the battles he remembers is trying to bring patios to Toronto. Before the 1970s having a street side patio in Toronto was almost unheard of.

 

[Tewder]

I get the dirty thing, especially if it's coming from someone from Dallas, with a 9to5 central core and pretty much all social activity taking place at large indoor and outdoor suburban malls. But everyone I've always spoken to finds people here friendly. I always cock my eye and say "really"? because we could be doing a better job on that front and I do find us uptight with each other (Torontonians remind me of the Sandra Bullock character in Crash when she asks "why am I angry all the time"), but the general consensus is that it's a friendly city for tourists.

As far as decline goes, it's a more interesting and fun city to live in now than at any other time. The 80s had their moments but this place was so dreary during that period it hardly mattered.

Also, to be fair, in contrast to the 'how y'all doin'/come back now ya here!'-type hyper friendliness that is par for the course in many parts of the States, Toronto's lacklustre standards of customer service, to put it mildly, must seem unbelievably cold and unfriendly to a Texan. I notice this myself when I come back from frequent trips to the US. Even in larger cities like Chicago and NYC the customer is still king and deserving of respect, for the most part. There are always exceptions of course but in general I find that Canadian attitudes towards customer service tend to follow a European tradition rather than an American one.