Why has there been no serious deamalgamation campaign?

[adma]

And note the map in the corresponding Wikipedia entry for Virginia.. Unlike Ontario, it does show the Independent Cities as separate entities.

For you see--this is about comprehension of "common usage". And as much as Wikipedia's looked down upon by some as "untrustworthy", when it comes to this kind of stuff, you can trust it as an active conveyor or reflection of "common usage". And as you can see from my own map geekery, I'm in a position to verify the fact. Disagree? Take it up with the Wikipedia community (and no, I don't count myself among the contributors, I'm the disinterested third party here).

Yeah, you can sneer at it, much as a Weather Report fan can sneer at the Archies as being worthless prefab commercial crap. But the fact remains: "Sugar Sugar" was #1 for four weeks on Billboard. Weather Report's highest album-chart position was #31. And "Sugar Sugar", unlike , say, the even-longer-at-#1 "You Light Up My Life" or "Physical", has tended to get musical respect in the appropriate critical circles. It doesn't mean the Archies are, in technical terms, inherently superior to Weather Report--in context, that's immaterial apples/oranges penis-comparison. But it does have a way of portraying the "worthless prefab commercial crap" argument as middlebrow pseudo-sophistication: IOW whatever you do, Respect Common Usage. It doesn't mean you can't "asterisk" it--just respect it.

 

[freshcutgrass]

And note the map in the corresponding Wikipedia entry for Virginia.. Unlike Ontario, it does show the Independent Cities as separate entities.

Or...perhaps Ontario map makers just suck ass?

For you see--this is about comprehension of "common usage".

“If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. â€
― Joseph Goebbels

much as a Weather Report fan can sneer at the Archies as being worthless prefab commercial crap.

As a Mahavishnu fan, I thought Weather Report was worthless prefab commercial crap. Most "supergroups" are.

 

[adma]

As a Mahavishnu fan, I thought Weather Report was worthless prefab commercial crap. Most "supergroups" are.

Yeah, but you can be a Mahavishnu fan *and* an Archies fan at the same time, you know--I'd love to collide "Jingle Jangle" off of "The Inner Mounting Flame". (Then again, you'd probably be the sort to use that Goebbels line as a dig on Lester Bangs/Richard Meltzer-type contrarians who pretended the Archies didn't suck ass. Like, Top 40 sucks balls, maaaan; as did those fashionably-overrated rock critics who pretended that least-denominator bubblegum crap was "profound" in any way.)

(And come to think of it, when it comes to mapping: maybe the official Ontario maps of the 60s and 70s were like AM Top 40; next to which what MapArt represented was like the advent of progressive FM and whatever else that made one never want to go back to that Top 40 crap; next to which our era of GPS is like our "who needs radio anymore" era of downloads.)

But in a way, getting back on topic, and to the whole generational (d?)evolution of "municipality consciousness" into little more than an administrative abstraction: if we go back a decade and a half to the original anti-Megacity movement, I'm suspecting a generation gap among those opposed--to those who were older, it might have been more about the loss of "municipal integrity" through the dissolution of the old component municipalities, while to those younger, it was more plainly, directly an anti-Mike Harris impulse. After all, the latter were already children of Metro; they were Metro before they were Mega; their "hinterland", all accessible through a single transit fare, already encompassed the entire Megacity geography. And because Metro was in effect the first "administrative abstraction" entity in Ontario, they were like municipal-culture coalmine canaries. Even I recognized it at the time; which is why I felt that certain elements of the anti-Megacity movement were overwrought. For the young "antis", it wasn't about saving Etobicoke/North York/East York etc; it was more like "Mel Lastman, Mayor of Toronto?!? Ewww!"

That latter pro-deamalgamation dynamic inherently "revivable", of course, under Rob Ford. However, remember that before Ford, that the same dreaded Megacity elected David Miller. And going back to '96/97, you have to remember that the central fear was that this heavy-handed Mike Harris municipal concoction was designed to make sure no inner-city-elite lefty like David Miller would ever be elected mayor. Thus, if the current lack of a serious deamalg campaign reflects anything, it's that even if there's presently a Ford, there's always hope for another Miller--come to think of it, Jack Layton would have been more electable as megamayor in 2010 than he was as former-city-of-Toronto mayor in 1991...

 

[freshcutgrass]

Yeah, but you can be a Mahavishnu fan *and* an Archies fan at the same time

Perhaps because despite the vast differences, they both manage to not come off as pretentious, yet eclectic. Mahavishnu for the simple fact that they are a jazz fusion band...and not pretentious.

What...you don't consider The Archies as an "eclectic" band? A "conductor", but no bass? And check out the video for "Sugar Sugar". Sabrina is making the the guys pay a buck for a kiss, but the dog (conductor) gets it for free.

Jughead would have made a natural jazz fusion band member.

the whole generational (d?)evolution of "municipality consciousness" into little more than an administrative abstraction

Thought you could just slip that one in and I wouldn't notice? Your whole "common usage" = comprehension theory is the abstraction, not the clearly defined foul lines of the administrative reality.

For the young "antis", it wasn't about saving Etobicoke/North York/East York etc; it was more like "Mel Lastman, Mayor of Toronto?!? Ewww!"

Well, to even the score, it was followed by the "Barbara Hall, Mayor of Toronto?!? Ewww!" antis.

 

[adma]

Thought you could just slip that one in and I wouldn't notice? Your whole "common usage" = comprehension theory is the abstraction, not the clearly defined foul lines of the administrative reality.

Well maybe, as per my comparison point, just like as a conveyor of musical culture, the so-called golden age of AM Top 40 was a least-denominator, payola/manipulation-ridden "abstraction", especially by the "clearly defined foul lines" of today's self-serve/infinite-choice plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face standards of musical consumption (and the measurement thereof)--yet one that, I suppose, continues to be uncritically portrayed as "reality" by all too many "reliable" resources. Like, one might say that Goebbels quote can just as well pertain to the historical modus operandi of the Billboard Hot 100. So, what then? Wipe the Billboard stats from Wikipedia?

Sometimes, historical revisionism on behalf of "correcting" or "debunking" said "common usage" can go too far, you know.

But again...when it comes to the stuff of county geography and all, it may be the stuff of young(er) indifference, and, perhaps, a "critical indifference"--t/w what older folk took for granted. And younger may even include your/my generation; after all, even if the 1971 Ontario road map has a certain "Douglas Coupland object" iconic resonance to it, it wasn't geared t/w your/my/Coupland's generation: it was geared to those a generation or more older, for whom the stuff of county divisions might still have had symbiotic geographic meaning. They used the maps--not, except in rare cases like mine, the kids. The kids were indifferent. They were the first bored-stiff "are we there yet" generation: they were jadedly disengaged from the mass-cartographic sensuality of road travel. Road signs announcing county and place boundaries (and populations) were just out-of-the-window staffage: no thrill, nothing.

It's in the context of such generational indifference that one must comprehend things like the evisceration of the King's Highway system, or the viewing of municipalities as big blah geographical subdivisions and megasubdivisions of purely administrative function. Ironically, they disengaged from the intended "common usage"--even when they *did* somehow engage to matters of municipal geography. And in the latter case, there's a certain "purity" to their outlook; but a charmlessness as well. It's like growing up in an "ideal" Mahavishnu household bereft of the Archies...

 

[howl]

Well congratulations. You've successfully killed an interesting and informative thread about municipal amalgamation and de-amalgamation with your irrelevant and obtuse discussion about how mapmakers in Ontario are too lazy to show the correct political boundaries on their maps. Well done.

 

[freshcutgrass]

Well maybe, as per my comparison point, just like as a conveyor of musical culture, the so-called golden age of AM Top 40 was a least-denominator, payola/manipulation-ridden "abstraction", especially by the "clearly defined foul lines" of today's self-serve/infinite-choice plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face standards of musical consumption (and the measurement thereof)--yet one that, I suppose, continues to be uncritically portrayed as "reality" by all too many "reliable" resources. Like, one might say that Goebbels quote can just as well pertain to the historical modus operandi of the Billboard Hot 100. So, what then? Wipe the Billboard stats from Wikipedia?

Sometimes, historical revisionism on behalf of "correcting" or "debunking" said "common usage" can go too far, you know.

But if I had to choose between whether Toronto was/is part of York County based on popular perception or historical facts....I'll take the historical facts. More importantly, if my perception that it was (for whatever reason) became contradicted by facts, I'm likely to change my perception...not try to hold onto my old perception out of fear or nostalgia.

That's why a billion people still think the fable of Noah's Ark was an actual historical event, despite the overwhelming evidence that it wasn't.

Well congratulations. You've successfully killed an interesting and informative thread about municipal amalgamation and de-amalgamation

I'd like to take credit, but it appears indifference and/or ignorance is the more likely culprit.

How can you discuss de-amalgamation if you aren't really sure about what amalgamation is? For example, most people think it is an event that started in 1998, when in fact, it really started in 1953.

 

[Dan416]

I think the answer to the question "Why has there bee no serious deamalgamation campaign?" is simple. "Because it's not going to happen".

 

[adma]

But if I had to choose between whether Toronto was/is part of York County based on popular perception or historical facts....I'll take the historical facts. More importantly, if my perception that it was (for whatever reason) became contradicted by facts, I'm likely to change my perception...not try to hold onto my old perception out of fear or nostalgia.

But perhaps my point regards so-called "popular perception" as an extension of, rather than a contradiction of, historical facts--especially when it's affirmed by the official presentation of geographic and census definitions. This so-called laziness of Ontario mapmakers that howl refers to is historical. (And that's why I use the word "common" rather than "popular"--it's less cheapening.)

So, rather than changing your perception, acknowledge that the two definitions are equally valid and symbiotic in their way. Both/and rather than either/or--don't be priggish t/w so-called historical laziness. After all, from survey errors to mispronunciations and misspellings, "laziness" is an ingrained and vital part of our cultural geography. Footnote it; asterisk it--don't dismiss it or displace it. Re "historical facts", remember the philosophical question: what are historical facts? Maybe you should set your apron more broadly, i.e. don't change your perception: augment it. It ain't just nostalgia, after all.

(Besides, if anything's a more vivid symbol of "geographic laziness" in Ontario, it isn't what the province's map-makers have historically wrought, but what the more recent municipal restructurings have wrought in the name of megaamalgamation--though less in the case of the City Of Toronto than in the case of the City Of Kawartha Lakes.)

 

[adma]

I think the answer to the question "Why has there bee no serious deamalgamation campaign?" is simple. "Because it's not going to happen".

Or, it's about as likely to happen as the what-comes-around reinstatement of the name "Berlin" to Kitchener due to present-day standards of "correctness". (Yeah, just as with the county-definition discussion above, watch it with the overwrought application of "correctness".)

 

[GenerationW]

Well congratulations. You've successfully killed an interesting and informative thread about municipal amalgamation and de-amalgamation with your irrelevant and obtuse discussion about how mapmakers in Ontario are too lazy to show the correct political boundaries on their maps. Well done.

You're being too harsh. Just think of it as being a missing episode of the TV show Cheers featuring Cliff Clavin arguing with his clone.

 

[adma]

Or, given my professed childhood map-geekery, it'd be like my youthful self successfully *killing* (well, in the eyes of whatever siblings and peers around me) a family day trip with my irrelevant and obtuse insistence upon taking old Hwy 2 rather than the 401.

Yes, I was inherently that kind of kid.