Why would someone who hates Toronto so much choose to stay here?

Nov. 21, 2004. 01:00 AM

A city of beauty could be a joy forever


CHRISTOPHER HUME

Beauty has become an ugly word in Toronto. Given what a mess we're making of the city, perhaps that's not surprising.

But even in Toronto there's a growing awareness that beauty, for lack of a better term, is vital to the city's continuing viability.

It's true, as we have been told over and over again, that beauty exists in the eye of the beholder. But that has become an excuse used to justify banality; if beauty's strictly subjective, why even try?

It's also true we've been told many times that the city is too poor to attempt anything beyond the ordinary, the cheap and the mediocre.

So why is it that everywhere you turn, cities are busy beautifying themselves in a never-ending struggle to remain, for lack of a better term, "world-class"?

Mayor David Miller has made much of his commitment to making Toronto a beautiful city, but a year after his election it's painfully clear that good intentions won't be enough.

Although Miller is the best person to have occupied the position in many years, the fact remains that he doesn't have the powers he needs to force the city (and developers) to act smarter, to understand the vital importance, the absolute necessity, to be beautiful.

Sadly, his vote is just one among 45 and despite his visibility and powers of moral persuasion, these don't add up to the kind of political power required to preside over a city that is fast falling behind other world centres.

Most of all, he lacks the power to break a mindset that has characterized Toronto since its beginnings as a muddy military garrison. That way of thinking views the very concept of beauty with suspicion. It sees beauty as a frill, effeminate and distracting, certainly not the proper goal of civic government.

That mentality is alive and well at City Hall to this very day, where numerous councillors (many from Scarborough) are convinced that any public expenditure not directly connected to garbage collection, street cleaning and the like is bogus. The best city, these municipal fossils argue, is the one that levies the lowest taxes and stays out of our way.

If only. Such a simplistic attitude is hopelessly out of date in the 21st century. The truth is that the most sophisticated cities — New York, Chicago, Paris, Barcelona — devote considerable time and effort to beauty. In an article in the current issue of the Toronto Society of Architects newsletter, respected planner Joe Berridge writes about work he has done recently in Manchester, a grimy birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and a community not known as a hotbed of urban beauty. But as Berridge points out, Manchester is turning itself into "Barcelona without the Mediterranean."

"Manchester has become a beautiful city," Berridge writes, "because they devote the senior management resources to that end. The mayor and the chief executive sit on every design panel and personally award every important design commission, directing all significant design decisions. Neither is an architect, but both know instinctively that good architecture and public design are the essence of urban success. If designers can produce a remarkable piece of work, somehow the city bureaucracy will find the money and the approvals. The civic political and executive leadership devotes its energies to managing the city's future."

Instead of that, we have the Toronto Branding Project. This recently launched program seeks "to develop a remarkable brand strategy for Toronto that will create a fresh new way of communicating the city's strong and dynamic identity to the rest of the world."

There's nothing wrong with that, but our problems run deeper than mere image-making. There's a sense in this city of paralysis. The wheels of government grind so slowly that action becomes all but impossible. The federal government sits on a $9 billion surplus while homelessness grows, public transit languishes and infrastructure rots.

"A city of our size," Berridge continues, "should be investing between $750 million and $1 billion a year on strategic and beautiful capital projects. But how could we find that?"

Berridge suggests a very tough program that would reduce the city payroll to 73 per cent of current levels over five years. Staff salaries would be cut to 75 per cent, contracts would be tendered, and every city business (Toronto Hydro, water services, garbage disposal, dog licences and so on) would become "a profit centre."

According to Berridge: "There has been no creativity in the organization of city hall at a time when every private and institutional entity is in constant change, increasing productivity, controlling labour costs, maximizing output, improving service and making customers happy."

Toronto, Berridge warns, "does not compare well to the rest of the world."

No, and it's only getting worse.
Additional articles by Christopher Hume

I seriously don't see how Toronto is ugly. IMO it's actually really nice...

Why do we keep posting his crap? If we ignore him, he'll go away! Hume is obviously mentally challenged at best

:crazy: <-that's Hume :P

If only. Such a simplistic attitude is hopelessly out of date in the 21st century. The truth is that the most sophisticated cities — New York, Chicago, Paris, Barcelona — devote considerable time and effort to beauty.

Hey correct me if I'm wrong but isn't part of New York over a landfill? and thats supposed to be beauty? I mean yes Toronto does have some cleaning up too do around the city. However, you can still find beauty all over Toronto.

The reason I can't take Hume seriously, is that he actually makes ridiculous claims that he actually thinks people will believe.

Those cities he mentions have huge areas of massive decay of the like Toronto has never seen...and their infastructure is in no way as in as good a shape as Toronto's. NYC is bankrupt, crammed full of banality and downright decrepid in most areas....not to mention unable to front the kind of infastructure that even much smaller Toronto can.

Hume is just a weeny...but generally he is just a giant lier...which is why he is a plain bad journalist. He flaunts the same line somehow in every article he writes. Of course he isn't going to leave...he writes a column that he has found a niche for....he enjoys being the character he is, even if he lies about it. He possibly thinks he is making the city better by pretending to make things out to be worse than they are so as to improve the status quao?

Problem is, everything he says as an excuse is so laughably contradictory, how could anybody take it seriously?






KGB

Hey correct me if I'm wrong but isn't part of New York over a landfill? and thats supposed to be beauty?

Not landfill as in garbage dump, but as in large amounts of soil dumped into the river to extend te shroeline.

However, JFK airport was built over a garbage landfill.

Let's stop being willfully blind and acknowledge that this city has very serious problems.
Hume raises good points!



Beauty has become an ugly word in Toronto. Given what a mess we're making of the city, perhaps that's not surprising.
....

It's also true we've been told many times that the city is too poor to attempt anything beyond the ordinary, the cheap and the mediocre. (Toronto's signature look: the cheap out!)

Mayor David Miller has made much of his commitment to making Toronto a beautiful city, ........
... (but), he lacks the power to break a mindset that has characterized Toronto since its beginnings as a muddy military garrison. That way of thinking views the very concept of beauty with suspicion. It sees beauty as a frill, effeminate and distracting, certainly not the proper goal of civic government.

.... Such a simplistic attitude is hopelessly out of date in the 21st century. The truth is that the most sophisticated cities — New York, Chicago, Paris, Barcelona — devote considerable time and effort to beauty. ...

"Manchester has become a beautiful city," Berridge writes, "because they devote the senior management resources to that end. The mayor and the chief executive sit on every design panel and personally award every important design commission, directing all significant design decisions. Neither is an architect, but both know instinctively that good architecture and public design are the essence of urban success. If designers can produce a remarkable piece of work, somehow the city bureaucracy will find the money and the approvals. The civic political and executive leadership devotes its energies to managing the city's future."
....

[b]The federal government sits on a $9 billion surplus (who provided it? oh yeah: 416!) while homelessness grows, public transit languishes and infrastructure rots. (Who's not getting the benefit of the money the billions extracted and sent to Ottawa? Oh yeah: 416!)
...

Toronto, Berridge warns, "does not compare well to the rest of the world."


Is it surprising that Toronto reflects the fact that it gets dinged a couple billion a month (and shocking more when 905 is factored in.)
When we're out the value of a completed subway line every month, then, hell, it's not surprising at al that our signature look is the cheap out!
Possibly, an answer would be to have a 'quality control' checklist, with a list of does and don't s and "must have at least 2 of these) and (No more than 3 of these) etc.
At least- lets consider: Manchester has become a beautiful city," Berridge writes, "because they devote the senior management resources to that end. The mayor and the chief executive sit on every design panel and personally award every important design commission, directing all significant design decisions. Neither is an architect, but both know instinctively that good architecture and public design are the essence of urban success. If designers can produce a remarkable piece of work, somehow the city bureaucracy will find the money and the approvals. The civic political and executive leadership devotes its energies to managing the city's future."
Perhaps we can have some good ol' fashioned victim blaming--- hey, if the stupid consumer didn't want this crap, it wouldn't be built. Those suburban condo developers could thumps us all the chest and say,"when you constantly sellout 25+ story condo slabs, then you can talk to me about what the consumer demands!" etc.

The most import thing is to get a new deal for cities (and the 22 416 seats just isn't enough to make it happen) Why do we have cheap out look? BECAUSE IT'S ALL WE CAN AFFORD! Why? BECAUSE THE FEDS TAKE BILLIONS OUT OF THE GTA EVERY MONTH!! ! --- get a new deal for cities-- and our buildings improve. Architecture and building design does not exist in a vacuum. It's inconceivable that the harshness Toronto is treated with by senior levels of government would not be reflected in our architecture.... Look at the fiscally constrained ten buck opera house. Hume is right to be upset about design in Toronto.

Not landfill as in garbage dump, but as in large amounts of soil dumped into the river to extend te shroeline.

However, JFK airport was built over a garbage landfill.

Well thanks for clearing that up, but I still like Toronto better

Well, it's patent nonsense. I think it's intellectual dishonesty. I lost all respect for him when he was writing praise for Hong Kong. What's ugly in TO was apparently 'charming' in HK. Ridiculous.

The only thing he is right about is that the feds are assholes, but here's the news Hume-THE CITY IS TRYING TO GET MONEY FROM THEM BUT IT IS NOT AS EASY AS YOU SEEM TO THINK.

Hume bitching about Toronto? I'm shocked... yawn.

I never took his comments too seriously. His reviews are backed up with little substance. What is his academic background, is it architecture, design, art history? What gives him the ability to write such whiny, depressing, and melodramatic views of the city?

I'm all for constructive criticism but he needs to focus on the building and not embed ridiculous one-off insults to the City as a whole. Toronto is doing good and bad things, but he makes it sound the city is nothing but an urban wasteland.

I wonder if Toronto star readers living in North York, Scarborough, or Etobicoke are sick of Hume's constant bashing of their communities.

"

Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 9 Hume: Toronto is ugly, and getting uglier

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"Why would someone who hates Toronto so much choose to stay here? "


Why would someone who "loves" T.O. keep posting Hume and other negative topics?

"I think it's intellectual dishonesty. I lost all respect for him when he was writing praise for Hong Kong. "



Oh yea...that one sticks out for me too. Not that it surprised me, but it was so blatently dishonest, that even a person on a mission like Hume should have known better....as if all those hideous, soul-sucking, poorly built, poorly designed, lifeless, dickless highrise slums that look like St Jamestown from hell...which make up 90% of all buildings in HK, aren't a hundred times worse than ANYTHING in Toronto.

Yet he praises HK for it, when it clearly fails his so-called high standards of urban design.

It's one thing to sing the same BS song in every one of his articles (even when it doesn't even follow the story), because some incredibly high standards are not met (which they inevitably never will be too often...anywhere), but to add such a lack of intergrity to it just makes him a bad journalist.






KGB

^ I think he praised HK for its vibrant streetlife & urbanity, not the residential "slums" that dot the city. Though I admit most of HK's residential buildings are far beyond ugly, the new ones are quite good, both inside & out.

I agree that his articles are hypercritical & too harsh for TO.

^ read again, the slums were charming apparently. He was totally impressed with skyscrapers as a whole.

^ Do you still have a copy.. threw out that article with the rest of the garbage.

Here is the offending piece of refuse:

----------------

Toronto Star
Hong Kong's vertical villages an inspiration

CHRISTOPHER HUME

HONG KONG—Hong Kong isn't so much a city as a condition. Dense, concentrated, commercial and vertiginously vertical, it represents hyper-urbanism raised to gravity-defying heights.

Compared to Hong Kong, Toronto offers a mere hint of what the city might be. Not that many of us would be willing to change places — not unless you're willing to trade in your two-storey semi for a garage-sized apartment on the 45th floor of a mega-housing block.

In Toronto, where tall buildings inspire little more than fear and loathing, the desire for horizontality has led to sprawl and endless congestion. Amazingly, in Hong Kong, with a population of 6.8 million crammed into an area smaller than the GTA, the traffic moves better than in Toronto.

That's because very few people in Hong Kong drive to work and back. Unlike Toronto, public transit there is taken seriously.

Like the skyscraper, which, in Hong Kong serves a huge variety of purposes, subways, buses and streetcars are ubiquitous.

Speaking of skyscrapers, in Hong Kong they provide housing, office space, retail as well as factories. Though some are old and decrepit, verging on highrise slums, others rank among the most elegant and celebrated in the world.

The proliferation of skyscrapers has resulted in a new urban landscape, which like some concrete forest, has a canopy on top and a ground level that seems permanently in shadow. Though the natural terrain of this mountainous ocean port has been blasted and beaten into submission to suit the needs of the city, perhaps it is the source of Hong Kong's passion for skyscrapers. Almost everywhere you look, the city is surrounded by peaks.

Hong Kongers deal with their geography either by ignoring it or by embarking on engineering projects such as the construction of the world's largest man-made island for its new airport or building the planet's longest escalator, which rises hundreds of metres on Hong Kong Island, a vertical pedestrian highway.

More than anything, the escalator exemplifies Hong Kong's obsession — entirely understandable — with getting around.

Unlike North America, however, that does not entail cars. Hong Kongers clearly understood early on that those who live by the car will also die by the car. Instead, they put their faith and finances into public transit. So not surprisingly they are light years ahead of Toronto.

Where they have been tremendously successful is in their ability to integrate public transit with development. A good example is the massive twin-towered International Financial Centre. It opened just last year and even now remains incomplete. Designed by Cesar Pelli and Rocco Yim, the 88-storey structure is elegant and tall even by Hong Kong standards. But that's not what makes it so compelling from an urban point of view. The interesting thing here is how the complex sits atop a major transit hub that includes a bus terminal, subway stop and an airport train station.

By contrast, though many Toronto subway stations occupy prime sites, they remain woefully underdeveloped. One of the best examples is Eglinton station, which should have been built up decades ago. But when that happens, the neighbourhood will scream and shout all the way to the Ontario Municipal Board.

But if development doesn't belong where transportation facilities exist, then where? Of course, Toronto is Canada's biggest small town; its citizens make that clear in their appallingly parochial Not In My Backyard attitudes.

In Hong Kong, where there are no backyards, development is not just tolerated it's encouraged.

"Here," explains leading Hong Kong architect Rocco Yim, "the end product must contribute to the working of the city. The idea is to enable people to get from one part of the city to another, preferably through your project. A building becomes part of the public domain."

Hong Kong embarked on its highrise campaign in the mid-1950s in response to a devastating fire that swept through a refugee camp. The first residential skyscrapers were primitive structures that offered minimal privacy and shared facilities.

Since then, however, the Hong Kong housing development has evolved into a highly sophisticated arrangement of enormous towers — 60 to 72 storeys — set on a vast podium crammed full of shops, restaurants and other amenities.

The Hong Kong market has become so competitive that some of these vertical villages offer in-house doctors and dentists along with stores and health clubs.

Hong Kong's most obvious problem may be the lack of parks. Though the New Territories that surround the city are largely green space, the core is anything but. To some, this was a consequence of British colonial rule, which allowed little expression of popular will.

Perhaps, but in a society dedicated to commercialism, open space can easily be seen as wasted space.

In fact, there's very little wasted space in Hong Kong. Every street, alleyway, building, floor and room carries its maximum load. One of the city's most distinctive features is the habit of hanging laundry from windows of residential highrises. This tends to offend visiting Canadians, but that's because in this country, the skyscraper — technically anything higher than 35 storeys — is seen as a landmark and, therefore, must be polite and well mannered. Hong Kong's highrises are where people live, work, play and do their laundry.

Even after dark, when North America's office towers are empty boxes with the lights left on, Hong Kong's do double-duty as nighttime artworks. Illuminated by neon and coloured lights, they change appearance every few minutes.

This may be more cosmetic than substantive, but it illustrates the determination of Hong Kongers to inhabit their city as fully as possible. No opportunity, commercial or urban, is overlooked. Very little is wasted.

Which brings us back to Toronto and Canada, where waste is a way of life. Though Hong Kong may yet be smothered by the pollution mainland China is spewing forth in ever greater amounts, the fact remains that on a per capita basis, we North Americans put the Asians to shame. Indeed, Hong Kong is recognized as one of the most sustainable cities in the world.

Long after the sprawl has been abandoned to the cold winds of change, Hong Kongers will be living happily ever after up in the highrise heavens.

^ I think he's impressed at how practical HK's sky rises are, not the architecture of it. Land is valuable & nothing can be wasted. I find it ironic that HK is a "sustainable city"... on one hand, it does promote PT, but on the other hand, HK doesn't even have a recycling program in place. If HKers had the land, they would definitely opt to drive instead (why many also buy a sprawling residence & car in Mainland China). Economics is always the King in capitalist HK, & HK is lucky in that it has accidently championed one environmental cause.

Also, he seems to be impressed that HK has allowed dense uses above MTR stations, something I think that TTC has not taken full advantage of. Like HK, TTC should be given the right to sell landrights above all subway stations to developers and create dense corridors... downtown, midtown & NYCC has done it well, & Bloor-Danforth Line, Spadina Line & Sheppard Line should be next. I think the Official Plan has addressed this issue. In HK, development rights has helped boost the MTR's bottom line.

NIMBYism doesn't really exist in HK be/c it's not a democratic city, & in the end influential developers always win. HKers also are unbashedly pro-business, something I think TO wants to avoid. In the end, the only NIMBYs that the government listens to are the elites of HK society.

Personal Experience -->My flat is on top of a shopping centre, attached to it is a 7/8 storey fitness-swimming facility+park/podium, & underneath is MTR station, taxi lanes and bus terminal. Even during typhoons, I can travel to a lot of places. Right across are street markets. Night views are amazing. Car is always in the garage.

I have been to NY, Chicago, Paris, Hong Kong. Those are beautiful cities compared to TO. Toronto is just not in that league because a majority of Canadians don't like to deviate from the norm. They wouldn't buy "odd looking" condo buildings (Tridel knows that). They complain about the new ROM & AGO designs. And they always complain about the height of new buildings.

Why would Hume compare TO to Manchester? And why would Manchester bother with beautification when there is so much social problems there?

ha ha ha...every line in that sorry excuse of an article is stooopeeder than the previous one. LOL!!

I wouldn't even know where to start...you'd have to point out the utter nonsense of every sentence.






KGB

They complain about the new ROM & AGO designs.

??? :weirdo:

"I have been to NY, Chicago, Paris, Hong Kong. Those are beautiful cities compared to TO. Toronto is just not in that league because a majority of Canadians don't like to deviate from the norm. They wouldn't buy "odd looking" condo buildings (Tridel knows that). They complain about the new ROM & AGO designs. And they always complain about the height of new buildings."

HAHAHA - Tridel's affordable designs have more shape and style than most of the recent super luxury condo towers in both NYC and Chicago.

Could you imagine if everybody in Chicago or NewYork got all worked up over every shiity building or urban planning blunder that happened in their city?...they would have already all commited suicide.

I take the Jane Jacobs approach...keep experimenting...don't make any of them so big that if they don't turn out, everything fucks up...and don't sweat it if it doesn't work out...just learn from it and move on.






KGB

"I have been to NY, Chicago, Paris, Hong Kong. Those are beautiful cities compared to TO. Toronto is just not in that league because a majority of Canadians don't like to deviate from the norm. They wouldn't buy "odd looking" condo buildings (Tridel knows that). They complain about the new ROM & AGO designs. And they always complain about the height of new buildings."

HAHAHA - Tridel's affordable designs have more shape and style than most of the recent super luxury condo towers in both NYC and Chicago.

The most import thing is to get a new deal for cities (and the 22 416 seats just isn't enough to make it happen) Why do we have cheap out look? BECAUSE IT'S ALL WE CAN AFFORD! Why? BECAUSE THE FEDS TAKE BILLIONS OUT OF THE GTA EVERY MONTH!! [b]! --- get a new deal for cities-- and our buildings improve. Architecture and building design does not exist in a vacuum. It's inconceivable that the harshness Toronto is treated with by senior levels of government would not be reflected in our architecture.... Look at the fiscally constrained ten buck opera house. Hume is right to be upset about design in Toronto.

Well thanks for clearing that up, but I still like Toronto better

No problem.

Are Be vs Hume



GO !!!!! ...........


he he






KGB

Oh folks, we have been through this crap before. Hume likes to poo poo damned near anything that happens in this city.

Without necessarily agreeing with the guy, anyone who challenges the going standard is a good thing, particularly where real estate is concerned. NYC's got too many of these fucking nasty looking condos, and we're complacent about it because we feel we can always rest on our laurels (bad idea). If TO doesn't have NYC's heritage, it DOES have a chance to establish a more important approach to 21st century urbanism (let me put it this way--absolutely nothing significant has been built in NYC since the Citbank Building in 1977-79). If Hume is trying to wake up people to this fact, isn't this a good thing? (I must say his negativity is throwing the baby out with the bath water.)

^ the problem with Hume is that nothing is good enough. Not every building can look like a work of art. And notice how he almost brushes off the good in the city. He basically dismisses the star projects in the city, and then says how nothing good is being built. Well, yeah, if I forget about what's positive, then certainly everything is negative.

Furthermore, if money grew on trees, than yes, maybe every condo could be a landmark. But it can't. And, a lot of them are hardly as bad as he seems to think they are. The Hong Kong article pointed out here earlier is a special case of this. He seems to positively DEMAND more densification, which yes is good, but then craps about everything new that is built. I mean, let's realistically look at HK. How many of the buildings are actually well made? Comparably, the condos being built now in TO are a work of art.

"If Hume is trying to wake up people to this fact, isn't this a good thing?"


Well, that idea is..yes. But Hume's approach to it isn't isn't. Not only does his approach go way too far in the melodrama as to illiminate any smidgen of seriousness that may be there...he employs double standards and outright bullshit to send his message...defeats the purpose...not to mention a lot of it is politically motivated, and falls prey to Toronto's overly competative newspaper rivalries.

This works, because Toronto is a place where grass-roots ideas can be very successful and can effect change...this is one reason why Jane Jacobs loves the place, and it has been going on long before she showed up. This is why NIMBYism is so large and powerful in this city...you can definetely fight developers AND city hall....and win. This has been especially so since the reform council of 1972....and people from that time like Jane Jacobs, David crombie and John Sewell still swing considerable power.






KGB

I actually don't mind this article and I dont' think Hume is too far off the mark.

Im glad beautification and design improvement are high on Miller's list, but Hume is right about the lack of funding.

But we can not really fault Miller for the lack of funding.

The truth is that as long as Toronto is mired in the kind of battles with Ontario and Ottawa, the city will never get the funding to be beautified the way it could/should/needs to be.

Toronto need more autonomy like European cities and more access to the money we generate.

Hume is a journalist and perhaps feels the need to be fashionably cynical.

He is perceptive at times, but the article labeling Toronto as ugly (and getting uglier) is a shameful exercise in aesthetic fascism.

When cultural elitists call on Government to legislate “beauty,” it is a cause for alarm. The history of modernity has shown that governmentally legislated aesthetics transforms cities into self-conscious, musty museums, drained of the spontaneity and organic pulse of human beings.

Devoting “senior management resources” designed to impose some committee’s idea of “beauty” on Toronto would be a cultural tragedy at best and perhaps even the beginning of cultural sterility in this exciting metropolis.

The streets of Toronto will morph and transform in concert with the life and activities of its citizens. It will be an eclectic, dynamic, bustling, exhilarating hodge-podge of art, commerce, brash advertising, “beauty” and “tawdriness.” The streets will reflect the life of Toronto’s people.

“Beauty” exists in the inconspicuous and the overlooked – something Hume seems incapable of appreciating. There are a thousand thousand urban pleasures on the streets of Toronto. As Baudelaire, one of the great poets of Modernity once said, “in the city, beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness…the trick is not to enforce some high priest’s conception of beauty on the city, but to change the instrument of the observer. To see the miraculous beauty of the everyday, one must change one’s mind and one’s eye…”

Mr. Hume, “beauty” in an urban wonderland like Toronto is a dynamic event that exists in real-time, constantly refreshing itself at every turn in the road. Beautification "committees" comprised of self-appointed cultural high priests may wish to vanquish the unfaithful, but the streets will remain (thankfully) immune to these aristocratic decrees.

Mr. Hume, your Toronto critiques suffer from myopic elitism. Descend from your lofty tower and walk the streets with the rest of us, the people who make Toronto alive and extraordinary. There is urban poetry down here, marvels both subtle and gross, and even grace.

....

When cultural elitists call on Government to legislate “beauty,” it is a cause for alarm. The history of modernity has shown that governmentally legislated aesthetics transforms cities into self-conscious, musty museums, drained of the spontaneity and organic pulse of human beings.

Devoting “senior management resources” designed to impose some committees idea of “beauty” on Toronto would be a cultural tragedy at best and perhaps even the beginning of cultural sterility in this exciting metropolis.

The streets of Toronto will morph and transform in concert with the life and activities of its citizens. It will be an eclectic, dynamic, bustling, exhilarating hodge-podge of art, commerce, brash advertising, “beauty” and “tawdriness.” The streets will reflect the life of Toronto's people.


Good points, to be certain. "The streets will reflect the life of Toronto's people." And sadly, the 2 billion we're out each month as well....

There might be something to be said for mandating something... say, like preserving facades, regardless of how marginal they might be, resulting in a new, cheap - out post modern look! (Even if the facade is later reconstructed using the same materials-- very easy to do with brick, for example - then the city could get no worse. People seem to like it.)

However, no doubt, this "transforms cities into self-conscious, musty museums, drained of the spontaneity and organic pulse of human beings . However, the signature look of Toronto is the cheap out! (For well understood reasons) If the new look becomes the Po -Mo (façadism) Cheap Out, with some cheap ass building stuck on to some unremarkable brick building from the 1920's, then that will be an improvement. And, our cheap - out buildings will be more remarkable, and the look of the city will improve.

Okay, you have twenty-three dots and have to connect them with two lines to make a geometric form and have to lift the pen off the paper when pursuing this task and...

Sorry, what were you saying AreBe?

Don't we all know how to decipher Are Be Speak at this point?

It all means...."Vote Conservative...Liberals are Evil"

Doesn't matter what else is said...this is all he means.




"Hume is a journalist and perhaps feels the need to be fashionably cynical."


Misanthropy is the hallmark of Toronto journalism...whatever it is that the Star does to Hume, is probably the same thing they did to Hemingway when he worked there.

How sad it is to know there are people who walk through life who only see negative things.







KGB

Okay, you have twenty-three dots and have to connect them with two lines to make a geometric form and have to lift the pen off the paper when pursuing this task and...

Sorry, what were you saying AreBe?
POINTZ:
1, The signature look of Toronto is the 'cheap -out" --
2, Toronto pays out $2 billion to the feds every month (much more for the GTA) and this is reflected in our buidlings
3, bad design may be rectified by having a mandated check list for the design of buildings, but this might have unintended negative consequences
4, a possible solutions to have an iron clad rule: facades of any kind must be saved. This may result in a new signature look: Cheap - ass façadism! This look may have its drawbacks as well-- but it may be a step up.

By now, I find it hard that even YOU are not tired of posting the same crap over and over again. Either you a have a short memory, or think we do?






KGB

Sorry, I'm new to this forum. Is there a rule against posting negative articles about Toronto? Is this strictly a cheerleading forum, or a realistic discussion of the state of the city?

^What do you think? We should have a rule about the Toronto vs. Vancouver arguements...

KGB, you disagree with Hume that we have shit buildings in Toronto? Don't you think something ought to be done? Do you deny that the feds taking of 2 billion a month from 416, and even more from 905, is visible in our buildings? Do you not think that our cheap -ass opera house (although acoustically fantastic and a work of shoe- string genius, to be certain) reflects that senior levels of government loath 416?

Why not admit that Toronto has serious problems?

You should see the buildings in Thunder Bay before you complain about ugly...

"Why not admit that Toronto has serious problems?"


I have never said there are no problems...there have always been "problems"...and there always will be "problems"....like anywhere on the planet.

There's a difference between dealing with "problems" and being realistic about portraying them. There's a time to appreciate how much better off we are than pretty much any city in the world, and a time to realize many things still can, and need to be improved.

I'm talking about a healthy balance. If all someone wants to do is pretend Toronto is the worse place there is with this melodramatic attitude, then the healthy attitude is not there, and the positive changes can never happen.

And when a person such as yourself, dishonestly hijacts this melowdrama to promote some kind of political agenda, it makes it even worse.

Ironically enough, it is excactly people like you that will prevent the "great things" we all want.






KGB

When an arts grant is denied, I'll be there. When the "Department for giving away taxpayer's money" is shut down, I'll be there. When there's a skyscraper approved, I'll be there. When there's a stampeding over cumbersome red tape to get a project done, I'll be there. When the TTC goes to 905, I'll be there. And when Toronto applies enough pressure by working with 905 to get the funding it deserves, I'll be there. When the feds stop putting the boots to Toronto, I'll be there. When motherhood, children and apple pie are considered good things, I'l be there.

Where Stella Artois is considered a hell of a plan, I'll be there. :cheers:

Yeah, well, Toronto has problems. And what city doesn't?



Are Be, the trouble with your posts is that they are all over the place. For example, bitching about "cheap out" design and associating it with the GTA paying out billions in taxes that the region does not get back makes no sense. Private developers and private donors to cultural institutions could step up to the plate and give more if they want to produce landmark architecture. As well, private developments like the "cheap out" condos you complain about actually contribute to the city's well-being by generating municipal taxes. Add to that, if every condo was to be some top end contribution to architectural style, they would become unaffordable to most people. If I remember correctly you have bitched about Toronto's downtown real estate being too expensive and chasing people out to the 905. So you want non "cheap out" buildings with the resulting expensive units that send people off to the 905? Which one is it? Make up your mind. Be clear. Use logic. Practice reasonable discourse. Quit posting mental squeezings all the time. You can do better, can't you? Toronto, getting more back from the feds, will not improve or reduce the quality of private development in the city. They are unrelated, and if they are it is purely coincidental.

i'll be the first to admit that toronto has way too many ugly 70s towers, but i don't see the problem with what's getting built right now, at least not in central toronto. compare the average run-of-the-mill condo development in toronto with its equivalent in just about any other city and toronto's will look better almost every time. i mean seriously are be, have you ever clicked on one of those development run-down threads of other cities? there's a lot of dreck being built out there. in toronto it's the public realm that needs help - sidewalks, public squares, etc. there's a lot of catching up to do in those areas.

Are be, you are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off-topic.

Nobody is ever happy enough. Nobody can complain about Toronto. NOBODY. There are millions, billions of people who would do ANYTHING to live in such first world splendour.

These critics are never happy enough.

"Mr. Hume, your Toronto critiques suffer from myopic elitism. Descend from your lofty tower and walk the streets with the rest of us, the people who make Toronto alive and extraordinary."

Oh..I've seen him at Union Station a couple of times. He's a Heads down, walk fast type of guy. People had to get out of his way ---> :runaway:

i agree with arbe on one thing. we must get back our fair share of city's tax dollars. The city needs more power. there's definite imbalance. Toronto can't even scratch its ass without the permission from the province. i'm not saying to claw back all the tax dollars, just enough to fix our infrastructure and increase affordable housing.

^ I think Toronto has identified the funding problem when MEL started attacking every politican in Queen's park & at Parliament Hill. We just need to mobilize Torontonians to fight for TO's rights... how do we do that though?

Whining about how much Toronto gets dinged is just pissing in the wind. You really can't talk either the province or feds into giving Toronto any more money, when the reason it gets dinged in the first place has nothing to do with it.

Equalization payments are made for a reason...let's do something about getting the have-nots to stop being have-nots, so we can all enjoy the same level of services and standards without some parts of the country having to pay disproportionately.

As long as the constitution says we have to do it, we will have to do it. To change this would be to lower ourselves to that of the Americans...where nobody gives a shit about anybody but themselves.

Or people like Are Be LOL!!





----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Part III

Equalization and Regional Disparties

36. (1) Without altering the legislative authority of
Parliament or of the provincial legislatures, or the rights of
any of them with respect to the exercise of their legislative
authority, Parliament and the legislatures, together with the
government of Canada and the provincial governments, are
committed to
(a) promoting equal opportunities for the well-being
of Canadians;
(b) furthering the economic development to reduce
disparity in opportunities; and
(c) providing essential public services of reasonable
quality to all Canadians.

(2) Parliament and the government of Canada are committed
to the principle of making equalization payments to ensure
that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to
provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at
reasonably comparable levels of taxation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------






KGB

Toronto MUST ask the province and the feds for what is, in essence, its own money. When subway and transit extensions can't be built because Toronto has to beg for money the govts won't give it, there's a serious problem.

Equalization payments are fine. However, their lopsided distribution is also one of the reasons why Montreal will never have the same worries Toronto does. Toronto needs more power and the current way it is treated just won't do.

^ True. Of all the provinces that get equalization, I still cannot justify Quebec's share. It's the largest share, but they're not as economically depressed as the Maritimes, who have lost their fisheries & small industries.

"Equalization payments are fine. However, their lopsided distribution...."


LOL...sorry dude, but that was hilarious. Equalization IS lopsided distribution by definition.

Demand the feds and province put our money to better use...demand the feds and province provide cities with better tools to do a better job or come up with new ways to generate funds.

But you can't demand they violate the constitution.






KGB

"Equalization payments are fine. However, their lopsided distribution...."


LOL...sorry dude, but that was hilarious. Equalization IS lopsided distribution by definition.

Demand the feds and province put our money to better use...demand the feds and province provide cities with better tools to do a better job or come up with new ways to generate funds.

But you can't demand they violate the constitution.






KGB


By lopsided distribution, I meant that equalization payments themselves are lopsided to such an extent that their aim is hardly what the constitution asks for.

Toronto asking for more money or its own powers doesn't violate the constitution.

we better hope these have not provinces strike it rich with some natural resource! They're not going to get wealthier any other way.

bump

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=154574
:D

we better hope these have not provinces strike it rich with some natural resource! They're not going to get wealthier any other way.

Both BC and Saskatchewan are at the break even point at the moment, so it is possible (even for the NDP) to turn a have-not into a have. Maritime provinces are a little bit trickier since they over-harvested their major natural resource.

Quebec has no excuse for being a have-not, and Ontario has no excuse for being the most debt laden (per capita) but that's the way it is...

It's not just between provinces...it's within provinces.





KGB

Title of this thread should read:

Toronto: Hume is ugly, and getting uglier

What an interesting article.

^ why are you here?

"NYC is bankrupt, crammed full of banality and downright decrepid in most areas....not to mention unable to front the kind of infastructure that even much smaller Toronto can." Untrue. There's more beauty in one square block of Greenwich Village than you're likely to find in one square mile of Toronto.

Oh oh. Big city pissing contest emerging.

Stop while you're ahead.

KGB's moniker is becoming more clear. Canadian propoganda.

... that's sure better than any shallow American propoganda.

An Americans ability to suspend reality knows no bounds. I speak zee truth my friend...if I'm wrong, I like to be shown...not told. Everything I said in the quote you made was true.






KGB

Why are these forums so full of

"My City is better than your city!!!"

It's soooo stupid

I love New York
I love Toronto

Strange how, in the New York thread, people are able to discuss the city without pissing all over Toronto. No one says--"Gee, New York is getting kind of boring--but at least it's not a dull, washed- out, effete, stupid, box-like, badly-planned, donut-shop-stuffed, fake "multiculti," drab, tacky, shopping-mallesque, suburban, shrill, middlebrow, tedious, smug, wet, 1970s-looking, urban-charm-of-a-microwave-oven, whitebread, concrete-spackled, imitation, ersatz, provinical dump like Toronto!"

True, mostly this is because none of them know that Toronto exists. But still.

The reason Toronto looks dirty has nothing to do with the litter. It has everything to do the crumbling roads and sidewalks. To Canadians visual beauty is related to how well maintained something is. No servette is ever going to hide the cracks in the ashphalt.

Rebuild the roads and sidewalks - and the city will look surprising beautiful.

The reason Toronto looks dirty has nothing to do with the litter. It has everything to do the crumbling roads and sidewalks. To Canadians visual beauty is related to how well maintained something is. No servette is ever going to hide the cracks in the ashphalt.

Rebuild the roads and sidewalks - and the city will look surprising beautiful.

I think people think Toronto looks dirty be/c at some nights, businesses pile their garbage out to the curb for collection, & sometimes they just smell awful.

^At least our streets don't smell like horse dung. (New York).

I agree with urban 2.0. Improving the streetscape will go a very long way to making the city look better. I for one wish the all the ugly utility poles could disappear underground.