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What's wrong with Toronto? Nothing a good mayor couldn't fix
By MARGARET WENTE
Tuesday, May 29, 2007 – Page A17
If you haven't visited Chicago lately, I highly recommend it. The city is bursting with energy and drive. The public spaces gleam. The downtown is a feast of wonderful architecture from every decade. The shops and restaurants are thronged with happy tourists. Of the waterfront I will say nothing, because the comparison with Toronto, where I live, is too depressing.
In Chicago, even the infrastructure is inventive. The on-ramps and overpasses are being rebuilt with cheery red iron railings done in playful geometric patterns. "Who decided to do that?" I asked my taxi driver. "Mayor Daley!" he said proudly.
Once upon a time, Chicago and Toronto were neck and neck in the great-city stakes. That was a long time ago. Today, Chicago is to Toronto what Toronto is to Winnipeg - nice place, but not in the same league. Instead of the can-do, will-do Richard Daley, Toronto has Mayor David Miller, who has nice hair.
In Chicago, public art is mandated for all new construction. The mayor is a big fan of architecture, and the new Millennium Park is a bold, creative - and city-led - triumph. You want green? He put a green roof on city hall and gave developers incentives to do the same. He thought the city airport was a blot on the waterfront, so he had it bulldozed before anyone could stop him.
Toronto's government is an obstacle to change. The long-overdue revival of the city's cultural institutions - the museum, the art gallery, the opera house - is being driven entirely by cultural entrepreneurs and paid for largely by private money. The city should be begging to get on board. Instead, it treats these projects with indifference, even contempt. Our city councillors are way more interested in dreaming up complicated new schemes for collecting garbage. They seem to have no clue about the way these institutions shape the image of a city.
The Royal Ontario Museum's remarkable crystal, which opens this weekend, will create a dazzling new landmark. It will also reorient the museum toward Bloor Street, the city's main commercial cross street, and create a stunning public space. Instead of celebrating this gift, city councillors opted to charge "rent" because the crystal overhangs the sidewalk.
Nor did they grasp the potential of Luminato, the 10-day arts festival that also kicks off this weekend. This imaginative partnership between arts leaders and the private sector will be a huge celebration, with the city as its stage. It will team up Leonard Cohen and Philip Glass, Eric Idle and the Toronto Symphony, offering more than 100 free events. The city had no interest. Maybe it was too busy conducting another survey of homeless people.
City councillors are so worried about homeless people that they've voted to buy a downtown nightclub and convert it into a homeless shelter. The tab will be around $355 a square foot, a sum that leads one to ask: Why not just buy condos for the homeless people instead? Dopy schemes like these help explain why Toronto is rapidly going broke.
Oh, sure, I know the city got a raw deal from the province and the feds. But other cities have figured out how to deliver services far more efficiently than Toronto. Other cities have imposed unpopular user fees (road tolls, anyone?) Not Toronto. Politicians would rather drain reserve funds to cover the budget shortfall and rattle their tin cups as they indignantly insist that someone else should bail them out.
Meantime, tourism in the city is hitting new lows. The high dollar and border hassles don't help. But there is a malaise at City Hall that's deeply harmful. Nobody in local politics has the leadership and vision to articulate what Toronto could become, or why anyone would want to come here. Great cities need great mayors, and Toronto hasn't had one since the 1970s. Great hair, alas, is not enough.
Why do Chicagoans love Mayor Daley? Because he knows that obsessing about trash is not enough to make a city great. He understands that cities need to compete. Torontonian could, of course, choose not to compete. The price will be that the next generation will choose to move somewhere else.
By MARGARET WENTE
Tuesday, May 29, 2007 – Page A17
If you haven't visited Chicago lately, I highly recommend it. The city is bursting with energy and drive. The public spaces gleam. The downtown is a feast of wonderful architecture from every decade. The shops and restaurants are thronged with happy tourists. Of the waterfront I will say nothing, because the comparison with Toronto, where I live, is too depressing.
In Chicago, even the infrastructure is inventive. The on-ramps and overpasses are being rebuilt with cheery red iron railings done in playful geometric patterns. "Who decided to do that?" I asked my taxi driver. "Mayor Daley!" he said proudly.
Once upon a time, Chicago and Toronto were neck and neck in the great-city stakes. That was a long time ago. Today, Chicago is to Toronto what Toronto is to Winnipeg - nice place, but not in the same league. Instead of the can-do, will-do Richard Daley, Toronto has Mayor David Miller, who has nice hair.
In Chicago, public art is mandated for all new construction. The mayor is a big fan of architecture, and the new Millennium Park is a bold, creative - and city-led - triumph. You want green? He put a green roof on city hall and gave developers incentives to do the same. He thought the city airport was a blot on the waterfront, so he had it bulldozed before anyone could stop him.
Toronto's government is an obstacle to change. The long-overdue revival of the city's cultural institutions - the museum, the art gallery, the opera house - is being driven entirely by cultural entrepreneurs and paid for largely by private money. The city should be begging to get on board. Instead, it treats these projects with indifference, even contempt. Our city councillors are way more interested in dreaming up complicated new schemes for collecting garbage. They seem to have no clue about the way these institutions shape the image of a city.
The Royal Ontario Museum's remarkable crystal, which opens this weekend, will create a dazzling new landmark. It will also reorient the museum toward Bloor Street, the city's main commercial cross street, and create a stunning public space. Instead of celebrating this gift, city councillors opted to charge "rent" because the crystal overhangs the sidewalk.
Nor did they grasp the potential of Luminato, the 10-day arts festival that also kicks off this weekend. This imaginative partnership between arts leaders and the private sector will be a huge celebration, with the city as its stage. It will team up Leonard Cohen and Philip Glass, Eric Idle and the Toronto Symphony, offering more than 100 free events. The city had no interest. Maybe it was too busy conducting another survey of homeless people.
City councillors are so worried about homeless people that they've voted to buy a downtown nightclub and convert it into a homeless shelter. The tab will be around $355 a square foot, a sum that leads one to ask: Why not just buy condos for the homeless people instead? Dopy schemes like these help explain why Toronto is rapidly going broke.
Oh, sure, I know the city got a raw deal from the province and the feds. But other cities have figured out how to deliver services far more efficiently than Toronto. Other cities have imposed unpopular user fees (road tolls, anyone?) Not Toronto. Politicians would rather drain reserve funds to cover the budget shortfall and rattle their tin cups as they indignantly insist that someone else should bail them out.
Meantime, tourism in the city is hitting new lows. The high dollar and border hassles don't help. But there is a malaise at City Hall that's deeply harmful. Nobody in local politics has the leadership and vision to articulate what Toronto could become, or why anyone would want to come here. Great cities need great mayors, and Toronto hasn't had one since the 1970s. Great hair, alas, is not enough.
Why do Chicagoans love Mayor Daley? Because he knows that obsessing about trash is not enough to make a city great. He understands that cities need to compete. Torontonian could, of course, choose not to compete. The price will be that the next generation will choose to move somewhere else.
