Is Toronto Beautiful?

[buildup]

Two quotes have stayed in my mind. One recently by a US culture critic who said 'Toronto isn't attractive, so people fail to see how amazing it is', or something to that effect. Another was years ago and MAY have been Wil Aslop who suggested a part of our city should have no zoning rules at all to see what happened. He implied the result might be good.

I am convinced our city is charismatic, energetic, eclectic, sexy if not beautiful. I am actually starting to like Bay Street! Isn't the eclectic, chaotic, mishmash getting interesting? The Children's Research building, weird boutique hotel, Ryerson/Canada Tire, and Motion a zany lively mix? Also, in the last few years as projects have been completed pedestrian activity has skyrocketed.

Another combo - Aura, new Ryerson building, Zanzibar strip.

Today I saw some tourists taking a photo at Yonge and Adelaide or Richmond. There is a brilliant brown stone building on the NE corner that I'd never noticed. Its surrounded by a mish mash of non-descript stuff. I'm coming to appreciate the buildings we're trained to hate like the Sheraton Hotel across from NPS, the Star Building, CIBC at Bloor & Yonge. Simply put, density is special.

And I'm not worried about all the glass. When this cycle is done, its still only going to be 15% of the stock.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Chicago is 'Claudia Schiffer' whereas Toronto is like a hot Jamaican female sprinter...

 

[taal]

As you indicated there are many forms of beauty; So lets just talk about the public realm, by that I mean remove all transient forms vibrancy i.e. the people / the retail / ... and you're simply left with the public infrastructure, the sidewalks, the roads, the lights, the garbage bins, fountains, sculptures, so on ...

Based on this alone, and comparing similar sized cities in North America / Europe, Toronto is by far the ugliest city I have ever visited, and I've too quite a few !

That's why it amazes me I like it so much still !

 

[TrickyRicky]

I'd have to somewhat agree with Taal. However, I also want to ask why "the public realm" is the area of so much focus on this forum? I put "public realm" in quotations because I think what we are speaking of when we mean "the public realm" is limited to public streetscape elements. The streetscape itself is dominated by private building facades, so when we see a street-scene we often say a city is beautiful because of it's private building facade back-drop. Really, it doesn't matter what you do with "the public realm" if the private building facade back-drop is ugly or poorly maintained.

Additional points I would like to make are that there is a difference between the living reality for people occupying cities and the "face" these cities show to visitors. I find that the actual neighbourhoods people live in within an urban context, tend to be generally ugly throughout the world even in show-case cities. Also, there is a difference between, and maybe even no general coorelation between beautiful and high standard of living. Toronto is somewhat ugly and generally uncompetitive relative to many large major cities but it's high standard of living is notable and undeniable.

 

[taal]

I'm not sure I agree all livable cities necessarily share that ugly trait but I do agree that the public form in it self is only a very small component of what makes a city livable, but alas that wasn't the question was it ?

To be fair though you could argue the question needs more context i.e. is Toronto beautiful to its residents or is it beautiful to visitors ... so on ?

If I can dream, one would imagine you could have the best of both worlds but that may not be possible, at least to the extreme. Just thinking back to a recent trip to London, the most beautiful streets (from a public realm point of view) were completely devoid of anything else.

But again Toronto doesn't need to compare such streets, when you take a stroll up Yonge, across Queen [up to University at least], many of the streets in the core, (I'm sure others can insert many other streets) the vibrancy may be great but the public form (in just about all respects) really help evoke the feeling "by far and the ugliest city"

 

[taal]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Chicago is 'Claudia Schiffer' whereas Toronto is like a hot Jamaican female sprinter...

See I'll argue against this, sure Toronto and Chicago both have different forms of beauty in terms of architecture, and note this has nothing to do with 'glass' vs 'non glass' condos; I've never heard one person in my life say Toronto has a nice public realm, but almost everyone would argue Chicago does. Yes this is a general statement and there are a couple exceptions (i.e. a few things Toronto does right, but generally they're just a single piece in what makes up the public realm and even then only in a select few areas).

 

[RC8]

A really interesting phenomenon occurs here in Toronto: the vibrancy and potential for pedestrian greatness are so outstanding in so many places that the lack of investment in pedestrian/biking infrastructure and building restoration are more obvious than in most other places.

Toronto has a fair share of 'beautiful' areas and districts, but our city is so safe and so full of good retail that people inevitably gravitate to the not-so-beautiful areas very often. These not-so-beautiful areas are ones that were damaged when we surrendered huge chunks of our city to the car.

Cities like Chicago had a nice public realm throughout before car-craze... they destroyed it to accommodate cars, but then re-built it beautifully after getting rid of all streetcars, overhead wires, etc. This trend repeated itself everywhere in North America. In Europe, they destroyed the nice pedestrian public realm and replaced it with car-oriented options for a while, but the inertia of pedestrian culture was too strong and before you knew it cities were rising from their ashes. In Toronto we stopped half-way through the destruction of our pedestrian infrastructure. Thanks to many who realised we could save our core, our streetcars remained and so did collaterally our overhead wires.

Today in Toronto those with private vehicles feel that their lifestyle is threatened by progress. A very large section of the establishment feel (rightly) that if Toronto were to 'beautify' itself it would inevitably do so in a direction that would lead to more spaces for pedestrians and less spaces for cars. This means many areas of our city have completely stagnated and will remain the same until the old guard of conservative politicians are replaced. For now Toronto will continue to look 'less beautiful than it should be' as you look at the old victorian buildings, great retail, vibrant crowds, and overhead wires.

As more people live downtown, more influential figures in the city's future will favour pedestrian-friendly solutions. It's just a matter of time. Our city will fulfill its potential then, hopefully.

Now, I just came back from a short trip to Ottawa. While their federally funded parks and streets are great, their neighbourhoods are in the same shape (or a bit worse) as ours here in Toronto. The neighbourhoods across the river in Gatineau are much much worse.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

I think Toronto is a pretty good looking city but what frustrates me is how much better it could be quite easily with a vision, better planning and a sense of pride. Where are grand fountains or water features in parks & high profile areas? Why do we still have so many wooden hydro poles and wires? Why do so many owners of old building stock (i.e. on Queen St., East/West, College St., Yonge St., Sherbourne St. etc.) not maintain their properties with just a little bit of pride? Why is what's left of our heritage stock still being demolished and not being protected?

There's a certain freedom as Toronto explodes with new housing, retail and office space and a good deal of the time things work out pretty good but it takes time for newer areas to establish themselves and grow, such as Bay Street mentioned above. Just a couple of years ago few would say much good about Bay Street and all of a sudden we shake our heads and we see it's becoming a pretty good street (architecture-wise) and surely as time goes on a proper neighbourhood will form. I think it will be the same with Liberty Village, City Place and such. Many are opposed to it but I like how the city encourages re-use of older buildings that holds some significance into the new building going up on a particular site whether it be an office building (Bay-Adelaide), 19th century mansions (James Cooper) or turn of the century retail shops (FIVE) - and I think we do that quite well here in Toronto.

I've not compared Toronto to any other city here because I really think we should generally (but not always) stop doing that. Many of us are here because we are enthusiastic, interested or just want to learn a bit about what is going on in our city however it's clear that some have a real inferiority complex with so many comparisons with other cities such as Chicago's Aqua to Toronto's Market Wharf, Bay Street canyon to 5th Avenue's canyon and so on. It's good to debate the good and the bad about Toronto but the constant comparisons to other cities - which we will NEVER be and shouldn't be, seems to be both a futile exercise and unhealthy to our civic psyche.

We should discuss and nudge our City Councillors & Planners to continue growing Toronto into a city as best as we can be, everywhere possible and down to the smallest of details. Many of us have watched or been part of the process for changes in our neighbourhoods. I so strongly support the idea that the local Councillor, residents, BIA's and neighbourhood associations be as active as possible and have louder voices with new developments in their area and local placemaking. How good a neighbourhood looks and functions cannot always come out of a planning session in a board room at city hall, some of the best ideas for beautiful, safe and functional neighourhoods come from the residents who live in them and the Councillor who often best knows it.

 

[pman]

I'm not sure we should avoid the painful comparison of our public realm to that of other cities, as dt_toronto_geek suggests. The people responsible for building and maintaining our sidewalks and public spaces are clearly incapable of or indifferent to decent design, so we need a model of what is possible from more successful cities. If we stop comparing Toronto's shabby streetscapes to those of other cities, we'll begin to think that the way Toronto does things is normal. It isn't.

 

[taal]

however it's clear that some have a real inferiority complex with so many comparisons with other cities such as Chicago's Aqua to Toronto's Market Wharf, Bay Street canyon to 5th Avenue's canyon and so on

Sure some have this issue but I'd argue by far and large they are in the minority.

When it comes to public infrastructure, lets simply refer to status of sidewalks throughout the core, I don't think you can write that off as a "inferiority complex" particularly when you notice this deficiency when not only comparing to some of the 'best known' cities in the world, rather with just about any other city in a similar environment (i.e. from a monetary point of view).

 

[buildup]

I'll put an optimistic take on this. Many of the cities we are comparing ourselves to are not growing, so they are directing energies and resources into the public realm. Once Toronto's building boom is finished and we have an additional 250,000 - 500,000 people paying property taxes they are going to take notice of the disparity between the new buildings and broken sidewalks etc. Let's literally let the dust settle from this unprecedented construction. Afterwards planners, citizens, politicians can start paying more attention to the details.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Re: comparisons to other cities, I wrote that we should "generally (but not always) stop doing that" - I should have been more clear, and more moderate in that statement.

 

[taal]

I'll put an optimistic take on this. Many of the cities we are comparing ourselves to are not growing, so they are directing energies and resources into the public realm. Once Toronto's building boom is finished and we have an additional 250,000 - 500,000 people paying property taxes they are going to take notice of the disparity between the new buildings and broken sidewalks etc. Let's literally let the dust settle from this unprecedented construction. Afterwards planners, citizens, politicians can start paying more attention to the details.

Unfortunately this isn't true ! Toronto proper is not growing at just about the same rate as any other similar city you would compare it too, yes it may be growing a tiny bit faster then Chicago for example, but the growth rates are very similar. Its the GTA that is growing faster and nearly all that growth takes place outside the 416!

 

[Lenser]

I've not compared Toronto to any other city here because I really think we should generally (but not always) stop doing that. Many of us are here because we are enthusiastic, interested or just want to learn a bit about what is going on in our city however it's clear that some have a real inferiority complex with so many comparisons with other cities such as Chicago's Aqua to Toronto's Market Wharf, Bay Street canyon to 5th Avenue's canyon and so on. It's good to debate the good and the bad about Toronto but the constant comparisons to other cities - which we will NEVER be and shouldn't be, seems to be both a futile exercise and unhealthy to our civic psyche.

Man, very well said. I doff my hat to you.

Toronto is beautiful and getting more so all the time. Yeah, it has its problems - entrenched obstacles, myopic tendencies, blind or simply dull leaders, etc.. well, what city doesn't? Strangely enough, it's often the peculiar problems which confer on a city what we all love to call "character."

That's not meant to gloss over what ails the city - not at all! - but in the main I would rather we ease up on so relentlessly, despairingly, comparing ourselves to other cities. It's an unhealthy obsession.

 

[buildup]

Unfortunately this isn't true ! Toronto proper is not growing at just about the same rate as any other similar city you would compare it too, yes it may be growing a tiny bit faster then Chicago for example, but the growth rates are very similar. Its the GTA that is growing faster and nearly all that growth takes place outside the 416!

I'm not sure I agree with you. Canada, in the Western world, is among the fastest growing countries. Toronto gets about 200,000 new people per year. Im aware many settle in the GTA but the observable fact is many, many towers are going up downtown. I can see the difference in pedestrian traffic as well.

An extreme example is Charles east of Yonge. When all those towers are complete all the sidewalks will be dug up, widened, trees planted etc. How could this not occur?

 

[Northern Light]

Is Toronto Beautiful?

In spots, yes.

When referring to the streetscapes of some, even most of our major roads, not so much.

Though, I think many of you who make comparisons do so on a rather peculiar basis.

As someone whose had the good fortune to be able to travel, I have to say, many places are not what is imagined when away from the tourist or 'showpiece' areas.

Paris, as an example is a lovely City, and on its Grand Boulevards, few could hope to compete; but I can show you far greater levels of graffiti, dog poop on sidewalks, and tree-less, paved (not cobblestone) streets, even in the heart of that great city.

Never mind its much maligned suburbs.

The above is no dig at Paris, which has among the most cared-for public spaces of any city, anywhere; but rather to point out that comparing our 'middle' or even 'worst' to another City's best is not a very fair comparison.

Even at it is, there is more to recommend the City that many here give it credit for.

Let's consider St. George Street through U of T, which is wonderful with its endless stone seating/planters, trees in superior conditions, including many oaks, exploding in growth, and wonderful floral features to boot.

Not satisfied with one street? I don't blame you; so let's consider Bloor through Yorkville; with the exception of the unfortunate decision to maintain the utilitarian streetlights, its really quite elegant, from the granite, to the trees, to the flowers.

Still bitchy, consider a more minor street, Roncesvalles, just re-done with high quality, in-ground trees, covered by grates, new pedestrian lights, while not 'grand' it certainly is quite attractive, and will be much more so as the trees mature.

Even little Moore Avenue, just west of Bayview now sports a lovely median, extensive plantings and is a lovely drive, bike ride or walk.

Of course, these are indeed exceptions.....but much more is coming...

The Entertainment District:

1) New John Street is coming
2) Peter Street is about to undergo a design charette
3) The Streetscape masterplan is exquisite, I'm quite taken by the proposed changes to the reflecting pool by Roy Thompson Hall.

See Details here: http://www.torontoed.com/plans_reports

We then have Yorkville:

1) See the streetscape in front of the new Four Seasons, it roughly matches Bloor Street, more is coming. (fronting both Bay and Yorkville)

From there, let's see Harbourfront:

1) New Queen's Quay, underway, wonderful project

How about Old Town Toronto/St. Lawrence:

1) New Front Street, Jarvis to Parliament including medians and trees, and heritage pedestrian and conventional street lights.

2) New Sherbourne, as part of general road reconstruction and the new separated bike lanes, looks for meaningful improvements.

3)New Wellington Street, Yonge to Church, coming next year (its already pretty nice)

4)Likely improvements to Scott Street, including possible narrowing/closure next to Berczy Park.

Or, perhaps we might look at the new West Don Lands:

- featuring 100% Hydro wire burial
- decorative paving and Woonerfs (roads done all in brick)
- 100% decorative street lights
- extensive street trees in upgraded growing conditions

5) Not good enough? Consider the host of improvements built into almost every major roads project

ie. When Victoria Park Avenue was rebuilt 2 years ago, from Lawrence to York Mills, each of the major cross-streets (Lawrence, Ellesmere, York Mills) got a new seating area with trees and spring bulb flower displays, along with new street trees, re-sodded bolevards and full replacement of transit shelters.

There is even more than that happening.......


And more than can happen, if people rightly scout the world for the most interesting ideas, but then devote their energies to seeing the implemented.

Our City is far from perfect; and public realm is a historic weakness.

But much has been gained; much is being gained; and more will be gained.