Is Toronto Beautiful?

[radioheadmike]

It sounds like Tim Horton's is the next Coffee Time.

 

[neubilder]

And Starbucks is the next Tim Horton's.

 

[RC8]

Historically there hasn't been an emphasis on beautification of pedestrian spaces because there weren't enough pedestrians to begin with. Now there are and the movement is taking shape.

... and yes, you can post unattractive pictures of Montreal, or average ones at least, but that's not really the point. Nobody is suggesting any city should be beautiful everywhere. As has been said before you can even find ugly or prosaic areas in Paris.

The point is that every year Toronto is beautifying significant portions of the city.

In the past couple of years alone we have redone St. Clair, Central Bloor, Roncesvalles, Humbery Bay, Dundas West, The Junction, added places like Cherry Beach, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some more. In the meantime we are currently re-doing Queens Quay (adding several new public squares in the process), Nathan Phillips Square, turning the area surrounding the silos into a beautiful walkway, upgrading the music garden, building a grand new park in the West Don Lands, rebuilding Regent Park completely. In the planning stages are substantial upgrades to turn John or Peter into beautiful walking boulevards, and we currently have an ongoing pilot project that aims to set the base for an overhaul of Yonge street.

Add to this all the beautification that occurs with new development (see Distillery District, the impact the Four Seasons will have on a former derelict block, Cityplace and Southcore on the railway lands, or Market Wharf/New RBC building on former surface parking lots) and Toronto is turning into a more beautiful city at an incredible pace.

I was incredibly sceptical about all the glass towers at the beginning of this boom. I would in fact moan about 'yet another generic glass box' popping up every time. But I'm actually blown away by the results. These modernist towers juxtaposed with the old city are giving Toronto for the first time in its history a world-class appeal that you can only get here.

You may take views like this for granted because you are used to our vernacular, but compositions like this one are stunning and almost completely unique to Toronto:

 

[Grimace]

Perhaps another way to look at it is that anybody who bothers to read this forum and post on it cares about Toronto and wishes it well, but reasonable people can question whether the city is living up to the potential of its residents and institutions. Reasonable people can certainly differ on an esthetic question like whether Toronto is beautiful. The question is important, but the criteria for answering it will never be data-driven. Simply dismissing the opinions of the "not so much" camp as mindless Toronto-bashing pretty much guarantees nobody will ever dare to discuss how to improve the city, because to say anything less-than-boosterish about the place guarantees a defensive and aggrieved response. A reasonable take on the "not beautiful" posts, including mine, is simply that people are saying many other developed world cities appear to design, build and maintain their public realms better than Toronto, and we might learn something from them. Saying that we could become something a lot better than we are today based on examples from other cities is hardly bunk.

I can't imagine why anyone might think posters were Toronto-bashing when they use the terms tattiness, beauty-challenged, "Tim Hortons culture", "prevailing context of ugliness, shoddiness and disrepair", "embarrassing and unsightly mess", and grubby.

A lot of money is being spent on Toronto's public realm, and I would be happy to see more. Who is opposing money being spent on improvements to the public realm? Short of referring back to the Breads not Circuses crowd that opposed the olympics back in the 90s (which is not really a public realm issue), where has a politician or community group argued that money should not be spent on new parks or squares, and improvements to or maintenance of such squares, because such money should be spent on social programs? Who is opposing, with mainstream support, funding for the Pan-Am games and the improvements to the public realm and public facilities that will result from that? The only people I can think of opposing these things are Rob Ford and some of his tightfisted compatriots, who oppose all spending most especially spending related to social programs.

I don't believe there is any more of a correlation between this and the money spent on social programs than there is a correlation between this and the budget for Police, Fire or the other things the city has to pay for, or a correlation between this and and the willingness or ability of the city council to raise taxes.

 

[Tewder]

I can't imagine why anyone might think posters were Toronto-bashing when they use the terms tattiness, beauty-challenged, "Tim Hortons culture", "prevailing context of ugliness, shoddiness and disrepair", "embarrassing and unsightly mess", and grubby

.

Ah I understand now... to Grimace, the only way to show love or fealty to the city is to engage in empty boosterism. How constructive is that? Most of us understand that it is not 'bashing' the city to discuss some of its negative aspects more honestly.

A lot of money is being spent on Toronto's public realm, and I would be happy to see more. Who is opposing money being spent on improvements to the public realm?

Hmmmm, who could that be? Let's see:

From the 'Shabby Realm' thread:

The biggest draws on the City's purse are, in order, Police, Transit, Debt Charges (which is essentially the current cost of capital projects), Fire Services, Housing, Parks, Employment & Social Services, Transportation Services and Library. Those services which primarily serve low income residents make up less than 20% of where your tax dollars go (Housing, Employment & Social Services, Children's Services, Long Term Care, Public Health). The amount of the City's purse that actually goes to "homelessness" per se is tiny unless you consider the provision of public housing in and of itself a reaction to homelessness. The suggestion that these services are provided in an attempt to "cure" the problems of homelessness and poverty rather than being programs to simply improve the health and welfare of the less fortunate in our society has no basis. Are you suggesting we should take this 18% of the City's tax dollars and stop providing public housing, stop providing public health, stop providing children's services, and provide no assistance to the unemployed in finding work, and instead improve our streetscapes? If so, fine, state your position. We will know where you come from. The homeless will sleep on streets paved with gold.

No politics there Thanks for proving my point though!

The only people I can think of opposing these things are Rob Ford and some of his tightfisted compatriots, who oppose all spending most especially spending related to social programs

I'm not suggesting people are opposed to improving the public realm (good grief!), they are opposed to public funds being spent to do so... but you do underscore that it is in fact both sides of the political spectrum in Toronto that politicize spending on the public realm.

 

[Ladies Mile]

Is New York beautiful?

If the answer to that question is yes, then Toronto is undeniably beautiful too.

Leaving aside my own opinion that New York is in fact not beautiful, the two cities do not resemble one another past a few blocks of Park Avenue corresponding roughly to King and Bay and a miniscule number of interior spaces.

 

[Grimace]

My above quote was in response to this from you:

Look, sadly there will always be homeless people among us, and people among us needy of many other things too, but the idea that you can 'cure' these problems by throwing every last cent at them is simply naive... and not only naive but wasteful because now not only do we still have social problems but we also have a shameful public realm. Nobody here wins.

I never stated in the Shabby Public Realm thread that the City should not be spending more money on the public realm. I stated that I did not see why the immediate source of such additional funds should be from cutbacks in social programs, which seemed to be where you thought the funds should come from. There is a distinct difference between objecting that funds are being spent on the public realm rather than social programs (which I am not doing) and stating that I do not support a general cutback in funding of social programs to divert those funds to the public realm (which I am doing).

I'm not suggesting people are opposed to improving the public realm (good grief!), they are opposed to public funds being spent to do so... but you do underscore that it is in fact both sides of the political spectrum in Toronto that politicize spending on the public realm.

My question is who, with some semblance of mainstream support, city councillor or community leader, say, other than Ford et al, is opposing public funds being spent on the public realm? What councillors are saying that money should not be spent on St. Clair, Roncy, Queen's Quay, Nathan Phillips Square, Fort York bridge, Pan-Am projects, etc., because that money should be going to social programs?

 

[Ladies Mile]

Historically there hasn't been an emphasis on beautification of pedestrian spaces because there weren't enough pedestrians to begin with. Now there are and the movement is taking shape.



The point is that every year Toronto is beautifying significant portions of the city.

In the past couple of years alone we have redone St. Clair, Central Bloor, Roncesvalles, Humbery Bay, Dundas West, The Junction, added places like Cherry Beach, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some more. In the meantime we are currently re-doing Queens Quay (adding several new public squares in the process), Nathan Phillips Square, turning the area surrounding the silos into a beautiful walkway, upgrading the music garden, building a grand new park in the West Don Lands, rebuilding Regent Park completely. In the planning stages are substantial upgrades to turn John or Peter into beautiful walking boulevards, and we currently have an ongoing pilot project that aims to set the base for an overhaul of Yonge street.

Add to this all the beautification that occurs with new development (see Distillery District, the impact the Four Seasons will have on a former derelict block, Cityplace and Southcore on the railway lands, or Market Wharf/New RBC building on former surface parking lots) and Toronto is turning into a more beautiful city at an incredible pace.

I was incredibly sceptical about all the glass towers at the beginning of this boom. I would in fact moan about 'yet another generic glass box' popping up every time. But I'm actually blown away by the results. These modernist towers juxtaposed with the old city are giving Toronto for the first time in its history a world-class appeal that you can only get here.

You may take views like this for granted because you are used to our vernacular, but compositions like this one are stunning and almost completely unique to Toronto:

I fail to see how a similar scene is not fairly common in North American cities from coast to coast.

 

[allabootmatt]

I think Toronto is making big strides, and all the projects we've cited here (Queen's Quay, Bloor, Roncesvalles, etc) are evidence of that. I expect as the downtown core grows we'll see many more. But this 'project-based' approach is, to my mind, sort of the problem. In Toronto we get an attractive streetscape here and there because local businesses champion it, the local councillor gets on board, some funding is located, utilities are forced to co-ordinate, and the thing gets built eventually. This takes time, effort, and by definition happens only in the places where the stars align.

What's missing is an attractive public realm that's just sort of the default setting when anything gets done. I could be wrong, but Montreal's attractive lighting, paving, street furniture, and largely buried hydro wires have never seemed like they are part of 'projects' or 'revitalizations,' with the obvious exceptions of stuff like the recent Maisonneuve rebuild. They're simply the result of how the city's government and various agencies with a stake in the place operate. I see the same in New York, London, Vancouver, and other places that generally take better care of themselves than we do.

Too often in Toronto routine work seems like it's performed by people who couldn't care less about the attractiveness of the final product, and until that changes no number of 'projects' will really move the ball down the field.

This isn't to say flashy revitalization efforts shouldn't be encouraged. Obviously they should. My point is that getting from our current mixed-up state to something that's consistently attractive is as much about overall mindset as about executing grand schemes.

 

[RC8]

Leaving aside my own opinion that New York is in fact not beautiful, the two cities do not resemble one another past a few blocks of Park Avenue corresponding roughly to King and Bay and a miniscule number of interior spaces.

I agree, they are completely different. But going by the comments on this board any reasoning that may disqualify Toronto as beautiful would inevitably disqualify New York as beautiful too.

Please point me to all those North American cities with liveable old urban cores that interact with neo-modernist high rise point towers.

 

[Ladies Mile]

I agree, they are completely different. But going by the comments on this board any reasoning that may disqualify Toronto as beautiful would inevitably disqualify New York as beautiful too.

Please point me to all those North American cities with liveable old urban cores that interact with neo-modernist high rise point towers.

Boston, Denver, Seattle, Portland (OR), Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, and to a lesser extent Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Minneapolis all mix modernist architecture with renovated historic buildings to differing degrees of success. New York is somewhat less like this, ironically, as its historic districts have prevented recent development of the side-by-side type seen above.

My own reasoning as to why New York is not beautiful has nothing to do with arguments based on a spurious characterization of both places as cluttered, untidy and discordant.

 

[RC8]

Boston, Denver, Seattle, Portland (OR), Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, and to a lesser extent Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Minneapolis all mix modernist architecture with renovated historic buildings to differing degrees of success. New York is somewhat less like this, ironically, as its historic districts have prevented recent development of the side-by-side type seen above.

I was expecting that list. Frankly if that pic to you looks anything like Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Portland, or San Francisco I don't think we can have much of a discussion. To be honest I should have included 'residential' in the tower descriptions, since they are much much different in nature and style than commercial equivalents (which are widespread in the cities you listed).

Reminds me of a friend from Shanghai who wouldn't stop to look at the back of a Victorian King street building because 'we have lots of stuff like that in Shanghai'.

The vast number, height, and style of Toronto's residential high-rises are quite clearly setting this city apart from anything else in North America and the world. Some people think this is terrible, while others embrace it.

 

[Hipster Duck]

The vast number, height, and style of Toronto's residential high-rises are quite clearly setting this city apart from anything else in North America and the world.

I think Vancouver planted that flag first.

 

[Ladies Mile]

To say nothing of Chicago.

But all three lag behind New York in terms of high-rise residential.

 

[RC8]

I think Vancouver planted that flag first.

I would completely agree with you if most of their buildings weren't half the height of ours.

In pictures 30 stories and 50 stories look the same, but in person it's a completely different experience.

The 2 cities are definitely up there with one another in that category though. Vancouver is about a decade ahead, too.