Politics: Tim Hudak's Plan for Ontario if he becomes Premier

[TOareaFan]

It's common knowledge the Pape-St Andrew stub is the favorite to be built. I don't know why, but it is. And why do you think it's the RL, when in his white paper he identifies the DRL differently and the DRL is a north south route for half it's length regardless of what alignment it is. I am not saying you're wrong but no one else has said what the globe is saying.

No one else seems to be saying anything other than the whole tempest in a tea pot over the reporters being barred from the train.....the globe, at least, took a couple of lines of their story to report on what he said.

Looks, to me, like the Hudak campaign made two mistakes....the aforementioned campaigning on a train thing and using the words cross town to describe a train that goes across town.

CITY News just showed a clip from his event (once he finally got to Davisville) and he clearly referred to an east west "express" subway south of bloor.

In that clip, interestingly, he did not use the words cross town or Crosstown so either he said it at a different time or this is some accidental media interjection of a word(s) that is causing this confusion.

 

[doady]

Racial tension was the primary factor for white flight to the suburbs of many US cities. I don't understand how anyone can say otherwise.

 

[nfitz]

Racial tension was the primary factor for white flight to the suburbs of many US cities. I don't understand how anyone can say otherwise.

Sure, it was a factor. But it happened because sprawl was allowed to a much greater extend than you can do currently in the GTA. The root cause was poverty. But when you are in a country like the USA built on racism, then the poor will be a different race.

If you don't think that an availability of place to sprawl wasn't a major factor, explain why you don't see that kind of depopulated empty land and houses for sale cheaper than cars in the Bronx as per my example above?

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Racial tension was the primary factor for white flight to the suburbs of many US cities. I don't understand how anyone can say otherwise.

Agreed.

There's no significant housing bubble. At best prices are about 10% to 20% high. Not 200% to 500%. Are prices aren't massively different than the national averages, and no different that historical differences between Toronto versus rest of Canada prices.


You attribute the primary cause to racism. It's not. It's economic. If such sprawl was contained ... as it is in some places geographically, you don't get inner-city depopulation. Look at Manhattan ... Seattle ... etc.

You certainly had (have) racism and bad neighbourhoods in New York. But I don't find a single house for sale in the Bronx for less than $40,000. I'm not seeing many single family houses for sale in the Bronx for less than $250,000. Hmm, there is one odd one for $165,000 ... but other nearby properties are in the $390,000 range - so perhaps some bidding trick, or a major structural issue. And yet the Bronx is very non-white to this day - at least that's my observation wandering around when I've stayed there.

It's the geographical limitations of New York City, which have had the same impacts as zoning controls, that have kept house prices there relatively reasonable (if you stay out of Manhattan).

Sure, it was a factor. But it happened because sprawl was allowed to a much greater extend than you can do currently in the GTA. The root cause was poverty. But when you are in a country like the USA built on racism, then the poor will be a different race.

If you don't think that an availability of place to sprawl wasn't a major factor, explain why you don't see that kind of depopulated empty land and houses for sale cheaper than cars in the Bronx as per my example above?

You're talking about the Bronx in 2014. The borough that will have less murders then Boston or Philadelphia this year mostly likely. As recent as 1994 it was a very different story.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

No one else seems to be saying anything other than the whole tempest in a tea pot over the reporters being barred from the train.....the globe, at least, took a couple of lines of their story to report on what he said.

Looks, to me, like the Hudak campaign made two mistakes....the aforementioned campaigning on a train thing and using the words cross town to describe a train that goes across town.

CITY News just showed a clip from his event (once he finally got to Davisville) and he clearly referred to an east west "express" subway south of bloor.

In that clip, interestingly, he did not use the words cross town or Crosstown so either he said it at a different time or this is some accidental media interjection of a word(s) that is causing this confusion.

Ok, I can accept that. I still think he wants Eglinton to be buried and HRT though.

 

[toraerach]

Veto powers aren't unusual. What ungovernable situation do you envision? The only times I see that happening is if the provincial gov't becomes overbearing (eg. Using legislation to destroy municipalities, force city to sell assets etc...)

I'd like to see the City of Toronto, the province and the federal government get together to enshrine some sort of "Charter of the City of Toronto" into the constitution. A city with our size, with a government of our size, ought to be more than a mere creature of the province. We need a guaranteed separation of powers so the province can't come in and meddle with our affairs - like uploading the one profitable part of the transit system while leaving us the rest to pay for, for example.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

I like it the way it is. Wynne could have shut it down and taken out Ford a while ago but that would have been politically awful, the right thing to do none the less.



Andrea Horvath still has no plan for transit.

 

[nfitz]

You're talking about the Bronx in 2014. The borough that will have less murders then Boston or Philadelphia this year mostly likely. As recent as 1994 it was a very different story.

There was never Chicago-like deurbanization of residential areas, or houses being sold for less than a Honda Civic?

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

There was never Chicago-like deurbanization of residential areas, or houses being sold for less than a Honda Civic?

The Bronx was on fire at one point, all the time. Do a NYC image search of any year before Rudy Giuliani took office.

 

[Solid Snake]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...-nearly-derailed-by-ttc-cops/article18597722/[/U]

Mr. Hudak eventually managed to stage his announcement on a bridge overlooking the Davisville subway yards, where he promised to build a new Toronto subway line from Dundas West to Pape, passing through the southern end of downtown. He also re-iterated an earlier pledge to put the TTC subway under the province's control and marry it with the GO regional rail network.

I applaud this but I wished there were plans to go north to Don Mills.

 

[Long Island Mike]

NF: Up to tenfold? More like starting at 20-fold, and up to 50-fold.

1 - I undervalued this comparison...It is even more then I had first thought...

Hang on ... they are all predominantly poor. Given how racist the USA is, the poor are predominantly black

2 - The poor are ALL predominantly black? This is the South Side of Chicago we are referring to here-it IS predominantly black...

These aren't traditional black neighbourhoods. They were built in the early part of the last century, and were predominantly white.

3 - Predominantly white WHEN? These neighborhoods have been predominantly black since at the very latest around 1970 or so - probably
much longer (60s-50s and EARLIER) in some cases...

Why would one flee downtown based on race? Are you trying to suggest blacks are dangerous or something? This seems bizarre. Surely it's entirely related to poverty, and this would not have happened if there were constraints on growth, and Chicagoland had not been allowed to spread endlessly.

4 - I was just making a comparison: "White Flight" affected many US cities from the 50s to the 70s predominantly - Poverty was part of the equation
and I wonder how things would be if some of Chicago's marginal neighborhoods enjoyed a "renaissance" today...I'd welcome it...

Let me add these thoughts about the City of Chicago: One of the first things that I learned about Chicago was how to deal with the extreme racial polarization of
the City - and looking back it was one of the toughest things that I learned about the City...This unwritten "code" ruled how you traveled around, the neighborhoods
that you went through or visited and the transit lines that you used-I never liked this divide but I learned to deal with it...It was definitely not easy...I have heard
that things have settled down somewhat over time but even today there are Chicago neighborhoods that I would not go into knowing full well that I am a "Outsider"
thanks to my race or other ethnic background...

Thankfully Toronto never had to deal with that kind of polarization...LI MIKE

P.S. Time to learn more about Tim Hudak - getting back on track...

 

[Long Island Mike]

Racial tension was the primary factor for white flight to the suburbs of many US cities. I don't understand how anyone can say otherwise.

D: I agree with you 100 percent here...LI MIKE

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

NF: Up to tenfold? More like starting at 20-fold, and up to 50-fold.

1 - I undervalued this comparison...It is even more then I had first thought...

Hang on ... they are all predominantly poor. Given how racist the USA is, the poor are predominantly black

2 - The poor are ALL predominantly black? This is the South Side of Chicago we are referring to here-it IS predominantly black...

These aren't traditional black neighbourhoods. They were built in the early part of the last century, and were predominantly white.

3 - Predominantly white WHEN? These neighborhoods have been predominantly black since at the very latest around 1970 or so - probably
much longer (60s-50s and EARLIER) in some cases...

Why would one flee downtown based on race? Are you trying to suggest blacks are dangerous or something? This seems bizarre. Surely it's entirely related to poverty, and this would not have happened if there were constraints on growth, and Chicagoland had not been allowed to spread endlessly.

4 - I was just making a comparison: "White Flight" affected many US cities from the 50s to the 70s predominantly - Poverty was part of the equation
and I wonder how things would be if some of Chicago's marginal neighborhoods enjoyed a "renaissance" today...I'd welcome it...

Let me add these thoughts about the City of Chicago: One of the first things that I learned about Chicago was how to deal with the extreme racial polarization of
the City - and looking back it was one of the toughest things that I learned about the City...This unwritten "code" ruled how you traveled around, the neighborhoods
that you went through or visited and the transit lines that you used-I never liked this divide but I learned to deal with it...It was definitely not easy...I have heard
that things have settled down somewhat over time but even today there are Chicago neighborhoods that I would not go into knowing full well that I am a "Outsider"
thanks to my race or other ethnic background...

Thankfully Toronto never had to deal with that kind of polarization...LI MIKE

P.S. Time to learn more about Tim Hudak - getting back on track...

Thanks for your insight mike. For comparison, I hear Long Island is segregated a lot, how true is this?

 

[Long Island Mike]

Some thoughts/memories about segregation on Long Island...

Thanks for your insight mike. For comparison, I hear Long Island is segregated a lot, how true is this?

Den: It is very true to some extent...and there is a long history of racial separation on LI...One of the best examples that I can think of is the blatant
denial of home sales to returning WW2 black veterans by the Levitt Corporation when Levittown was being built and developed - they ended up in what
turned out to be predominantly black settlements like North Amityville...

One of the best examples of a boundary between a well-to-do predominantly white community and a low-income primarily minority community is the
boundary between Garden City and Hempstead in central Nassau County - It amazes me how fast things change just crossing the Village lines...

I live in a integrated area myself - and which has been since I moved here from NYC in the late 1960s...LI MIKE

 

[nfitz]

3 - Predominantly white WHEN? These neighborhoods have been predominantly black since at the very latest around 1970 or so - probably
much longer (60s-50s and EARLIER) in some cases...

WHEN? When they were built. The 1900s, 1910s, 1920, 1930s, 1940s ...

It's only after the car and Chicago started to sprawl, that property values started to drop, and were purchased by the poor, leading those that could to flee.

Keeping tight zoning controls, and limiting growth keeps downtown and near-downtown areas healthy.

Though I fear if urban sprawl was to be allowed in Toronto these days, given travel times, etc., that it wouldn't be the downtown and inner-downtown areas that would turn into the ghettos. But the outer 416 and inner 905 neighbourhoods. Brampton ... building the ghettos of tomorrow.

Would Hudak lead to this ... perhaps not ... but more so because of the geographic constraints than anything else.