Rob Ford - Why the Supervillian?

[GenerationW]

One thing that should be pointed out is polls use mainly home phone numbers to do their surveys. We all know many younger people don't have home phones. If they only use cell phones, they are never included in the surveys. Now if Ford's support is highest among older people, might the surveys not be a little skewed?

Only a little at most due to the fact that far fewer young people vote in municipal elections.

 

[Calrissian]

Only a little at most due to the fact that far fewer young people vote in municipal elections.

Define "young"- most of the people I know living in the city have done away with land lines (as well as cable tv) and only use their cell.. these people are late 30's and early 40's.

And they vote.

 

[archanfel]

I know, it came from his dad, we already know that. The point is, as rich as his family is, they have nothing to complain about. They should be grateful for all the elitist privileges they have, not complaining that they can't afford to pay their taxes.

Grateful to whom? If I am not mistaken, his dad earned the money and he continues to earn the money through his capital (if not his management skill), the city/province/country didn't just give them the money. Why should they be grateful to anybody but daddy? I'd argue the city/province/country should be grateful for the taxes they collected, not the other way around. What elitist privileges? Does this country only tax the poor so that the rich can have the privileges? Well, unless his daddy made his fortune via his political career (like somebody else did), then maybe he should be grateful.

 

[adma]

His daddy's dead, kiddo.

 

[Jonny5]

The polling people may have to change how they do their survey.

They already have. Most poll data will include in their disclaimers a note on how they accounted for the population that uses cell phones only.

I can't find the one for Ipsos, but this is what Ekos says:

In an effort to reduce the coverage bias of landline only RDD, we created a dual landline/cell phone RDD sampling frame for this research. As a result, we are able to reach those with both a landline and cell phone, as well as cell phone only households and landline only households. This dual frame yields a near perfect unweighted distribution on age group and gender, something almost never seen with traditional landline RDD sample or interviewer-administered surveys.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Rob Ford is out of touch with public transit and bicycles. Too addicted to his car. Here's a report on Transit Mode Share Trends Looking Steady; Rail Appears to Encourage Non-Automobile Commutes from :

Results of the 2009 American Community Survey show major declines in carpooling, significant increases in biking.

Just how effective have new investments in transit been in promoting a shift of Americans towards public transportation? Has the recent livable communities movement resulted in increased commuting by bike or by foot?

The Census’ American Community Survey, released at the end of last month with the most recent 2009 data, provides a glimpse of what can change over nine years. These data are approximations in advance of the much bigger (and more accurate) sample set that is Census 2010, whose results will be released next year. The information detailed here applies to commutes only, not all trips.

By looking at America’s 30 largest cities — from New York to Portland — we can get some idea of how people are choosing to get to work, and how patterns are changing based on the availability of alternative transportation modes. I have chosen not to analyze metropolitan regions as a whole because I want to focus on the effects of improvements to transit systems and increasing walkability, two characteristics common to center cities but not necessarily to their suburbs. This biases the information, especially for places like Washington or Boston, where the central city represents a relatively small percentage of the overall regional population.

Nevertheless, the data demonstrate a number of interesting trends. Most notable are the huge declines in carpooling and large increases in biking noted over the largest cities. As the chart below shows, over the past nine years, carpooling’s mode share decreased on average by 25.9% and biking’s share increased by 58.5% (note that these are percent changes, not point changes, which are documented in a chart at the bottom of this article). The declines in carpooling were matched with a slight uptick in single-person driving, a 1.5% increase, and a decrease in transit share of 6.4%. These mode shares are not the same as total modal use; it is possible for transit ridership to increase even as modal share goes down (for instance, if city population increases), and vice-verse.

Overall, the percentage of people commuting by automobile declined by 3.4%, and the mode share of those using non-automobile modes decreased by 2.0%. It was possible for both to decline because of an increase in people not traveling to work at all but telecommuting.

Though these numbers show little change in use for automobile and transit overall, they do provide some clue as to the effects of rail investments. When comparing cities that have no rail lines with those that have existing lines or have invested in new ones, a correlation between rail and transit use is apparent. Cities with no rail saw far smaller declines in automobile mode shares than their rail counterparts; they also saw declining non-automobile mode shares, compared to increases in the rail cities. These differences were especially considerable when considering rail cities outside of Texas; excluding them, transit saw no mode share change, whereas single-person commuting by car decreased (albeit by a minuscule amount).

This may indicate that rail lines can play an important role in encouraging the population to try modes other than the automobile. The non-automobile mode share, which includes transit, biking, and walking, is particularly interesting from this perspective because it may reflect the number of people choosing to live in areas where it is acceptable to use transportation other than the private car. Is this conclusive evidence that rail works better than bus service to encourage people out of their cars? Not necessarily, but it’s certainly a part of the overall equation.

Looking city-by-city, modal share changes reflect some overall trends. Automobile usage continues to decrease in the nation’s older, densely developed cities: The places recording the largest declines in overall car share were, in order, Washington, New York, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and Chicago. Those with the largest declines in non-automobile share were largely sprawling cities, including, in order, Columbus, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Las Vegas, and Nashville.


The places recording the largest increases in transit modal share were Nashville, Washington, Austin, Seattle, Los Angeles, Charlotte, and Boston. All but Austin, Boston, and Nashville have spent hundreds of millions of dollars investing in expanded rail transit systems; Boston already has a large one. Portland, unsurprisingly because of its municipal investment decisions, had the largest modal increase in bike usage, but other cities less known for biking like Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Chicago also saw significant increases as well.

How can we explain the significant public transportation mode share declines in Houston and Dallas, two cities that invested considerably in their respective rail transit systems? Both saw increases in ridership of their transit systems between 2000 and 2008: Houston saw a 1.05% increase, Dallas a 11.7% jump. Those increases, however, were entirely lost by 2010, which has been a terrible year for transit in the two cities. At the same time, their city populations increased by 15.7% and 9.3%, respectively; transit improvements couldn’t keep up. This may be because of poor choices in public transportation investments or de-densification in the urban cores of these cities (or annexation, spreading the population out), but either way these are not model cities for transit investments.

I’ll conclude with the below table, which documents mode share in 2009 in the biggest cities of the United States. As the chart shows, automobiles have a majority share in all cities except New York, Boston, Washington, and San Francisco. Unsurprisingly, these are dense cities and the places in the United States with the most complete transit systems.

Louisville, the nation’s 29th-largest city, is not included here because it merged with the surrounding county, significantly changing demographics, in 2003. I have calculated “averages†not in terms of total trips, but city-by-city; thus modal share in Portland is considered just as important as that in New York, despite the latter being much bigger. Note city classification in the first table based on changes during the 2000-2009 period:

* No Rail: Austin, Columbus, Detroit, El Paso, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Memphis*, Milwaukee, Nashville*, San Antonio.
* No new significant rail investments: Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia*.
* New significant rail investments: Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Washington.

* The minimal nature of Nashville’s Music City Star means I won’t include it as a “significant†rail investment here. Nor will I include streetcar projects in such cities as Memphis and Philadelphia.

Charts can be viewed at the link.

 

[Redroom Studios]

Grateful to whom? If I am not mistaken, his dad earned the money and he continues to earn the money through his capital (if not his management skill), the city/province/country didn't just give them the money. Why should they be grateful to anybody but daddy? I'd argue the city/province/country should be grateful for the taxes they collected, not the other way around. What elitist privileges? Does this country only tax the poor so that the rich can have the privileges? Well, unless his daddy made his fortune via his political career (like somebody else did), then maybe he should be grateful.

nobody said he should feel grateful towards anyone. What was meant is that he should feel lucky or blessed or whatever other synonym you care to use that he and his family have done well financially in life. But instead of being a hot head who is antagonistic towards those less fortunate than him, he should be be humble and yes "grateful" for what life has given him. He should be empathetic towards the less fortunate instead of scapegoating and villifying them... otherwise people might see him as an arrogant loudmouth blowhard. (and we wouldnt want that!)

 

[archanfel]

nobody said he should feel grateful towards anyone. What was meant is that he should feel lucky or blessed or whatever other synonym you care to use that he and his family have done well financially in life. But instead of being a hot head who is antagonistic towards those less fortunate than him, he should be be humble and yes "grateful" for what life has given him. He should be empathetic towards the less fortunate instead of scapegoating and villifying them... otherwise people might see him as an arrogant loudmouth blowhard. (and we wouldnt want that!)

His family has done well because hard work and business skills. Rob Ford should be grateful to his father, but that's about it.

There's a difference between "less fortunate" and "less prepared". If somebody was born with disability, that's less fortunate. If somebody didn't go to school, didn't save when they were young and ended up homeless, that's less prepared. Especially in Canada where there's a social welfare system to provide opportunities to all young people. As Rossi's ads said, his parents were penniless, yet he worked hard to get into UCC and then Princeton (IIRC). Holding them to the same standard is not scapegoating or vilifying them.

 

[GraphicMatt]

I think the point is that Rob Ford leans hard on his 'business experience' but essentially had the business handed to him. He's never once had to build anything from the ground up. Even his position in politics is essentially the result of his family name.

This isn't a reason to disqualify anyone from public office, but it's disingenuous. Doubly so when Ford crows about not spending his office budget, something only realistic when you have lots of money lying around.

 

[toto]

Does anyone know if Ford has ever been on a committee or board during his ten years on council? Has he accomplished anything other than looking after his constituent's grievances?

 

[W. K. Lis]

Rob Ford is very reluctant to do a one-on-one with George Smitherman. He knows he would lose the debate to George.

See cfrb.com link:

Is it time for a one-on-one debate? Smitherman: yes. Ford: no.

With one of our latest polls showing mayoral candidates George Smitherman and Rob Ford in a statistical tie, could now be time for a one-on-one debate?

Smitherman says, "Anytime, anywhere". He challenged Ford to the debate months ago on Newstalk 1010's Jerry Agar Show and he says Torontonians are still waiting for it.

"I think it would be good for the people of Toronto to see the clear options," he says. "But obviously it takes two to tango."

But Ford says he's not joining the tango with other candidates still running.

"What is [Joe] Pantalone saying? What about the other people involved?" Ford says.

Doug Ford, Rob's brother, says it's still a three-man race. And Rob Ford says he still sees Pantalone as his real threat, even though Pantalone has been polling a distant third.

Some of Ford's supporters are also not too keen about having a one-on-one debate. At a campaign fundraising event on Thursday night, many people said they are tired of debates.

But Mel, who is voting for Ford, says he just doesn't think it would work out well.

"I hate to say it but I don't think Rob Ford is as much of a speaker as George Smitherman," Mel said.

 

[Fac1]

Some of Ford's supporters are also not too keen about having a one-on-one debate. At a campaign fundraising event on Thursday night, many people said they are tired of debates.

I wonder why?

 

[mig174]

If somebody didn't go to school, didn't save when they were young and ended up homeless, that's less prepared. Especially in Canada where there's a social welfare system to provide opportunities to all young people.

I would argue that especially for children, home environment and parenting are huge determinants of future success. Poorer parents are unlikely to be able to spend a lot of time with their kids or provide them with the opportunities more well-off kids have. I think that constitutes less "fortunate" and, as a consequence, less prepared.

 

[Torontovibe]

^^ I think intelligence might have something to do with it. A child with an IQ of 90, probably has little chance of having a great education or getting a scholarship to university. (unless, of course, they have wealth and connections)

 

[urbandreamer]

Education is also cultural. Many working class groups look down on education the same way a grad student looks down on undergrads.