My Toronto includes all of this city.
All of it.
Having spent a good chunk of 5 years listening to people from all over this city for a previous job, I can categorically indicate that there are FAR more similarities then differences between people in the inner suburbs and people in the downtown.
The biggest commonality is a circle of care, however that is defined – be it a family, friends, workplace or institution – this is paramount to people.
Enjoying life is a primary desire.
Living safely is a primary desire.
There are differences in how those things are defined. But, the motivation to live and the desires, the stuff on the scale of needs, is the same.
I love this city.
From Mimico to Malvern. From Rexdale to the beaches below the bluffs in the South East. Like many of us, I have, in one way shape or form, probably walked all of Yonge within this city.
It is beautiful. It is vibrant, it is much stronger then its politicians make it out to be and it is a good place to live. When I bother to listen to people, when I bother to hear what they want, to hear what they are succeeding at, to hear what they want for their families, friends, neighbours, I see far more in common across this city then others do.
And yet, I despair. It is in our nature to want what is perfect. Our city is a mess. It was built too late to take advantage of the pre war approach to city building much of the world took. When it matured, it was undercut by car lovers and followers of Robert Moses who demanded transit support their highway visions (here I’m thinking of the Allen subway route over the Dufferin one). And large swaths matured later then others, with huge chunks of Scarborough being corn fields until relatively recently. The coherence of the city as a whole was avoided (and will be by pols for another 30 years) in deference to neighbourhood groups more worried about maintaining property values and keeping taxes low then building a services to suit a group of people no longer small enough to help out through just the property tax base. And, the Canadian version of the Westminster parliamentary system has been bastardized here to put party above all, whereas in Westminster, it puts local community above all and in the US, it puts local rep money hand outs above all.
I see this last 8 years as a tremendous waste both on the transit file and on the fiscal file; I also see this the last hurrah of the 90′s era local pols, both in the inner suburbs and in the core. We will soon see a group of politicians who never were involved in local politics pre-amalgamation and do not have the same loyalties. Out of all that will come change.
As for who will lead, who will bind us, I would argue that, rightly or not, the last 2 mayors have had large success, electorally, at coalescing people behind an idea. Miller was about change and professionalism – Ford was about change and letting in people who, for various reasons, thought they were out.
There is still a great hunger in this city for authentic leadership, that tries to do the right thing without putting down others who disagree. The comment boards are not a good indicator of how Torontonians think.
I hope we have an opportunity next year to discover who that leader is.
I suspect we will.
