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ARG1 said:
To be fair, she served as the Mayor of Mississauga for 36 years, and was crucial to its development and shaping the city as it is today. As obnoxious as I found her "Mississauga is a unique community from Toronto", and the pseudo-nationalism she showed the city, I can at the very least respect the effort Mississauga has put in trying to brand itself as its own part of the GTA - and they have definitely succeeded.

And if I might say something controversial - even though people blast Mississauga for being a car oriented city, it isn't actually that bad as a car oriented city. The streets are fairly wide and fast making travel very quick, and the highways are placed in strategic locations. I don't think I have ever had a bad time going to a friend's house or visiting some convention in Mississauga.

Compare this to Toronto and York Region where they're lacking both as transit cities, and as car cities (especially York Region, transit in Toronto is okay).

While as an outsider I definitely don't like Hazel, its definitely a situation where even I personally don't like her, I am still able to see while people within the city have so much respect for her, and respect what she did for the city.
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She is popular partly because of the leadership during the early years (e.g. the derailment in 1979), the folksy attitude and keeping taxes stable while sustaining the city through greenfield (and sometimes high profile) developments. The sheen has started to wear off in the 2000s onward - when the chickens started coming home to roost. She just cruised through it as an elderly statesman even when there are other scandals (e.g. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/new...est-in-land-deal-inquiry-finds/article555703/) that would have sunk other careers. She got off easy.

AoD
 
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She did manage to get the second biggest mall in the country built in what was no man’s land. Canadians love their malls.
 
She didn’t win elections with 80-90% of the vote by being a terrible mayor. Despite some of the issues her decisions have left behind - she was and continues to be enormously popular.

People liked her and continue to like her. She was accessible and approachable and generally a warm person to be around. The concerns us urbanists have with her aren’t concerns to the average citizen, so the renaming will be popular whether we agree or not.
 
Tuscani01 said:
She didn’t win elections with 80-90% of the vote by being a terrible mayor. Despite some of the issues her decisions have left behind - she was and continues to be enormously popular.

People liked her and continue to like her. She was accessible and approachable and generally a warm person to be around. The concerns us urbanists have with her aren’t concerns to the average citizen, so the renaming will be popular whether we agree or not.
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Well, in the suburbs you win elections by a) not having anyone that matters in the running and b) low turnout - and suburbanites very generally speaking prefer politics to be as invisible and as little of a chore as possible. Popular doesn't = good (in fact one can argue being popular meant that you aren't making any seriously important decisions with much capacity to annoy anyone)

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Well, in the suburbs you win elections by a) not having anyone that matters in the running and b) low turnout - and suburbanites very generally speaking prefer politics to be as invisible and as little of a chore as possible. Popular doesn't = good (in fact one can argue being popular meant that you aren't making any seriously important decisions with much capacity to annoy anyone)

AoD
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It’s easy to say she had no competition, but is that enough reason for anyone to not like her? She had no competition because the competition stood no chance against the level of support she had.

As for not ruffling feathers - that’s exactly why she is loved amongst Mississauga residents. Which just reinforces my point that she was a good mayor in the eyes of most.
 
How the average Mississaugan sees Hazel:

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In reality:

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AlvinofDiaspar said:
Well, in the suburbs you win elections by a) not having anyone that matters in the running and b) low turnout - and suburbanites very generally speaking prefer politics to be as invisible and as little of a chore as possible. Popular doesn't = good (in fact one can argue being popular meant that you aren't making any seriously important decisions with much capacity to annoy anyone)

AoD
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It didn’t help either that in Mississauga (or Brampton, for that matter) the only media attention from large mainstream news sources were the fawning profiles of Hazel that would come out every few years, or coverage of the occasional scandal. Toronto City Hall is covered closely; Mississauga is not.
 
Tuscani01 said:
It’s easy to say she had no competition, but is that enough reason for anyone to not like her? She had no competition because the competition stood no chance against the level of support she had.

As for not ruffling feathers - that’s exactly why she is loved amongst Mississauga residents. Which just reinforces my point that she was a good mayor in the eyes of most.
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Like I've said, being liked/popular isn't the same thing as good. And sometimes not ruffling feathers meant unpopular but essential decisions are being punted/delayed/ignored. It's like saying Titanic is a good ship because it sailed quietly and without events the first 4 days.

ShonTron said:
It didn’t help either that in Mississauga (or Brampton, for that matter) the only media attention from large mainstream news sources were the fawning profiles of Hazel that would come out every few years, or coverage of the occasional scandal. Toronto City Hall is covered closely; Mississauga is not.
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And local news is fairly parochial (the ads/flyers were probably more read - and eagerly anticipated than the news articles).

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Like I've said, being liked/popular isn't the same thing as good. And sometimes not ruffling feathers meant unpopular but essential decisions are being punted/delayed/ignored. It's like saying Titanic is a good ship because it sailed quietly and without events the first 4 days.



And local news is fairly parochial (the ads/flyers were probably more read - and eagerly anticipated than the news articles).

AoD
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I’m not defending whether I think she’s good or not. I tend to agree with the opinion of most on here.

I’m simply stating that most of Mississauga doesn’t care about that stuff and continues to like Hazel. They chose to move to sprawl land, and the effects of sprawl aren’t something they are concerned about. I still remember when she crashed into a sign on a traffic island and the media was all over her for being old and driving, but yet everyone around me was still defending her and proud of the fact that she was so old and still driving herself.

There’s a reason why politicians like Ford and Crombie still attach themselves to Hazel. It’s because she’s still good in the public eyes. She was exactly what they wanted her to be, and that made her a good mayor to them.
 
Tuscani01 said:
I’m not defending whether I think she’s good or not. I tend to agree with the opinion of most on here.

I’m simply stating that most of Mississauga doesn’t care about that stuff and continues to like Hazel. They chose to move to sprawl land, and the effects of sprawl aren’t something they are concerned about. I still remember when she crashed into a sign on a traffic island and the media was all over her for being old and driving, but yet everyone around me was still defending her and proud of the fact that she was so old and still driving herself.

There’s a reason why politicians like Ford and Crombie still attach themselves to Hazel. It’s because she’s still good in the public eyes. She was exactly what they wanted her to be, and that made her a good mayor to them.
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Oh I know (and definitely remembered that car crash episode) - I think she did the city a disservice because her successors are the ones who have to deal with the issues, and doesn't necessarily have the political capital for it. That's also why I said that it felt a little hagiographic/personality culty. I am sure when she passes we'd get even more of that, plus a lot of "good old days" stuff.

AoD
 
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