Why the Hate for Mississauga?

[Team Me]

My Dad lived in the Burnamthorpe/Central Parkway area, so I spent half my childhood right around what is now MCC. And it was great as a kid - we had playgrounds and a ravine and were close to a mall.

But once you get older, if you're into music, art, theatre, big sporting events or even a smaller ecological footprint, then places like Mississauga just can't offer the same thing as more dense urban centre. And it's almost a shame Mississauga is so close to Toronto, because if it were more isolated, it would be forced to develop its own culture – I also spent a lot of time in London, Ontario which has at least a reasonably developed cultural scene.

Also, when I was a kid, I didn't really care about bad-to-mediocre urban planning and architecture. But now when I go back to MCC, it almost looks like some sort of Disney theme park version of a big city. It looks "city-ish," but cheap and thrown together, with beige stucco'ed buildings that look like cartoonish tributes to bygone architectural eras. And as along as it's all built around a huge mall parking lot, it will never feel like a true city centre.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Mississauga is a pretty diverse place, as are all places that have populations of 800,000, whether they are suburban or not.

Of course, its size and the fact that it isn't associated with one specific demographic/ethnic group makes it the perfect candidate for being the whipping boy for a somewhat undeserved image of a suburban "wasteland". If you said you hate Markham or Brampton, that could be misconstrued as a racist attack. Saying you hate Mississauga sort of lands you in the clear.

 

[doady]

Criticising the way Mississauga has been governed could be considered a racist attack against white people though.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Mississauga has a downtown that could have developed into a more dense downtown. In fact, there are about several "downtowns" that come to mind: Streetsville, Port Credit, Malton, etc. They were oriented towards the pedestrian.

However, from the 1950's on, the development shifted towards the auto. Cooksville had a four lane Dundas Street originally, but they widened it to seven for the auto.

Now you have to get into your car to get across the street in some places in Mississauga.

For someone without a driver's licence in Mississauga, you need a chauffeur to get around, or a bus. Once you reach 80 years of age, your driver's licence will have to be renewed every 2 years. Does Hazel still has a driver's license, or how does she get around now? She used to drive herself around, don't know about now.

 

[Red Mosquito]

Yep, Mississauga and Toronto are actually very similar. What you see in Mississauga you can find something very similar in most of Toronto, as Toronto itself is also mostly post-war suburbia. So it's funny when Torontonians bash Mississsauga.

I suppose that a suburb with hundreds of high-rise buildings and 5 minute bus service CAN be considered just typical suburbia, if ones considers also the suburbs in the former Soviet Union or something. If the outskirts of East Berlin exemplifies the sprawling and auto-centric suburb, then perhaps Mississauga does too.

You have a point about post-war development, and how a good chunk of outter Toronto resembles Mississauga. I certainly bash that urban build form too. However, at least their is transportation in the outter Toronto burbs, and there is some connection to the urban core. Mississauga does no have these connections(Mississauga Transit is a joke).

Amalgimation really did a diservice to the residents of the urban core and the outter burbs equally. If anything, the boundries should be drawn by age of development. Post-war areas (old city, york, east york, areas of south/central etobicoke, south north york, south scarb.) should be one city, and the rest should join the mississauga's, the vaughans, and the markhams.

 

[gei]

People from Mississauga... who actually KNOW what it's like to live there (as opposed to most people on these forums just making baseless comments) generally like it. In fact virtually every single person I know who is from Mississauga sees themselves settling back down there to start a family. It really is the ideal place for such a thing.

I live downtown and can't imagine living anywhere else at the moment but even I know one day I'll probably move back to Mississauga.

 

[Seymour]

'Cause Mississauga is nothing but sprawl. It's literally a huge city (6th biggest in Canada) consisting of nothing but hideous expansive excessive suburban sprawl. That and Streetsville. Seriously Mississauga is a slum of the future.

 

[Marko]

'Cause Mississauga is nothing but sprawl. It's literally a huge city (6th biggest in Canada) consisting of nothing but hideous expansive excessive suburban sprawl. That and Streetsville. Seriously Mississauga is a slum of the future.

Thank you for skipping the entire thread and adding absolutely nothing of value to the conversation.

...

I have lived in Mississauga since 2003. Prior to that - as an adult - I have lived in Etobicoke, the Annex and Woodbridge, so aside from living right in the heart of DT Toronto, you could say I've tasted much of what the GTA has to offer.

My personal preference is to live somewhere that I can walk to places from. Some place like College St or Avenue Rd or Y+E suits my lifestyle perfectly if I don't factor work into the equation, but considering that I am in business and the most convenient/strategic place for my business is in the industrial area just west of Pearson, it doesn't make sense to force myself to live in a more urban setting. I do need to drive every day as my work often has me meeting with clients or picking up / dropping off goods - and since don't believe in long commutes I choose to live within a 10 minute drive of our location, or "east Mississauga". It's convenient and it's practical by many measures.

That said, I think Mississauga could be so much more than it is. So many things could have been done better, but being next to the largest city in the country was what allowed some of the bad decisions to be made. What London or Ottawa or Calgary would do in growth times would obviously be different than a place 30km from DT Toronto, and it shows.

But...

While it is not as good as it could be, it is clearly not as bad as some would have you believe. What it lacks in a "core identity" (or wherever terms you wish to use) doesn't have to be permanent. People harp on Hurontario being wide enough to land a plane on, but it's exactly the same width as Broadway or Park Ave. What old neighborhoods it does have are disjointed (Streetsville, Port Credit) but with vast undeveloped spaces and ease of re-development of even more space - the flaws aren't permanent and the mindset HAS changed. Sure, there are always opponents to change but the majority of those who live here DO want a city with its own core, with an identity and with better integration of people into the space.

While the cul-de-sacs and cookie cutter subdivisions won't go away - and transit/traffic flow will be less than perfect - many portions of Mississauga will get much more dense. Square One won't go away, but the parking lots and empty areas around the MCC will form a "core" that will be far more urban and livable than many cities with a far "bigger" reputation. Anyone who's been to Atlanta or Dallas or Phoenix can confirm this, but with a little luck and some decent planners, it can work quite well.

It's entirely possible that they screw it up even more, but how about we wait and see the actual result first? The city didn't do so well through its "grade school" growing up years, but is now entering a more mind-opening "high school" period and seems to realize that it as to smarten up if it plans to have any success in the future. There are some good things in place and with a few good ideas and a little hard work, it can become "all grown up" at some point. It's far too young and unfinished a city at this point to really know how it'll end up.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Industry always goes where the land is cheap.

The stockyards were built in the suburb of West Toronto at St. Clair and Keele, because the land was cheap and no one (at the time) was around to complain about the smell. However, labour was needed, and they moved in close to their work place to save time on travel. Over the years, others came into the neighbour and started to complain about the smell, etc. Finally, the companies moved out to new "pastures", in the outer suburbs or distant municipalities (again because the land was cheap and no one was around).

So it repeats. Now the new suburbs are attracting industry because of the cheap land, and no one to complain about them. Give it time, and the cycle will repeat. You see it today with the propane facilities, junk yards, etc. They move out into the suburbs to get away from the complaints and cheaper land.

 

[bleeepbluuup]

Well, it may not just be a matter of whether you grew up in Mississauga; it's also one of how you grew up in Mississauga.

Sort of like me in central Etobicoke; I had the kind of family that got (and got me engaged to) the newspaper regularly and maintained, through family etc, ties with the downtown-core way of looking at things. Which was a distinct step beyond the entropy many of our neighbours existed within.

So call that inside-picture enough, with central Etobicoke serving as a Mississauga proxy...

And consequently what? You don't need our input?

Or just not the input of the benighted and the feeble-minded? Cause that's really not the same as "Mississaugan".

 

[Torontovibe]

The question is, is Mississauga still making the same mistakes right now?

Are they still putting up downtown towers without retail at the bottom? What are they doing to make the City Centre a place where people will walk to shop, hang out with friends and enjoy their city? What will it take to make a SERIOUS effort to provide quality transit, urban spaces and pedestrian friendly streets? Is the environment even on their radar? I haven't been there for a while but to all the UT members in Mississauga, is there a real sense of change in Mississauga? I don't mean just empty talk but is there concrete action taking place?


Can you pry Mississaugans out of their cars?

 

[adma]

And consequently what? You don't need our input?

Or just not the input of the benighted and the feeble-minded? Cause that's really not the same as "Mississaugan".

Well, look at it this way. From a Jane Jacobite urbanist standpoint, being so instilled in a Mississauga upbringing as to simply view it as "home" to the point of not even being able to comprehend (even from a disarmingly accepting "other side") how the place has become a particularly resonant all-encompassing byword for GTA-style suburban dystopia is as painfully un-cosmopolitan as one can get. It's like, Mississauga as Columbine, whatever the ethnicity...

 

[bleeepbluuup]

Well, look at it this way. From a Jane Jacobite urbanist standpoint, being so instilled in a Mississauga upbringing as to simply view it as "home" to the point of not even being able to comprehend (even from a disarmingly accepting "other side") how the place has become a particularly resonant all-encompassing byword for GTA-style suburban dystopia is as painfully un-cosmopolitan as one can get. It's like, Mississauga as Columbine, whatever the ethnicity...

I don't dispute that 'Mississauga' has become shorthand for suburban dystopia. Why that came to be is perfectly understandable. But 'home' was my immediate gut reaction to your specific question -- and gut reactions are the ones you have as a human being, not as an urbanist or what have you. If I somehow managed to have a good time living in Mississauga, then that will taint my answer. I will add the appropriate caveats next time!

Anyway, the original question was why such hate is reserved for Mississauga when there are plenty of other places guilty of the same sins. Maybe it's because people feel Mississauga's getting uppity?

 

[adma]

I don't dispute that 'Mississauga' has become shorthand for suburban dystopia. Why that came to be is perfectly understandable. But 'home' was my immediate gut reaction to your specific question -- and gut reactions are the ones you have as a human being, not as an urbanist or what have you. If I somehow managed to have a good time living in Mississauga, then that will taint my answer. I will add the appropriate caveats next time!

Anyway, the original question was why such hate is reserved for Mississauga when there are plenty of other places guilty of the same sins. Maybe it's because people feel Mississauga's getting uppity?

To me, as gut reactions go, "home" is saccharine and insipid, no matter where one lives. And no "good time growing up" is unilateral. Like, in my way, I had some version of a "good time" growing up in central Etobicoke--but it isn't like I'm smiley-face about it, because life is more complicated than simple "good times".

And I reserve my case. Mississauga, by the nature of its historical development within the GTA at large, is the ultimate symbol, even if "there are plenty of other places guilty of the same sins". And it has been the ultimate symbol for something like four decades already. Seniority, you know. And it's no more "uppity" now than it's ever been, Hazel notwithstanding.

And to grasp that fact, maybe you need to travel beyond the insipid gut feeling that is "home" and take an allseeing eye at the overall context, historical and otherwise. And if that means figuratively folding, spindling, mutilating, and otherwise diminishing your own family and friends, so be it.

 

[bleeepbluuup]

To me, as gut reactions go, "home" is saccharine and insipid, no matter where one lives. And no "good time growing up" is unilateral. Like, in my way, I had some version of a "good time" growing up in central Etobicoke--but it isn't like I'm smiley-face about it, because life is more complicated than simple "good times".

Then we agree to differ here. Yes, life is complicated, but you'll have to pry my smileys out of my cold, dead hands.

And I reserve my case. Mississauga, by the nature of its historical development within the GTA at large, is the ultimate symbol, even if "there are plenty of other places guilty of the same sins". And it has been the ultimate symbol for something like four decades already. Seniority, you know. And it's no more "uppity" now than it's ever been, Hazel notwithstanding.

I agree! It is the most obvious target. I am just wondering if there are any other factors at play here. Is that not a possibility?

And to grasp that fact, maybe you need to travel beyond the insipid gut feeling that is "home" and take an allseeing eye at the overall context, historical and otherwise. And if that means figuratively folding, spindling, mutilating, and otherwise diminishing your own family and friends, so be it.

Just as some may have an instinctive hatred for Mississauga, I associate 'home' with this city. And I agree -- when we are wearing our urbanist hats, we should put aside these feelings and look at a city and its context with a critical, dispassionate eye. But when we are not, other factors may come into play.