Toronto: A City Becoming [Hardcover]

Toronto is the city that might have been.I love cities and was very excited to come to Toronto in the mid 70's.After living in Montreal and New York,I realized what exciting cities with a heart and soul can be. When I came here it was after the World's Fair,a modern new Subway and all was added to the great city that Montreal was.In comparison,Toronto was dowdy and anything but exciting for anyone to visit.Separatism forced many businesses,people and wealth out of Montreal and Toronto benefited from that.Toronto had good expressways and roads.the CN Tower was a world class structure going up,Ontario Place was a recently completed great attraction on the lake;so,Toronto was all set to become a great city.A great city is one which has lots to offer its residents but what separates it from being just a dull,ordinary place is its heart and soul and things that make people from elsewhere want to come and enjoy it too.
However;the dream of a great vibrant city has escaped Toronto.The city is literally falling apart right before our eyes.It is dirty,unkept,and tacky wherever one goes.
The politicians and bureaucrats are totally lacking in vision ,passion and imagination.The city is infested with leftist,socialist people who have held their positions for decades and are far more interested in maintaining their positions at the trough than coming up with ideas and actions to build a great city. The streets are a mess,dirty,littered with trash cans,bicycle racks,tacky newspaper and advertisment boxes.The planters are left unplanted,broken and an eyesore rather than something that adds beauty to the city landscape.Bloor Street ,though having some fine structures,is a patched up mess of dirty storefronts,posters plastered everywhere,awnings,windows and storefronts left uncleaned for months if not years.It is a common sight on streets to see garbage piled up,often not even in containers.
Overall, there is very little to make anyone want to come and enjoy the city.As the city deterioriates,the politicians concentrate on such triviality as plastic coffee cup lids,bicycle lanes,speed bumps,parking revenue, signs,special permits,fines,and parking meters in every conceivable where a buck can be squeezed from a visitor.If you are not ultra careful,and misread the many confusing signs,you'll find your car towed away and in a compound where it'll cost you hundreds of dollars to retrive it.They equipped every streetcar with bicycle racks on the front which nobody wants or uses.They mess around with ethnic food vending carts that has become a joke and rediculous in cost and permit fees.They institude a 3-cent charge for shopping bags which is a joke from many standpoints.The politicians fight endlessly over office expenses,free lunches,passes and free parking.One politician recently spent $20,000 of taxpayers money on his own retirement party.There is a continual banter of politicians and employees charging everything imaginable to their expense accounts.When you think about it,this all seems to indicate how lacking they all are in running the city.To call the City Administration "A Mad Hatter's Tea Party" would be an insult to Lewis Carroll.
One day while crossing City Hall Plaza,I was approached by a tourist family who asked what they should visit as they had the afternoon to spare.They suggested the Totonto Zoo,but when I explained where it was and what would be involved in getting there and back they dismissed the idea.When they mentioned Kensington and St Lawrence Markets,and I told them what to expect to find there;they looked at the kids and agreed that taking in a movie made more sense. Another time, I was walking up Young Street and stopped to cross College Street.Three well dressed ladies ,obviously tourists,were talking.One said,"Do you really want to continue this walk;there's nothing here but a bunch of junky shops? One replied,"No,let's go back to the hotel,before someone sees us."
What Toronto needs is a total sweep of all the uninspired trough feeders and a replacement with some people with vision and imagination,who want to be in positions to use their experience,to create a world class city;rather than enconse themselves into the best paying jobs they could ever hope to land.If you doubt some of the things I have said,read this book,its's all there.
As I write this I am reminded of what the City came up with to celebrate its 200th Anniversary.It was a 12 foot Birthday Cake complete with candles--and they placed it atop the public washroom facility (S--thouse)on the City Plaza.Can't you just see the Mayor and his councillors admiring this masterpiece from the window in the Mayor's office. Toronto has made attempts to get world class events such as the Olympics or a World's Fair,and the city is big enough;but with the type of people holding political office and incompetent bureauacy that is in place,and we see what they have been doing.Toronto doesn't merit or even have the ability to pull it off.

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