Public Spaces, Clean and Beautiful Cities and Urban Design
New page for discussion of our public spaces, keeping the city clean and beautiful, and doing good urban design.
Setting the Agenda 2010
What's your vision for Toronto?
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Recent Comments
David Robertson on Cycling Infrastructure Desmond Cole on Democratic Reform and Civic… Raj on Welcome to Setting the Agenda … MS on Cycling Infrastructure DN on Cycling Infrastructure
November 20, 2009 at 11:04 am |
Having spent time this year in New York city, Cuba, Latvia and Vancouver, I am reminded upon my return of the 2nd rate, uninspiring design of our public spaces, architecture and new or established development in this powerful and unique city. We are not harnessing the people who live here, the professional influences from around the world, from various religions, ethnicities and landscapes. I take issue with the focus on “safety” in our design elements. Our focus should be “original, risk-taking, inspirational”. I remember Joe Mihevc once saying to me, “Toronto is one of the most interesting social experiments, due to its size and diversity”. I would like to see that harnessed in the visual and physical aspects of this city. Where are the European, African, Latin American, Asian etc elements modernized and visible in this city? Let’s see the social experiment in colour and shape and use of space. We need a process that puts us on the world map in terms of creativity and modern urbanization. Not status quo “safe” streets. Magnificence and awe-inspiring streets, buildings and landscapes are much more important to the future social and economic vitality of our city and its people.
November 20, 2009 at 11:28 am |
Lilita has a good point, Toronto has so much potential in harnessing the diversity and strengths of its various social groups and apply it in public space. Places such as University ave, Dundas Square and even our waterfront are hardly places that should be considered adequate use of public space and are lacking in urban design. We have just over 5 years to prepare for the Pan Am games, wouldn’t this be the time to invest in our public realm to make it a place we can be proud of to show the world?
November 20, 2009 at 4:30 pm |
Let’s move towards becoming a Food secure city. Unlike people in many world cities, Torontonians rely almost entirely on food trucked from thousands of kilometers away. That means Toronto’s food dollars travel thousands of kilometres to create jobs elsewhere. It doesn’t have to be that way, especially in a region that has the best farmland in Canada. If even 1.5 % of Toronto’s surface area were made available to market gardeners we could create a $16 million a year industry growing 10% of our city’s fresh vegetables. A combination of vacant, underused land and flat empty roofs makes that goal achievable.- From Toronto’s Food Charter http://www.toronto.ca/food_hunger/pdf/food_charter.pdf
It would be great to see more community gardens in our area like the HOPE community garden in Parkdale: http://hopecommunitygarden.wordpress.com/ This project provides summer employment to youth, brings together local community agencies, provides community members will space to grow their own food and to engage with their neighbours, the green perimeter also permits passer-bys to pick beans, raspberries and other delights! It’s a well thought-out community development project with real potential for replication.
November 22, 2009 at 6:40 pm |
Enthusiastically agree. Promoting ‘city farming’ is a win from any angle you look at it.
November 20, 2009 at 9:46 pm |
Public spaces need to allow for more inclusion of the ‘natural’ world. For example, Toronto is extremely pet-unfriendly. There are nowhere near enough off-leash dog park areas to accommodate all the people who have dogs. As well, the city often goes on silly witch hunts to trap and kill cats. Remember the fiasco when Animal Services wanted to do that to Robert Brydges’ managed feral colony in Bluffers Park, Scarborough? Then they tried to demand licences. After public outcries, they are just looking the other way.
Toronto Animal Services needs to get their act together with sensible practices, policies and their consistent implementation. As well, pet bylaws need to be revisisted and determined with proper public input and consultation. There are a LOT of pet owners! The College of Veterinarians in a letter protesting the HST hike claimed that 60% of Ontarians own a pet.
The benefits of pet ownership have shown in study after study that they reduce stress, improve humand health and teach compassion.
Time for the city to become more pet friendly.
November 21, 2009 at 12:06 pm |
I’d like a focus on improving the built environment in which Torontonians work, live, and play. I work at York U. and during my daily commute from downtown, see some tretcherous, uninspiring and ofter downright dangerous urban spaces. To me, it signifies a complete resignation on the part of this city to create spaces that serve people. Not cars. Not developers. People.
November 22, 2009 at 9:56 pm |
Please Don’t pave any more green space!
and Meghan: let’s put the spaces into the hands of the people to shape (with oversight). You are so on the money. Are largest public space are Streets – where people should be first always.
November 22, 2009 at 11:57 pm |
While we’re at the simultaneous taming and freeing of public spaces, we need to make war — that’s the only way to say it — on the advertising industry. There is a precept that any surface, any space can be sold, and the greatest space in the world taken over by whoever’s paying the freight today. Do we value our public space so little?
Our subway stations are no palaces, but when “Station Domination” campaigns completely transform them into billboards, often with the most uninspired of designs, and destroy their sense of place, things are really out of hand.
Good station design also does not mean enabling a vanity architecture project that is only half implemented and already looking a bit tired as at Museum.
November 24, 2009 at 11:25 am |
Steve, I agree that we need to value our public spaces more. I hear you regarding “Station Domination”. Every time I take my 4 year old son on transit, I worry about what he is going to see. There is inappropriate advertising for him. And we wonder why we have increases in violent behaviour…It’s about where the attention is put. The attention needs to be put more on beauty.
November 24, 2009 at 5:02 pm |
For me, the central concern is for PUBLIC space, since I believe this is what brings people together around some of what’s been said so far about aesthetics, “safety”, billboards and advertisement, community gardens, city farming, and creative expressions of diversity. When I go walking in the ravines or on the Danforth, I get a wonderful sense of the public sphere: a place where I (along with everyone else) can be without any questions asked. But the number of places where I feel this public sense dwindles in comparison to the overall regulation of space in Toronto. I would like this to change. So, while I would like to see dazzling architecture and beautiful greenscapes, the most important element in any change to the urban design is, for me, that Toronto becomes a place that feels more and more like a public space. Without this sense of the public, I think that all people in Toronto lose what is rightfully theirs.