About Toronto

Artigo publicado em dezembro no TheStar:

Hume: 10 reasons to feel optimistic about Toronto

All is not lost. Despite Rob Ford, the city will survive. Damage has been done but still there are reasons for optimism. Here are 10:

The Waterfront: Once famously described by an uninformed Toronto councillor as a “boondoggle,” waterfront revitalization has now become the galvanizing force behind a renewed sense of civic engagement. Torontonians are paying attention to a process that has been unfolding for more than decade. Suddenly, things can’t happen fast enough.

Regent Park: The remaking of this post-war social housing project is a remarkable chapter in the history of the Toronto Community Housing Corp. What’s happening along Dundas St. E., where an aquatic facility, cultural centre and condos are under construction, will transform the city as well as the neighbourhood.

The New Corporate Architecture: Not only is Toronto building office towers once again, it’s building them better than ever. All the recently completed high-rises — Telus, PwC and RBC/Dexia — are exquisitely designed and have (or expect to have) LEED (Gold) certification.

Occupy Toronto: As occupations go, this was among the most polite ever mounted. It brought out the best in almost everyone, except grumpy neighbours and dog-walkers. Even the police behaved well. And when it did end, the Ontario Sod Growers Association and Landscape Ontario resodded the park for free. Not only that; they did it in days.

CBC Radio: While commercial radio lapses into cultural and political banality, the public broadcaster has become the voice of Toronto. Contrary to the rules of a horribly dumbed-down industry, it courts complexity and embraces the cosmopolitan.

Queen Street: The homogeneity of Big Retail aside, this remains the urban lifeblood of Toronto. Queen has the robustness to withstand the onslaught of the Shoppers Drug Marts, HMVs, Club Monacos, McDonalds, Tim Hortons, and all the other dreary peddlers of cheap and easy sameness.

Humber College: At its Lakeshore College, the school is carving an unexpectedly exciting urban scaled campus out of the unpromising context of south Etobicoke. In one case, an old car dealership was reinvented, brilliantly, as the Centre for Justice Leadership.

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health: Though incomplete, the rebuilding of its site at Queen and Ossington is a shining example of how planning and architecture must follow new attitudes or risk irrelevance. An enlightened project for both the CAMH and the city.

Rouge Park: Future Torontonians will thank the federal government for its decision to declare this 10,000-acre site an urban national park. As time goes by, the wisdom of the move first announced in the throne speech last June, will grow ever more obvious.

Union Station: The busiest transit hub in the country, let alone the city, Union Station is finally getting the attention it needs. Plans go back at least to the Lastman era, but now the remake is underway. Thousands of commuters will be thrilled.


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