Friday’s Headlines

10 comments

1. Why is the TDSB enrollment shrinking so fast? Has Toronto lost the next generation entirely to the suburbs?

2. John Bentley Mays is all excited about getting a tall building where the McLaughlin Planetarium sits.

   What disappoints me is that we have plenty of tall buildings (and low-rise buildings) but a decent-sized planetarium, that was a philanthropic donation from a key early industrialist, apparently is less than chopped liver.

   The ROM spends lots of money and attention on the (brilliant, original, disgusting, desecration — take your pick) museum expansion and Crystal, but is not at all interested in the planetarium, either as a build structure or as an educational facility.

   Alas, the planetarium went defunct too long ago to attract much attention and supporters, unlike the David Dunlap Observatory, recently sold by U of T (which now owns….the planetarium….or as Mays calls it, the “planetarium site” — as if the structure is gone already.).

3. zb,

   Yes. Family’s go to where the jobs are. Last year Toronto’s youth population declined by over 10,000.

4. Glen: while I won’t dispute your numbers, I doubt that’s the reaosn. If that were the case, we’d have seen a real decrease in congestion on roads and highways since people would be living closer to work (and we’d see a spike in other modes of transportation). I think the motivation is cheap(er) housing more than anything. The average commute is up to 80 minutes in the GTHA up from 73 minutes 10 years ago.

   Also, people in cities can only afford one, maybe two, kids these days. I don;t know many people having more than that.

5. Matthew,

   I think your explanation makes more sense.

   My neighbourhood is actually teeming with kids and local primary school is seeing increasing enrollment. Unfortunately that seems to be the exception rather than the rule in the city. It is sad that the city cannot retain young families. Any suggestion how the situation can be improved?

6. although i don’t usually do so, i’m going to stir the pot a little.

   check out census data. adults who live downtown are, in general and not in all cases, better educated and better paid than their suburban counterparts. the downtowners have spent their twenties and early thirties becoming educated and settling into careers, not having kids. when they have kids, they have fewer of them, partially because mom enjoys having a career and it will die a little more every time she takes a maternity leave (yes, still happens all the time).

   the suburbanites, in general and not all the time, are less wealthy than the downtowners, in part because they aren’t as well-educated so they have fewer opportunities and in part because they had children in their twenties. downtown real estate is out of reach even if it were considered desirable to live downtown, which isn’t a universal preference.

   another factor in the death of downtown schools is that rich people are sending their kids to private school more often these days. if you attended public schools in toronto as i did, your school system has changed: mike harris gutted it and the cuts have not healed.

   voila.

7. if you want life to be better for families, and if you want more children running around, then you have to make life better for women. in this day and age, i hope this point doesn’t require any argument.

8. troublemaker,

   your point about women in the city’s dilemma between kids and career is right on. It is also true that even if the woman gets past that decision, the need for more space with more children in the household will push most young family into suburb anyway.

9. Matthew,

   There has been a real decrease in congestion within the city. Downtown streets have less automobile traffic today than twenty years ago. Yet outside of the city you would not see an increase in other modes (non auto) of transportation because there is little alternative.

   There has been an increase in regional congestion. On the Gardiner coming into Toronto, for example, AM outflows and PM inflows are greater than the opposite. Those that did move to the 905 and work there cannot easily take advantage of public transit. As such in those areas, there has been a increase in congestion.

   From the Cordon count…..

   The growth in vehicle trips between the ‘905’ regions has been particularly strong. This growth has been fueled by rapid expansion in population as well as new employment centres that have located in the ‘905’ region. Additionally, new high speed and major transportation infrastructure such as Highway 407 that straddles the ‘905’ region has contributed to this growth. As a result, reverse commuting and cross commuting patterns have become more predominant than was observed in 1991. The Central Area Cordon has actually recorded a slight decrease in vehicular trips in the peak direction (inbound), which is testament to the fact that new employment has been locating outside the traditional downtown, in areas which are relatively more accessible by a high speed road network. Total transit ridership from and to the Central Area Cordon was relatively stable from 2001 to 2006.

   Between 1991 and 2001 the percentage of residents in Wards 20,27 and 28 whom commuted outside of the city to work increased by 14.3%. While the wards lost lost 26,404 employment positions.

   To quote Enid Slack “Let me be clear that I am not recommending a congestion charge along the lines used in London, England. Unlike London, the congestion problem in Toronto is not in the downtown core; the congestion problem in Toronto is on the highways. These tolls should be levied by the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority (GTTA) because it is the regional roads and not the local roads that are congested. ”

   Toronto is like Yogi Berra said, “so popular no one goes there anymore”.

10. jb
    Yes the decrease is as bad as it looks. Outside of the urbant professional mother issue of who can afford to live in Toronto the biggest single issue is that immigrants that keep Canada’s birth rate up no longer want to settle on Tornto and chose the GTA. The other big related problem is that housing prices are too high in good neigourhoods that are basically layed out in the north, south Subway corridors of Bloor and Yonge along with the good schools and safe neihbourhoods. Preiously good middleclass communities are disappearing and being replaced by problem communities that no longer have employment opportunities because of the exodus of business due to high tax rates.