ARCHITECTURE / DEVELOPMENT
• Hume: Love it or loathe it, change is a comin’ [ Toronto Star ]
• Some reminders of the past just don’t deserve to be rescued [ Globe & Mail ]
• GTA home sales double in November [ Globe & Mail ]
• Gardiner idea more than just pie in the sky [ Toronto Star ]
• New life for symbol of ‘imperious clout’ [ National Post ]
• Soaring shelter cost frustrates council [ Toronto Star ]
CITY FINANCES
• Miller calls debt plan `brilliant’ [ Toronto Star ]
• Councillors decry executive committee’s 10-year, $25.7-billion capital plan [ National Post ]
OTHER NEWS
• Ontario wants accused thief to foot bill for bike clean up [ Globe & Mail ]
• HST rally blocks downtown Toronto streets [ Globe & Mail ]
• Former Winnipeg mayor to seek nomination in Smitherman’s riding [ Globe & Mail ]
• TTC UNION CHIEF WINS RE-ELECTION [ Globe & Mail ]
9 comments
Marcus Gee’s columns seem to involve taking some official line and just repeating it, or at least looking uncritically at one side of a discussion and very critically at another. Quite often, the side he sides with is the powerful.
I miss John Barber.
That’s the best analysis of Gee I can imagine: whether he’s talking $#!+ domestic or about Israel/Palestine.
That article by Gee basically sums up the ignorant attitude towards heritage preservation which newspapers should be confronting not advancing.
I miss John Barber horribly. Gee is really thoughtless, not worth reading, takes the official line, adds nothing, and is dull to read.
Amen to both.
Gee is just what we don’t need – another authority crapping on the powerless, or, as someone said “speaking power to truth”…
I certainly do not miss Barder who was an intellectual gadfly and shameful apologist for Miller for years but I do agree that Gee is a dull disappointment. At least I could get riled up about Barber but with Gee it’s like you don’t even know what he is trying to say half the time.
I do not really know much about the Hangers so will not comment but have said before the Silos should come down in favour of a park or Community centre. Right now they just block the view. Hard to imaging a site in the City that has better sight lines and potential that deserves more than an unusable blob of concrete. I have been cycling by them for twenty years and think the same thing ever time; what a waste of space.
While I understand why Native Canadians are upset about the HST, please allow me to sum up the position from all the rest of us…
“HST?!? THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!! This is the biggest tax increase in history!!!”
“Actually dad, it’s the smallest tax increase in history.”
Seriously, on the 3 things a week you buy which are currently exempt (which many probably assume aren’t) your annual expenses may increase by .01%. If these whiners are so upset about it, then please come up with a better way for the government to raise the capital needed to get out of debt, stimulate the economy, and provide the services you take for granted!
Oh, and ‘trimming the fat’ from the budget is a good start, but it is a drop in the bucket to the funds that are actually needed.
Marcus Gee is narrow minded. Plain & simple. Art & architecture is so subjective. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” but lest we forget that it is the creative minds from the professionals & the energy from the citzens of a neighbourhood that can transform just about anything. If we demolish something for the sake of demolishing without first giving it a chance, then that structure is lost forever.
I think his beef is more about using tax/government money for supporting such projects.