It’s been a bad month for those of us who care about urban design, or the big picture about city-builidng, in Toronto. Forget New York run by the Swiss. This month, it seems like we’re Philadelphia run by the Republicans.
Which is to say, a small, industrial-age city – but unlike the actual Philly, we are now a city that’s thinking small, too.
The news of the past weeks has been disheartening. First, cavalier musings by Toronto’s quasi-mayor about disrupting waterfront redevelopment plans, and then the likely death of the Fort York Bridge. Apparently our civic leadership wants to be remembered as the guys who shut stuff down and sold off historic city lands in fast-developing areas.
As for the bridge, I think Shawn Micallef really nailed the issue at Spacing. Building well-designed infrastructure is what cities do. In some cities, such things even get to look good. This costs money. Building parks, likewise, is not free. But it pays economic benefits, and anyone who’s been to Liberty Village ought to agree: that area desperately needs more green space and more pedestrian connections. City staff sure think so. What it does not need is more isolated, quasi-suburban highrises. Likewise, Fort York’s excellent renewal plans make it a good candidate for a lift.
But I worry more about the future of Waterfront Toronto. Its work is long-term, and so far it’s a bit hard to see what the agency is up to – though it helps (!) to go and look, as I did many times last year, enjoying the Sugar Beach park.
Great stuff. But it’s the complex work of environmental remediation and large-scale park-building that will be most important in the long term. The planned Lake Ontario Park, for instance, is the sort of broad and subtle intervention that will really make the lakefront a pleasant place to walk. It will be unimpressive until it is complete, and then it will be essential.
And who is designing it? James Corner Field Operations, the pioneering landscape designers who are now among the world’s best.
Corner’s firm helped conceive The High Line in New York, which is now one of that city’s landmarks and about to expand. It’s incredible. Its second phase, opening this week, looks something like that, above.
And they just finished a small, ambitious new waterfront park in… Philadelphia. Race Street Pier, just one acre, is being warmly received by the public.
It’s a sign that this city, small, handsome and often very poorly governed, is managing to make a turn for the better with its waterfront planning.
How? Through common sense.
Local architecture critic Inga Saffron writes:
“In a sense, the pier owes its existence to the failure of the large-scale development model used at Penn’s Landing since its creation in 1968. When the developer of a proposed entertainment mall pulled out in 2002 – the sixth subsidized project to fizzle there – it set off a public conversation about the future of the Delaware waterfront.
A new set of values emerged and were articulated in a report by Penn Praxis, a nonprofit consultant. Rather than throw more money at developers, infrastructure improvements, like parks or transit, are the true building blocks of cities, not mega-developments, the group argued.”
I hope these arguments can win here. They should.
7 comments
Great post, excellent summary.
While nothing will change in the near future (Ford was voted into power with massive support, sad as that fact may be), writers and thinkers and people who care about the city need to hold on until the darkness of the Ford Era one day lifts. Keep the flame burning, don’t let the yearning to be a better city go out.
In the meantime, those of us who live outside Fordistan (NYC in my case) will keep building and innovating, preparing to one day welcome our lost brethren in Toronto back into the fold. We’ll have lots of examples of light rail, bike lanes, bustling city squares, contemporary parks and creative playgrounds to show you when you step back into the light.
I’m beginning to think our best bet may be reverse psychology. If we ‘downtown elitists’ can convince Ford that we hate good city building, the evidence suggests he will commit to it out of spite. The man and his sycophants have done nothing creative in their term so far… they appear to exist only to destroy what was in place or proposed by progressives. It’s very depressing.
iSkyscraper, we already have all you want to show us. Ford may aspire to compromise and destroy it, but your belittling our great city is misguided. If you want some advice
AR, my 25 years in Toronto, 1 in London and 11 in New York inform me otherwise. But enough about me, let’s stay united against Ford.
never gonna happen in T.O., unfortunately the people whom have the power over what happens in Toronto don’t even live in the city, this includes the Mayor Brothers Ford.
Thanks for the nod to Philly, glad to hear our city’s on Toronto’s design radar. (For what it’s worth, I’m a huge fan of your design scene from a couple trips in the last few years. Gorgeous place with really friendly folks too.) A quick note on Philly’s recent deisgn renaissance: I think it’s owed in large part to the election of a forward-thinking council and a complete overhaul of city government. Many offices were combined or closed because of poor performance, redundancy, and sheer corruption. This also opened the doors to revisit charters and laws that kept smart development at bay. Not least of all, our location between two major cities (NYC and DC) proved fortunate in the economic downturn as we’re able to develop projects at a fraction the cost of materials/labor. (We’re actually seeing brain drain from NYC to Philly with our cheap rents and affordable living, wow!) I will note that Field Operations is a Philly firm too, of whom of course we’re very proud… Thanks again!
And Field Operations has the best name ever.