May 16th, 2012
If one follows the logic of this week’s casino rhetoric to its logical conclusion, it seems probable that the ballot question in 2014 will be this: Should Toronto have a casino on the waterfront?
I’d put money on it.
The brothers Ford desperately want the 2014 election to be about that most reliable of motherhood issues, subways. But finance minister Dwight (“Golden Mile”) Duncan and Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. chairman Paul Godfrey may have unleashed a willing-host process that could dramatically alter the race – in effect, setting in motion a dynamic that could favour a challenger who figures out how to conflate a referendum on casinos with a referendum on the incumbent.
Consider the emerging architecture of this issue: The province is determined to build a casino in the Greater Toronto. But as Duncan told The Globe and Mail in April, “We will work with those who want to work with us. We certainly won’t impose anything on anybody [italics added].”
While Godfrey has warned that the OLGC would choose Mississauga or some other exotic suburban locale if Toronto didn’t get its act together quickly, one casino official who appeared at executive committee Monday quickly put the lie to that particular threat. As MGM Grand and Gerry Schwartz and all the other, uh, gamers have said in no uncertain terms, a Toronto waterfront site is the proverbial jackpot.
In other words, the deep-pocketed suitors are saying to the province, don’t fold just yet.
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CITY HALL
• Bag fee could be kept alive by council [The Sun]
• Councillors moving into their new office “palaces” [The Sun]
• Councillor wants update on city’s ice time policy [The Sun]
TRANSIT
• The downtown relief line already exists: Markham councillor [Globe & Mail]
REAL ESTATE & DEVELOPMENT
• Toronto office market poised for new boom [National Post]
• Toronto lifts Canadian homes sales, Vancouver drags [Reuters]
• Dozens of Beach-area residents rally against planned condo [National Post]
CASINO
• Toronto casino debate to resume in the fall [CBC]
• Tanenbaum to make bid for Toronto casino [Globe & Mail]
G20
• Byron Sonne walks free, but the G20 forever changed his life [The Star]
• Judge acquits G20 activist Byron Sonne of bomb-making charges [Globe & Mail]
• Sonnce case another black eye for G20 [The Sun]
• Byron Sonne not guilty on charges he plotted to attack 2010 G20 summit in Toronto [National Post]
OTHER NEWS
• Jewish restaurant United Bakers celebrates 100 years; still family-run [National Post]
• Charities, non-profits protest Toronto’s new garbage pickup fees [The Star]
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May 15th, 2012
In an ongoing series for Spacing, Toronto-based writer Julie Baldassi delves into Hamilton's built heritage conversation, its key players, and important buildings.
Some buildings have been salvaged, but many barely stand, crumbled beyond the point of repair, with their broken windows and unkempt facades noticeably sticking out. Increasingly, the debates over the future of Hamilton's heritage buildings have come to represent a changing landscape of political interests.
Much like other post-industrial cities in the American Rust Belt, Hamilton has been traversing a period of revitalization in its downtown core. As the largely suburban city has begun to take note of its new-found urban potential, there is an ongoing debate over what to do with the abundance of vacant old buildings downtown.
In Toronto, it’s understood that the conversation about public transit represents something more than just the minutiae of urban planning — it stands on the back of ideological clashes between suburban and urban voters. Similarly, Hamilton's built heritage debate represents a political chasm – between those who value the buildings as culture worth preserving, and those who just want to see downtown cleaned up, with or without these relics of Hamilton's heritage intact.
Let's be clear about something: Hamilton is not Toronto. Nor is it a suburb of the GTA — it’s the ninth-largest city in Canada with over half a million citizens. In 2012, the core continues to see a flurry of construction, with as many as eight construction cranes up — which is good news, since the Real Estate Investment Network of Canada voted Hamilton the best place to invest in the country over the next five years. Hamilton has a livable, vibrant urban core which is distinct from its suburban periphery. And, over the past decade, the urban core has been inhabited by a new generation of creative, entrepreneurial Hamiltonians who have raised the profile of their local arts community and thriving businesses. These facts are worth stating — not to brag or invite flattering comparisons to grander cities or boroughs — but to illustrate the point that Hamilton is its own city with its own unique set of growing pains and reasons for civic pride.
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Urban Planet is a daily roundup of blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
From the makers of Walk Score and just in time for "Bike to Work Week" comes Bike Score - the online tool for assessing neighbourhood bikeability. The tool uses data including the locations of bicycle infrastructure, amenities and hills. And Canadian cities are featured too!
With files from the Calgary Herald and Forbes
Image from Bike Score
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Street Scene will appear each week showcasing the illustrations of local artist
Jerry Waese.
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In the final video for our series with famous Toronto Historian Bruce Bell around Old Town Toronto we visited the St. James Cathedral. The church was initially established in 1797 but rebuilt in 1839 after being burnt down by a fire. As a popular heritage site, often visited by the Queen and Royal Family when in Toronto, the Cathedral Church of St. James is both a parish church ministering to the historic St. Lawrence neighbourhood and a cathedral.
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FORD
• Ford can win again; here’s why [The Star]
• Rob Ford cancels ‘Cut the Waist’ weigh-in, reduces schedule to every other week [National Post]
• Toronto exec committee votes to toss bag tax [Toronto Sun]
TRANSIT
• GO to offer refunds in fall if train more than 15 minutes late, but… [The Star]
CASINO
• Province’s casino threat hollow, MGM executive suggests [The Star]
• Exhibition Place emerges as favoured bet for Toronto casino [Globe & Mail]
• MGM wants casino on Toronto’s waterfront [National Post]
• Onex chief game to invest in proposed Toronto casino scheme [Globe & Mail]
• Toronto casino decision delayed to the fall [Toronto Sun]
G20
• Toronto police, OPP called the shots on G20 Response, report says [Globe & Mail]
• Report exonerates RCMP for actions luring violence-marred G20 summit [National Post]
OTHER NEWS
• How to make art? This academy thinks today’s schools have it all wrong [OpenFile]
• Innovation helps Royal Conservatory hit all the right notes [Globe & Mail]
• Peter Kuitenbrouwer: No Joy for forgotten Toronto landmark [National Post]
• PanAm velodrome: Boon or bust for Milton? [The Star]
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May 14th, 2012
Urban Planet is a daily roundup of blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
Did you ride your bike to school as a kid? According to this piece on NPR, back in 1969 nearly half of children got to school on foot or by bike. Today, that figure is closer to 13%. Reporter David Darlington talks about what has changed - from concerns about liability to sprawling neighbourhood design to a changing understanding of bikes as recreation rather than transportation.
Image from sfbike
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In Saturday’s Globe and Mail, I wrote about a Markham councillor – a conservative, no less – who has a radically sensible notion: That Metrolinx and the Toronto Transit Commission should actually work together to create an integrated transit network. Imagine that: cooperation in the public sector. What a concept!
In particular, Jim Jones has been talking up a plan to twin the tracks on the GO rail corridors, buy electric trains, and develop a two-tier express/local commuter rail service linked to the TTC’s east-west lines. Building on the anti-diesel movement in the west end, Jones’ scheme not only delivers rapid transit to Scarborough, it also opens up a space to re-cast the debate about the downtown relief line, which, to date, focuses mainly on another subway line.
But before Jones’ untested idea can receive any kind of serious technical and financial scrutiny, the province and the city need to make a concerted effort to coordinate the way Metrolinx and the TTC carry out their long-ranging planning.
The lack of interoperability between GO and the TTC is an old and much commented-upon phenomena rooted in jurisdictional rivalries and the physical constraints of the city’s rail infrastructure. The consequences are writ large on our geography: with a few exceptions – Union Station, Yorkdale, Finch, etc. – the GO network doesn’t connect to the TTC, and the city, for its part, turns its back on the GO stops (e.g., Oriole Station, hidden cleverly under the 401, off Leslie).
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FORD
• Toronto Mayor Rob Ford wants to scrap 5-cent plastic bag fee [The Star]
• I’m a ‘true believer’ in PanAm Games, Ford says [National Post]
TRANSIT
• Past pieces of Toronto: Subway interlining [OpenFile]
• How the Eglinton LRT will transform neighbourhoods [The Star]
• Strobel: For whom the road tolls [The Sun]
REAL ESTATE & DEVELOPMENT
• House price war: Toronto vs. Vancouver [The Star]
• Demand for new housing set to pump market bubble bigger [Globe & Mail]
• Caviar condos set to flood Toronto market [Reuters]
• Gee: The unexpected merits of Toronto’s condo boom [Globe & Mail]
• 5 building blocks of a Toronto casino [National Post]
• As condos rise, pressure on urban parks grow [Globe & Mail]
• With Walnut Studios, condo developers and artists have found a way to live in productive harmony [National Post]
OTHER NEWS
• Narrowing Toronto’s Yonge St. to just two lanes is worth a try [The Star]
• Toronto’s Don River goes wild when flooded for Paddle the Don [The Star]
• Levy: Community support key to park projects [The Sun]
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