Some Observations About Toronto: People and Spaces
Published by Hanno Kaiser May 30th, 2006 in UncategorizedI just got back from a brief vacation to Toronto, which is a great and paradoxical place, where a population from an utopian future has somehow been dropped into an urban environment from a vaguely dystopian past. Walking along Queen Street provides no less than a glimpse into a hopeful future for humanity. I have never seen more biracial couples anywhere, including a significant number of non-white male / white female pairings. Groups of teenagers similarly did not seem to be divided along racial lines. And while differences in wealth are apparent, as one would expect in a free society, desperate poverty, New York style, seemed to be the rare exception. That’s the utopian part. Much of the city’s architecture, in sharp contrast, is outright scary in its intentional uniformity. It is beyond me how anyone could ever have thought that vast expanses of concrete would make for inviting communal gathering spaces. The waterfront looks like the concrete coast between Malaga and Gibraltar with a hint of 1980s East Germany thrown in. And the concrete cancer has metastasized deep into the downtown area. The much-hyped Bloor Street shopping area, for example, is a souped-up version of Ludwigshafen (which is not a good thing). The concrete architecture somehow feels sinister because it is obviously purposeful, and because it so starkly contrasts with the diverse population. But maybe that’s a hopeful story after all, as planning for uniformity has been defeated by an evolution of variety.
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All my early memories of Toronto are dismal. (I’m not just saying that because they’re my hometown’s rival.) As you indicate, it’s an ornate slab of concrete with holes stuck in it where people live. Don’t be fooled; some of those holes include the destitute poverty from the eyes of the average citizen, largely because of the edicts of Mr. Mayor Mel “Big Boy” Lastman, who years ago clamped down on both the homeless and the window-washing teens. No idea where they are now, so I guess Canadian poverty is easier to hide than the American sort. (I can tell you, though, that I’ve heard it reported that Toronto, Hamilton, and Kingston are the three most centralized places for halfway houses in Ontario.)
But yeah, the architechture can be astounding and lovely (no doubt arising from ordinary free-ish market causes than anything like a plan; i.e., maybe big firms only hire a select cabal of architects). And I was a happy boy when the Blue Jays won the world series twice in a row in the early nineties, and was delighted by the Sky Dome’s sunroof. (It is evidently now called the “Rogers Centre” by some infidels.) And there are real thriving markets around there, along with shops where they actually sell cultural products, art, etc., and actually somehow make a profit.