The Light Fantastic
Feb. 4th, 2005 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talktoolooseWe've been watching our way through Ric Burns' rhapsodic 14-hour documentary on the history of New York city and it's making me sad for the lack of verve and vision in Toronto.
Recently the Toronto Transit Commission announced that future subway construction is just a pipedream and it's time to stop thinking about it. The economics of cities no longer includes room for civic dreaming, even if these dreams are the hope for a livable city in the future.
The fact is that while it is in Ontario's and Canada's interests to prevent Toronto from sliding into disrepair and poverty (or rather a huge split between the haves and have-nots), it is never politically expedient to do it. Saying "no" to Toronto always plays well everywhere else. So, while the Prime Minister and the Premier came to the table talking about "new deals for cities," in the end we are still facing a budget crisis in 2005 including talk of cutting $100 million to transit at a time of intense population growth, air pollution and gridlock in the city.
When David Miller became mayor, I had high hopes because he didn't cower and refused to take the stand that Canada's largest city was in a third-tier governmental position after federal and provincial. Toronto dwarfs the province of Prince Edward Island but does not have PEI's place at the table on issues like health care and education. Sorry, I'm not trying to beat up your home province,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rfmcdpei. But it's a good example.
But really, there is little Miller can do. If he doesn't get either money or a new funding formula from Ottawa or Queen's Park, he will have to raise property taxes and he will lose the next election to John Tory or someone who doesn't really see why the poor shouldn't pull themselves up by their own bootstraps or why we shouldn't pay to use libraries.
I have to be careful about rhapsodizing about New York as an example. The slums of the Lower East Side and the sweatshops had to fester for 50 years before signal events like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire made change a necessity. Toronto has never seen that kind of large-scale misery. But the truth is, before amalgamation in 1996, the city was a more human place and was coping better with change. The Harris Tories have been swept from power, but undoing their damage will take a concerted effort and there does not seem to be the will or even the interest at Queen's Park to do so.
Watching the documentary also got me thinking about globalization and the sweatshops of Asia where, like in New York at the turn of the 20th century, adults and children work 80-hour weeks in dangerous and degrading conditions. I wonder what scale of disaster would be needed to spur us to global reform in the way the 150 teenage girls, leaping to their deaths to escape the flames of the Triangle fire, sparked a social revolution in New York State?
Recently the Toronto Transit Commission announced that future subway construction is just a pipedream and it's time to stop thinking about it. The economics of cities no longer includes room for civic dreaming, even if these dreams are the hope for a livable city in the future.
The fact is that while it is in Ontario's and Canada's interests to prevent Toronto from sliding into disrepair and poverty (or rather a huge split between the haves and have-nots), it is never politically expedient to do it. Saying "no" to Toronto always plays well everywhere else. So, while the Prime Minister and the Premier came to the table talking about "new deals for cities," in the end we are still facing a budget crisis in 2005 including talk of cutting $100 million to transit at a time of intense population growth, air pollution and gridlock in the city.
When David Miller became mayor, I had high hopes because he didn't cower and refused to take the stand that Canada's largest city was in a third-tier governmental position after federal and provincial. Toronto dwarfs the province of Prince Edward Island but does not have PEI's place at the table on issues like health care and education. Sorry, I'm not trying to beat up your home province,
rfmcdpei. But it's a good example.But really, there is little Miller can do. If he doesn't get either money or a new funding formula from Ottawa or Queen's Park, he will have to raise property taxes and he will lose the next election to John Tory or someone who doesn't really see why the poor shouldn't pull themselves up by their own bootstraps or why we shouldn't pay to use libraries.
I have to be careful about rhapsodizing about New York as an example. The slums of the Lower East Side and the sweatshops had to fester for 50 years before signal events like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire made change a necessity. Toronto has never seen that kind of large-scale misery. But the truth is, before amalgamation in 1996, the city was a more human place and was coping better with change. The Harris Tories have been swept from power, but undoing their damage will take a concerted effort and there does not seem to be the will or even the interest at Queen's Park to do so.
Watching the documentary also got me thinking about globalization and the sweatshops of Asia where, like in New York at the turn of the 20th century, adults and children work 80-hour weeks in dangerous and degrading conditions. I wonder what scale of disaster would be needed to spur us to global reform in the way the 150 teenage girls, leaping to their deaths to escape the flames of the Triangle fire, sparked a social revolution in New York State?
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Toronto is a dump but
Date: 2005-02-09 07:30 am (UTC)1) decent transit
2) a great arts scene
3) a vibrant socialist agenda
4) pretty good services for the poor
5) an amazing multicultural scene
But that was the Toronto I knew in 1994. The Toronto I see when I watch Queer as Folk looks indeed like Pittsburg -emphasis on pitt- and when did you get those freezing cold winters !?
If all of the above 5 points are now laid to waste poste Harris than what have you left to live in. A dump...
City Crush, I'm a tiny dot on the side walk
With the wind blowing down from the lakeshore
Through the subway the tunnel, Closed commuter door
Have heart though, you are not alone in urban misery. I live in a city that is becoming the cold plastic dream that TO tried to be in the late 80s where the poor are slapped with fines, prostitutes are allowed to fall prey to predator pig farmers (allegedly), and crystal meth is a second form of currency. I'm currently writing a song with these lyrics:
In my pretty city
No one gets convicted of a hate crime
In my plastic city
Twisted Confucius tells me I don't have to care
about anyone but my own life
In my pretty city
There's a crystal laden vision
of a lotus highrise horizon
In my pretty city
Everyone's sitting on a bookshelf
In my pretty city
Where you're always free to die
in a hospital closet's waiting list
In my pretty city
Where the farmers have a feast
on crack whore traded flesh
Hugs,
Cody