16 October 2012, mid-afternoon
Every time I take the Yonge line I am reminded of just how bad public transit is in the city. The Bloor line certainly gets busy during rush hour, but its a whole other scale of busy. The Yonge line is a disaster. I’m curious to see when it actually implodes in on itself. I wonder if the TTC have numbers on when that will happen? They are extending the line North. Presumably they expect to get people who are taking buses to Finch station out of buses, but I can’t imagine there isn’t going to be a net gain of people on the line. At this point, is living along the Yonge line actually useful?
[5] Toronto
5 April 2012, terribly early in the morning
In the middle of the winter I ended up a MetaFilter meet up that took place in a bar at the edge of Scarborough called The Feathers. It was a strange spot for a meetup, neither central or transit accessible. The bar made up for these two short comings with its scotch selection. I’m not aware of another bar in the city with a bigger collection than The Feathers. (Though I suppose I haven’t been looking very hard.)
The Feathers is home to hundreds of Single Malt scotches. They probably have anything from Scotland you want to try. If you aren’t sure what you want —like myself—you can sample scotches in pre-selected flights. I wasn’t sure when I’d have a chance to drink 30 year old scotch again I opted for there flashiest flight, The Feathers Flight:
- Aucentoshan 21 Years cask strength
- Brora 18 Years Cask Strength Laing
- Coleburn 1983 Signatory
- Ardberg 27 years Cask Strength Laing
- Port Ellen 1980 Signatory
The Port Ellen is as old as me. That’s some serious-ass scotch. It was so very good. The strangest of the bunch was the Coleburn, which was very fruity tasting. I don’t think i’d want a bottle of the stuff, but it was definitely one of the more interesting scotches I’ve tried in quite some time. The other scotches were all quite good, but I don’t remember any of them really standing out. They were all delicious old scotches, of varying smokiness.
This bar is worth well worth the trip to Scarborough—as if you needed another reason to go.
[1] Toronto | Restaurants and Bars
10 February 2012, early morning
The entire series, 140 characters at a time.
I rewatched the entire (original) Dergrassi series a few years ago with Shima. The released a few DVD collections that I knew I must own. The show still holds up today. While watching the shows I would craft 140 character reviews/summaries to post to Twitter. Here they are, collected. You’ll know you’re a true Degrassi fan if they make some sense.
Read the rest of this post. (1802 words)
[1] Television | Toronto
7 October 2011, mid-morning
I now live in a riding with an NDP MP and an NDP MPP. How did that happen? I never thought the day would come. Like most of Toronto, Davenport was a bright red riding when I moved in. The mostly useless Tony Ruprecht had been my MPP for the past 5 years. He’d been in this riding since 1999. (He’d been an MPP since 1981! That’s some staying power.) His not running in this election may have been in part due to Mario Silva’s loss in the federal election. It’s quite likely that even with an incumbent running the Liberals would have been voted out of Davenport. Ruprecht was far from popular amongst people I know in the area. My hope is that Jonah Schein is more energetic than his predecessor, a low bar to be sure.
McGuinty’s win in Ontario is probably a good thing for the province. I don’t want to imagine just how scorched earth things would be if Hudak had managed to fair better this election. Ontario really doesn’t need another “common sense” revolution. Shima and I don’t have a TV, so I only saw one political ad this whole election. It was for the Liberals, and it wasn’t an attack ad. It featured McGuinty in front of a white background telling you the viewer that, despite his being an unpopular figure, the Liberals were serious bad-asses who had accomplished this and that. It was simple yet slick, and very on point. I suspect in the last few weeks the message resonated with voters. (I feel like the provincial Liberals keep a very low profile most of the year.) McGuinty should be congratulated for coming back from some pretty dismal poll numbers early in the campaign. The Liberals were really on the ball this election.
Of note is that Toronto’s so called Ford Nation looked to have no interest whatsoever in the provincial conservatives. My guess is that two things are at play here. One, Fords many recent fuck-ups may have soured Toronto on his friends. Second, Toronto is a city full of immigrants. Calling these people foreigners is probably going to sour the city on your politics. You can’t win Ontario without winning in Toronto: nicely done, GTA. Well, except for Thornhill. That place is the worst.
[1] Politics | Toronto
24 August 2011, late morning
Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world’s environment. We can restore our good name in the world. We can do all of these things because we finally have a party system at the national level where there are real choices; where your vote matters; where working for change can actually bring about change. In the months and years to come, New Democrats will put a compelling new alternative to you. My colleagues in our party are an impressive, committed team. Give them a careful hearing; consider the alternatives; and consider that we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.
— Jack Layton, in an open letter to the country.
Jack Layton passed away this week. My co-worker sent me a message while I was away in New York to let me know. During his press conference he looked to be in pretty bad shape, but I didn’t think things would move so quickly. Cancer is like that, I suppose. Jack Layton was an amazing politician. The NDP are now the official opposition party of Canada, I suspect largely due to his charisma. His death is a real loss for this country. We have so few truly engaging political leaders.
[2] Politics | Toronto
1 December 2010, evening time
We have a new mayor in Toronto. It’s his first day and there is already so much stupid. At least I’ll be able to ride a gravy train to Scarborough. I miss Miller.
[3] Toronto
20 October 2010, terribly early in the morning
I’m voting for Joe Pantalone. (You may already know this, since it’s plastered on the top of this web site in a big orange box.) At this point it’s not looking very likely that he will win. I hope I’m wrong about that. If he loses I think it will be a real shame. Toronto under Mayor Miller has been great; Pantalone is in many ways the man who would continue the progressive programs that Miller started. Of the three candidates left running, he is the only one who doesn’t seem to hate Toronto. That should count for something.
Statisticians ask people who they are going to vote for and the newspapers publish these results. I’d argue that polling is a detriment to the political process. It might make sense for candidates to know how they are doing, but does it really matter to the voting public? If you are voting for someone because X percent of a sampled population is voting for that person you are doing it wrong.
People should vote for what they believe in. Otherwise, what’s the point? If you think our first-past-the-post system is broken the way to fix it is certainly is not through strategic voting. If Smitherman does end up winning because a bunch of people couldn’t stomach Ford as mayor, he will essentially have been given a false mandate. That Smitherman can’t beat Ford without banging his, “I’m not Ford,” drum is a testament to just how ineffectual his campaign has been. He has no vision for the city. He seems to think he is entitled to the job. You shouldn’t get to be mayor just because your opponent is a drunk and a moron.
Vote for Joe Pantalone.
Toronto | Politics
6 November 2009, lunch time
We won the bid to host the Pan Am games in 2015. Bizarre. I always think of Toronto as the city that almost wins at these sorts of contests. Maybe it was a good thing Harper didn’t show up. Now lets sit and wait for all the crazy infrastructure spending that is going to happen. I want to take the Sheppard subway to Scarborough. Or take a Kingston subway from Union. Make it happen people!
[2] Toronto
2 November 2009, terribly early in the morning
This is pretty neat: the city of Toronto is releasing a bunch of the data and information they collect online, via the portal toronto.ca/open. There is a companion site, dataTO.org They look to be following the lead of the US government, who recently created DATA.gov not too long ago. This stuff is all generated using tax payer money, so I think it makes sense that the data be available to the public. You can grab the entire TTC schedule as a series of text files now. There is a real time XML feed of events and festivals taking place in the city. This address validator web service looks like it could be used to do a lot of interesting things. I’ll be curious to see what sorts of things people start creating with the data released so far, and what other datasets the city plans to release. There isn’t much online right now, but it seems like a good start.
[3] Toronto | Technology
5 October 2009, terribly early in the morning
Nuit Blanche was a bit of a bust this year. In previous years my friends and I have usually checked out the area around Yorkville, U of T and the AGO. There is usually a pretty big concentration of exhibits to see. The problem is that those areas are usually jammed full of people. This year we decided to check out Queen West, which is the 3rd zone for art. It’s a bit out of the way, so I thought it would be less packed. This was foolish on my part. Queen West was also shockingly boring. There really wasn’t much happening. We saw them put the ants back on the Cameron House. We saw some nude life drawing class thing at Coupe Bizarre. There was a lite brite installation in Trinity Bellwoods. We saw the hydrophone, again. I had a drink with Matt and my brother at the Gladstone, which was nice. Though the areas closer to the core are more packed, that’s really where you want to go for Nuit Blanche. I think the only way to enjoy the festival now that it’s clearly popular is to start your night at 2:00AM. You should also go through the listings and figure out what you want to see. I think had I seen how little there really was to do on Queen West, I might have suggested a different route for the night. It’s a shame there wasn’t more happening in my neighbourhood this year. Funktion Gallery was open, and across the street was some sort of pole dancing photobooth thing, which was kind of sexy-cool. Now, if only the Run for the Cure wasn’t the next day.
[What L thought of the night. On the other hand, my friend Matt quite enjoyed himself. It’s clear looking at the Torontoist coverage that there was a lot of cool stuff to be seen, if you were well prepared.]
Life | Toronto
19 August 2009, early morning
I attended #hoHOTo last night. It was a bit of a let down compared to the last one. The Christmas party came together rather quickly, and may have contributed to all the hype that seemed to develop around the event. Pretty much every single tech-geek I know attended the event. Added to this mix were a bunch of advertising and marketing people I wasn’t expecting. The venue, the Modclub, was a good spot to host the event, as it consists (more or less) of one big space. It was a party. Last nights event apparently sold out, though you couldn’t tell from the lack of a crowd. The fact the space was split in two probably didn’t help matters much. Almost everyone I knew who had gone to the first event didn’t come to the second. (And I know some people who bought tickets and didn’t bother showing up, there was such a lack of interest in the event.) That’s not to say it wasn’t a nice night out. I saw Ali and Tyler and Laurence. I had some beer. I met some random peoples.
Life | Toronto
20 June 2009, terribly early in the morning
Hopefully the rain lets up. Street festivals aren’t as much fun when you are being rained on. The BIG on BLOOR festival takes place today. Bloor St. is closed from Lansdowne to Christie for the event. Last year it was shockingly busy. Hopefully this year people still choose to come out.
Bloor and Lansdowne | Toronto
19 May 2009, late morning
Last week Christie Blatchford wrote an article about the protests against the war in Sri Lanka. The article was all sorts of bad. It was so bad I decided to complain to the Globe and Mail. The Globe and Mail published several responses to Margaret Wente’s article, which was far better written, but didn’t post anything in response to Blatchford’s piece. This is disappointing. Thankfully, we live in a world where I don’t need the Globe and Mail to publish anything for me.
Read the rest of this post. (1083 words)
[2] Current Events | Toronto
12 May 2009, late morning
This is my gift to my fellow Torontonians: A greasemonkey script that will kill comments on articles published by the Toronto Star and the National Post. The comments sections for all the Toronto newspapers are basically giant hives of scum and villainy, a place for racists and cranks to hang out and shout out all the things society won’t let them say in public anymore. No one needs to read this stuff, unless you need high blood pressure. Placing comments inline with the news articles is obnoxious and disrespects the writers at the Star and the Post. This script fixes that. (The Globe and Mail no longer displays comments on their articles inline, praise the lord.) If you use Google Chrome, rather than Firefox, you can follow these instructions to use the script. Any problems, please leave a comment and let me know — It’s amazing how little Javascript I know.
[2] Code | Toronto
11 May 2009, terribly early in the morning
Protesters managed to shut down the Gardiner last night. There is all sorts of coverage from all of Toronto’s online blogs, with Torontoist having some of the best coverage of the lot. (Remind me not to listen to Energy FM.) My guess is that recent reports of very high causalities over the weekend was the impetus for the action. The UN called Sri Lanka a civilian bloodbath and Doctors Without Borders suspects over a thousand people are likely dead from shelling over the weekend. Toronto should be proud that you can orchestrate a protest like this without having the army or the police showing up and beating everyone till they leave — or worse. We live in a truly functional democracy. Are the majority of Canadians so passive that the very idea of direct action seems abhorrent? Ignatief has said he’ll bring this issue up in caucus today. That’s something.
[1] Toronto | Current Events
28 April 2009, early morning
The Internet gives a lot of people a venue to spout off about stuff they can no longer say in public without getting disapproving looks from those around them. Canada’s old media hasn’t figured out how the Internet works, and so the comments on their news posts are almost always a cesspool of racism, bigotry, and ignorance. Today I thought i’d look at comments in the Toronto Star’s article on the Tamil Protests.
These protesters, whose allegiance is stronger with India than with Canada, who wish to make a real difference, should return back to their native homeland and lobby their own Indian government about this. — Jiga Nina at 9:21 AM Tuesday, April 28 2009
I think Jiga Nina needs a better fact checker. Or he should open up an atlas.
Tamils are a terrorist organization as per the Canadian government. — The_Rocket at 9:19 AM
Damn, I had no idea. Someone needs to write to immigration minister and figure out what went wrong here.
Use mounted police, water cannon, tear gas, pepper spray, whatever. Those not yet Canadian citizens should be deported as soon as possible for reason of supporting a terrorist organization. Those who are already citizens should be tried for supporting a terrorist organization. If found guilty, revoke their citizenships and kick them the Hell out of this country. Clean this trash off our streets please. — Galoca at 9:09 AM
Because you know those old Tamil ladies aren’t going to go down without a fight. (Also, i’d hate to be the person who has to sit Galoca down and explain that some of the protesters were born here, and you’d have to kick them out to… Winnipeg?)
Did I hear CBC Toronto news correctly this morning? 200,000 Tamils have shut down University Ave for a second day to protest events in Sri Lanka. — veeh at 8:12 AM
200,000? No, you heard incorrectly.
Why won’t the police round up these people. check their immigration papers and then deport the illegal ones (90% of them)! — eighty-eight-fingers at 8:07 AM
90 percent? Damn that’s a lot. I can see why this fellow is up in arms. I’m guessing he gets his numbers from “Immigration Watch”: /blog/immigration-watch-saying-nothing-247.
I’m just ashamed our government, that was elected by 12 million Ontario voters to represent all of us…is again doing nothing “see Caledonia”, because they’re afraid to speak out against non whites. Tell you who the minority really are doesn’t it? — JackR at 7:45 AM
Won’t someone think of the White people? If only they had it as good as those Natives in Caledonia.
I understand that everyone has a right to protest, but this is getting ridiculous. Obviously no one cares about what’s going, which is good, because why should we? We don’t live there. — Evert at 7:53 AM
And this is really why protesting in Canada is a waste of time. I’m pretty sure this is a very common sentiment nowadays. Lucky for Europe and many other parts of the world, there was a time when Canadian’s gave a fuck about what was happening in the world around them.
My thoughts on the protests, for those who missed them.
[11] Current Events | Toronto
17 March 2009, early morning
Yesterday I mocked some of the people complaining about the giant anti-war save-the-tigers protest. There was certainly a lot of that sentiment going around, but we live in Toronto, the greatest city in the world, so for every dude moaning about how there are too many people on the street there is someone else happy to ride home in a train full of protesters. For every person complaining the trains are packed there is someone else disappointed by the backlash. For every person shocked people would protest again, there is someone else impressed with how orderly things were. Generally, I find the people of Toronto to be all kinds of awesome.
The star has a wrap up of yesterdays protest, with interviews of various people involved. As I had guessed, neither Torontoist or BlogTO covered the protest. I leave it up to you to guess why that might be. (Last time I saw Himy Syed, he had a lot to say on this topic. I’m waiting for his t.oronto.ca project to launch.)
Update: Torontoist posts photos from the protest.
Toronto
16 March 2009, late morning
The second giant Tamil protest is taking place downtown right now. The protesters hope to form a human chain that goes up Yonge from Front to Bloor, across Bloor to University, and back down to Front. If they pull that off, they would have basically choked off all of downtown. In Sri Lanka there are Sri Lankans trapped inside a small region of the country, trapped in a perimeter controlled by the Sri Lankan army. They are being shelled by their government, and shot by their liberators. To contrast, in Toronto, there are people who are going to have to cross the protesters to drink cocktails at Holt’s for fashion week, who will be late to their appointments because Union Station is packed, who can’t finish their business plan because it’s too noisy, who are stuck in traffic, etc. This might be the very definition of White Whine.
As to whether a protest is actually a good way to bring about change, I have my doubts. The Sri Lankan government isn’t going to slow down now because Canada asks them to. And because of the way these protests are almost always conflated with support for the LTTE, it’s doubtful our current federal government is going to pay the protesters much attention anyway. Still, if they pull things off, it will be a very impressive feat.
There is some discussion going on in the BlogTO morning brew post today. It’s not particularly illuminating, though I am now arguing there with way too many people about stuff I really don’t care about. I get annoyed too easily. It will be interesting to see if BlogTO or Torontoist have much to say about the protest. Their coverage of news in Toronto tends to be very niche. (Though, BlogTO did cover the last protest.)
Update: I’d change this URL, but it would break incoming links. Apparently the protesters numbered well over the 25,000 people goal.
[14] Current Events | Toronto
25 February 2009, early morning
Shima and I have memberships at the AGO now. I’ve been three times since joining. I am trying to make it a point of going often in order to make the most of my membership purchase. (Though, I suppose supporting the gallery is worthwhile in and of itself.) The gallery is big enough it will probably take several trips to figure out where everything is, and see everything worth seeing.
The AGO renovation is amazing, and seems like what the ROM renovation should have aspired to. I like the Crystal, but once inside the museum it seems clear that it doesn’t work that well. Gallery space is poorly utilized, and the interior just doesn’t look that nice. There is all sorts of infrastructure jutting out here and there, which ruin the the interior elements of the design. The AGO on the other hand seems like a perfectly executed renovation. The exterior is certainly nice, but the interior is where things really shine. Everything seems neat and tidy and just right. The ROM’s big success is moving its entrance to Bloor, and the new lobby which is quite stunning. Beyond that I think the renovation wasn’t a success. It certainly doesn’t seem to have captivated Torontonians the way the AGO renovation has.
[2] Life | Toronto
10 February 2009, early morning
I met Shima at the Design Exchange, where the two of us went to a talk by Architecture for Humanity. The group is doing a four part trilogy (don’t ask) on Toronto’s past, present, and future. It was an interesting talk. (Honestly, anything in the design exchange is going to be enjoyable: that building is awesome.) I learnt how 16th century Spanish law influenced planning in Toronto, about all the things you can find in the Toronto archives, and how the TTC was punched in the crotch back in the 50s and hasn’t really recovered since. It was a good talk, but Shima and I were too hungry to stay for the Q&A.
On our way out we met a fellow from Blansdowne. I thought he knew Shima. Shima thought he knew me. It was only when we started to talk that the two of us realized he knew us through this blog. That’s the power of the Internet, people!
Shima wanted a burger. I had vague memories of a place called Craft Burger opening up in the city. I looked the place up on my iPhone, and yes, there was a place called Craft Burger and it had been successful enough to open up a second location in Toronto. Shima and I went to this new Yonge and Bloor location since it was on our way home. The place was small, clean, and it being late, not too busy. I ordered an organic burger (where the meat comes from the Healthy Butcher), and Shima bought something with avocado and other fancy-ass ingredients. We split some onion rings. We sat down next to a couple with a baby and a toddler. The mom had giant breasts. It was unreal. Our food arrived and so we ate. My God, it was good. Craft Burger is a bit expensive for a burger shop, but I don’t think I’ve had a better burger in the city. People, you need to go there now.
[12] Restaurants and Bars | Toronto
16 January 2009, early morning
I left for work at 9:00 today. I thought leaving during rush-hour proper would be stupid since subways were not running on Bloor. Waiting was probably a good idea, but my guess that by 9:00 things would be OK was way off. I sat in Dale’s drinking a coffee for about 45 minutes, after realizing that a) the subway wasn’t going to start soon and b) shuttle buses weren’t going to empty any time soon. Buses East and West were totally packed by the time they got to Bloor and Lansdowne (Blansdowne). At 10 I hopped on a bus, which, while still quite busy, didn’t have people falling out the front door. The trip to Keele (where subway service had resumed) was uneventful, till you reached the station. Keele was a zoo. I can only imagine how bad it was earlier in the morning. Once I got to Keele, and got on a train heading West, the my trip was a lot less interesting. The train was empty, but running quite slow. My beloved 191 had stopped its rush hour service hours ago, so I took the slow but reliable Kipling and Dixon buses to make it in to work — 3 hours late.
[4] Life | Toronto
15 December 2008, mid-afternoon
7:23 PM: Over the last little while, I would see the occasional message on my twitter feed informing me so-and-so would be attending #hohoto at the Mod Club. I didn’t bother getting tickets, because I couldn’t even image the thing would sell out. Nerds at a club: how does that sell out? Of course, it does. #hohoto seems to have become some sort of nerdapolooza here in Toronto. I don’t know what the tech community equivalent of a scenester is, but I suspect I’m going to meet a whole bunch tonight.
I’m off to meet Laurence now. It’ll be interesting to see how the night plays out. If it’s anything like any other tech event I’ve been too, it’ll be a lot of dudes and awkward conversation.
8:51 AM: #hohoto was definitely a big success. The organizers managed to raise over $25,000 for the food bank. According to Mayor Miller, this makes the group one of the top 5 donors to the food bank. (This is all the more impressive when you factor in the fact that they did this all in 2 weeks.) As a party I think it also worked well. I underestimated just how many PR and Marketing people would show up. So, to my surprise, it wasn’t just a bunch of dudes and awkward conversation. People were drinking, a few people were dancing, and a lot of people were schmoozing. I saw a lot of my friends, and they played Stevie Wonder, so I had a great time.
Life | Toronto
5 November 2008, early morning
Last night was amazing. I haven’t been so emotionally invested in an election my entire life. And this was an election I played no part in.
I met Tyler at his office, and along with my brother, the three of us made our way to the Gladstone. We were joined by a big posse of people, all interested in the election. The Gladstone was a great place to be last night. People were genuinely excited about what was going on — and you could get beer. The Gladstone was electric, and I’m glad I stayed their long enough to see Obama be declared the winner, and listen to John McCain give his concession speech. You’d have think the leafs had won.
If history is unfolding around you, don’t go to Dundas Square. Dundas Square is a great place to be if you want to look at ads, but that is about it. What a failure of a public space. My cousin sums things up great:
What a self hating city this is. Last night really made me hate Dundas square even more. It truly exists only to sell you things. You cant be a citizen there, you can’t be a person. You can only be a consumer. It is a totally inflexible space and those omnipresent screens can only be used for evil.
So essentially, Toronto has no city centre or town hall that exists as a genuinely civic space. It has a big mall and it has a place to go if you want to be bombarded by ads.
… A black man was elected president of the United States and they couldnt stop selling us useless fucking shit for like an hour?
If you build a city or community on the creation and accumulation of wealth, that is all you are going to have in the end. It is cheap and crass and meaningless and often totally innapropriate. It is antithetical to everything that residents of the city actually need.
But, at the end of the day, who cares about Dundas Square. I listened to Obama give his victory speech at the Elephant and Castle with my cousin, brother, and Haran. The room was quite somber — except for myself, who was pretty loud and drunk at this point. There is a Black Dude heading to the White House, and he is awesome. This is awesome.
[14] Current Events | Toronto
14 November 2007, early morning
I emailed Adam’s office about the ugly billboard up on the municipal housing just west of Bloor and Lansdowne. His office got in touch with MLS, and passed on a response to me:
The sign is a third party fascia sign that has no permit. Charges have already been initiated against the property owner and the matter is now before the courts. As for your last question I suggest you direct your enquiry to the sign company and or property owner for it is of no concern to MLS.
Foolishly, I thought I had made a difference. Several weeks passed and I noticed the sign was still up. I thought I’d email the fellow behind Illegal Signs with the information the councilor’s office gave me to see what his take on things was:
What they didn’t tell you is they are asking for a $1000 fine and that the City can take down the sign if it wants. … The city has decided not to enforce the law.
Now, clearly ugly billboards aren’t the biggest problem facing Toronto, and they certainly aren’t the biggest problem in my area, but this really does speak to just how lame the city is. Unlike Toronto’s other problems, this one is incredibly easy to solve: the city can take down illegal signs. More so, they can probably fine the companies the cost of doing so. This isn’t the sort of problem that requires creative thinking to sort out.
(By strange coincidence, this sign I emailed Rami Tebello about was discussed on his site just yesterday.)
Update May 6th 2009: The sign is still up. Go City Hall! Go!
[4] Bloor and Lansdowne | Toronto
14 November 2007, terribly early in the morning
I took the 26W to Mississauga yesterday. Mississauga is a strange city. Unlike most cities, where the city centre is tight and quite walkable, Mississauga’s is sparse and sprawling. I got off at the Square One bus terminal, and started walking to the mall. The terminal and the mall aren’t connected; I had to trek through some parking lots. I grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then left the mall to go to the Living Arts Centre. It all felt like a real journey. I’m not a big fan of Mississauga. It’s all sub-divisions or office parks separated by 6 lane roads. If you don’t have a car it’s not a very friendly city to be in. I try and avoid the city when I can.
Shima and I were there last night as part of the conversation21 lecture series. Shima wanted to hear Jan Gehl speak. He talked about how modern cities, those that came to life after the 50s, are designed at a 60km/h scale: they are meant to be lived in while zooming around in a car. You have big billboards, big buildings, big everything, scattered through out a sprawling city. The city becomes a series of private venues connected by roads. Real interaction between people gets lost in such a city. He had some great aerial shots of some cities that were totally devoid of people: it was just buildings and cars. Gehl advocates designing at the 5km/h scale, which is a more human scale. Cities should be designed to bring people together. I’m probably not doing his talk justice. He is an excellent speaker.
There is apparently some serious interest in the city of Mississauga to make the city more livable. I’m not sure it’s possible to accomplish such a goal, but the city certainly seems enthusiastic about trying. Toronto really does seem old and busted in comparison. I can’t recall the last time I heard something — anything really — positive coming from city hall.
[2] Toronto | Current Events