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59 Comments

news

Is Toronto Ugly?

By David Topping

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We don’t normally post ridiculously open-ended questions on Torontoist, but the discussion about the Sam the Record Man sign and the excitement over a new column about Bad Buildings in the city got us thinking about that whole “Toronto aesthetic” thing that keeps coming up time and time again in our city. Not about defining that aesthetic, though (there isn’t an over-arching one—if anything, the lack of an aesthetic is our aesthetic), and more about trying to actually evaluate the way that our city looks.
So, let’s just get it out there, then. Is Toronto ugly?
Photo by 6oh from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Comments

  • Vicky Goh

    If we’re talking about things like graffiti, postered walls or run down buildings, that’s just our city being what a city will be. It’s the footprint of all the people living here. It’s beautiful in the sense of being almost natural, unplanned, and not forced.
    If we’re talking about architecture, the cityscape, etc? Aside from having a national tower that looks like a giant phallus, not really.

  • guest

    Toronto is ugly, and that’s why it’s beautiful.

  • Kevin Bracken

    I am going to have to say yes and no: Yes, most residential areas outside of downtown Toronto are definitely ugly. Once you get into places like Dufferin north of Queen, the Junction, most of Lansdowne, or pretty much any place with thin white vinyl fencing and new, mottled-looking brick or stucco, then the houses in Toronto are horrible.
    The east end, overall, has fewer ugly houses in my limited experience.
    Ossington is kind of hit and miss.
    But yeah, it’s the west end and northern residential areas (and the stores that live there, as pictured above) that really offend my eye.

  • WannaBinToranna

    Ya’ look ok to me.

  • guest

    But this IS in the East End.
    Handy Andy’s dry cleaners – Gerrard and Logan.
    Shoulda’ seen his house on Simpson Ave, a block north before it got torched one night, when the area was just beginning it’s latest wave of gentrification.
    I believe he died shortly thereafter. This is an older picture, but the store remains, yes?

  • guest

    No, The problem is that Toronto is full of over-critical self-haters.

  • guest

    Toronto is very ugly overall. I’m sure pre-60′s it was a pretty nice city, but not now. We need more trees, more parks downtown, preservation of the few remaining beautiful buildings we have left and a solid waterfront like in Chicago.

  • Marc Lostracco

    What I think is ugly are those short little fences around postage-stamp lawns and lawn shrines to the Virgin Mary. But there’s something kinda awesome about that in a strange way too.

  • guest

    I think the idea that Toronto doesn’t have one aesthetic is true – growing up in North York and moving to Scarborough and then visiting places in Ajax, Brampton and Markham, the regional personalities can be jarring aesthetically. The residential neighborhoods in North York can be beautiful and have a lot more character – I admit though I grew up around the Foresthill area. I have had the experience of seeing the newer styles of Scarborough and appreciate them too. Older areas such as the beaches are gorgeous – and surprisingly as i found out recently – aesthetically the area around regent park is very appealing to me too. compared to this – I detest anything past Steeles ave with all the clone subdivisions and lack of transportation and any real character – but those areas aren’t considered Toronto though right? I was surprised that building was to be found in the East end – because it wouldn’t fit in with Scarborough aesthetic and would stick out like a soar thumb – but then I think that building is a little more into the downtown core. Overall – from places I’ve seen like London – England , i think Toronto isn’t an eye sore and has a lot of opportunity to really grow aesthetically. I really look forward to traveling in Europe and comparing Toronto with other great western metropolises – though i think Toronto will still hold its own.

  • guest

    If Toronto is ugly, what word should I be using to describe the American cities I’ve lived in or been to lately?

  • fantasygoat

    Yes. It’s quite ugly along most major streets. It only really gets nice away from the main streets.

  • rek

    How can Toronto have a single aesthetic when it used to be a number of different cities? How can it have a single aesthetic when each of those cities had (and remain) distinctive ethnic demographics with their own tastes? It’s a rather obtuse angle from which to approach the Canadian Identity issue.
    Why do people insist that if Toronto isn’t Manhattan, it’s bad? It doesn’t stop at the architectural criticism, it goes on to the people and how they dress and work.

  • guest

    If you’ve been around a bit, you must admit Toronto is in fact ugly. But ONLY if you compare it to other cities in the world. And to other Canadian cities like Montreal or even Halifax. And also it’s ugly for most of the winter, and a lot of the spring. It’s got a couple of nice neighbourhoods, but by and large it’s ugly. But looks aren’t everything, right? It has many interesting and diverse neighbourhoods — not pretty. It’s like the funny, nerdy guy in school, or the nervous sad guy you like but not the knockout (NYC) or the incredible stunner (Barcelona)

  • davedave

    Oh hell yes, overall, Toronto is ugly as ugly gets.
    Public buildings have little or nothing to add to the annals of architecture.
    The waterfront is an embarrassment.
    The downtown core features a wide selection of horribly ugly towers.
    Yonge Street from Queen to Bloor is an ugly cheesefest.
    Toronto tears down buildings without the slightest consideration of history. Meanwhile, old Montreal demands that any new construction recreate the facade of the building as it was centuries ago, and Old Montreal is stunning.
    We do have nice parks, though.

  • guest

    Kevin Bracken calls the Junction ugly and while the decline of industry has left its toll, the facades along Dundas are so detailed (especially the banks), the streetscape is nice, and there are many Victorians. A little south, there are the mansions which the local factory owners built. And those silos are nice too if surrounded by nothing. But there’s still plenty of restoration to be done on the facades on Dundas.
    The Toronto aesthetic is the International style, the beautiful office towers such the TD Centre, Commerce Court, Scotiaplaza, to the contrast in the city halls, the CN tower of course. Also very Toronto are the colourful blocks that line Queen, the Gladstone, the Victorians.
    Davedave makes a very interesting point on the recreation of facades. People in North America tend to think of the tacky Disney recreation, but in Europe, they’ve managed to rebuild palaces and significant buildings that are centuries old that look original. Walnut Hall anyone?

  • guest

    Perhaps its aesthetic is undefinable, but having been born and raised here I recognize that unique Toronto feeling throughout the city. Our ugly is no different from other cities, and as any urban explorer knows, “ugly”, as it is implied here, can be exceedingly beautiful. For example, that storefront kind of rocks. If that is what’s meant by ugly I don’t think I want to know the arbiters of pretty, they seem an awfully judgmental bunch.

  • rek

    How much will it cost to live and do business in a Magnificent Mile-ized Toronto? We still hate the suburbs, don’t we?
    It is even remotely possible that Toronto is a city that puts people before postcards?

  • Kevin Bracken

    There are some corners that are ugly and beautiful. Take Dundas and Keele, for example, or Queen and Gladstone. In the latter case, the Gladstone Hotel and its neighbours are all very attractive buildings, but the parking lot to the south and the auto shops are hideous. The recently-painted graf on the NW corner and the bridge are some street art saving graces.

  • zoo32

    toronto aka TORONTO THE UGLY….does have it’s lovely….though rare, spots

  • guest

    Recently had a month of downtime at work – been wandering around the city looking at some of the different areas I don’t visit often – Never really payed much attention but if you really stop and look – Toronto is butt ugly. Very squat, flat bland,cheap buildings, sort of shabby, no beautiful winding streets. Alot of it seemed to be built in 60/70′s (or reno’d to look as if it was).
    Shopfronts all have ugly backlit plastic signs instead of the nice canopies you see in NYC.
    Some nice areas – Rocensvalles is nice – Actually a lot of the residential areas mid/downtown are pleasant but nobody but local homowners see these areas usually. The public face is really not a pretty site.
    Also, don’t know why but I’m one of those guys that actually likes the Junctin – seems like a wierd little town off on its own. I have lived in TO for 17 years and I had never even been up there untill this past march. It also is not ‘pretty’ but it has more personality than many areas in town.

  • guest

    I’m shocked of what you write! You’re just not able to appreciate the place where you live – but this is very true about Torontonians…. strange naysayers!
    Opposed to you Newyorkers would say that even a shit is superb – because this is their own!
    Toronto is one of the MOST BEAUTIFUL cities in the world – maybe you should go outside Canada first, to criticise it :) )
    The most striking feature of this city is that it is created for people, not for cars, not for offices, companies, etc… just for average dweller!
    Just start to notice how easy it is to go around in Toronto – on your feet…
    Try to notice the finest examples of architecture in teh financial district, concentrated but not claustrophobic.
    Just go to the Harbourfront or many other places where you’ll find diverse diversions and world cuisine.
    Just relax in your parks which are all over, and at your hand.
    But maybe you’ll insist that those wonderful victorian houses are ugly… who knows – what is interesting and beautiful for you?
    Have you ever really went on your feet wandering around in small streets of Toronto, or maybe you’re just accustomed to few nearest intersections?
    Do you really know what Toronto offers? I have serious doubts….

  • andrew

    If you love something, no matter how much you know aesthetically it is displeasing, you still find it beautiful. Even those lousy six lane avenues that meet at huge intersections north of St Clair, east or west, with strip malls kitty corner and high rises with peeling paint opposite, have a magic and wonder about them to me. There are North York horizons full of trees, gaudy apartments, water towers, the humps of assorted factories and commercial spaces scattered willy nilly, that I think are majestic and moving in their own way – I have some pictures of these from my childhood and every time I look at them there is a feeling that I cannot simply explain away by labelling it “nostalgia”. It’s my first love, North York, the City with Heart, despite my desperate attempts to get away from it.

  • brokenengine

    What I find ugly is the propensity some of our European immigrants have for paving their entire front lawns. That or turning them into patio’s. And then, not once, have I seen anyone sitting or using that patio. It’s like they just don’t want the grass

  • guest

    indeed, some of our southwestern european friends have very little understanding of the Victorian esthetic, which was probably Toronto’s best chance at having some kind of defineable style. Not only do they dislike lawns, they hate trees and have denuded large swaths of downtown. Their preference for awful building materials, cheap renos and no greenery has created the opportunity for far-sighted entrepreneurs to create reverse renos where they attempt to return the poor old houses to their proper form. It’s quite sad.
    Hey, 21. You’re crazy.

  • rek

    How exactly do you dreamers propose the City enforce a particular (singular? really?) style on all future buildings and spaces? What are you ideas for this One Look to Rule Them All? I hear a lot of bitching (across the many many threads dealing with it here and at BlogTO) but not a single concrete example of what should be done.

  • andrew

    T.Rek, I don’t think a singular style is the goal, is it? I’d be aghast. But I think that many people are reacting to a particular surge in construction over the past decade, as all levels of government simply turned over most planning decisions to the private sector. What an ideological failure! We have lots of shiny new condominiums that will be drab and monotonous in a few short years, that do not allow for pedestrian interaction at grade; and precious little commercial development that really capitalizes on the existing hard assets in place, nor imagines future use. I know that municipal projects aren’t all perfect, nor are provincial or federal projects.
    I think what many people are demanding is not so much one aesthetic concept, but a multiplicity of functional concepts: make it work for me today, my parents tomorrow, and my children down the road. Let these projects be something that allows for living that is sustainable, that will allow us to vie with citizens from across the world, that will make our spaces where we work and play and live exciting and safe and wholesome. That’s what I want. That’s what I need. That’s what I demand, and that is what I expect our Councillors, City Staff, private sector partners, and provincial and federal partners to deliver. No less.

  • guest

    Haha, good luck finding any kind of resolution to a question that is entirely subjective. Toronto is a beautiful city or an ugly city. For someone that is rich, the ability to live in tree covered rosedale or forest hill in the heart of the city is a luxury that most North American cities have. But someone might not like those areas for whatever reason, hence the debate rages on towards nothingness.
    I have been to lots of countries around the world, and who would have thunk it…the cities tend to reflect the culture of its inhabitants. We live in a Canadian city, one that has areas that are beautiful and areas that are hideous. (Easily explained by wealth distribution). Architecturally speaking, our city is starting to make strides in terms of breaking out of the mold. The ROM and the Opera house are both new and quite different.
    Queen st. is a garbage heep in my opinion but i guarantee there are those who love its…”character”. I have no problem with that.
    I do however have problems with people who think towns like Halifax are more beautiful than Toronto…talk about bland taste.
    The only way I can attempt to answer the question is…Toronto is beautiful because no matter what your tastes are, you can find something you consider beautiful somewhere in the city.

  • guest

    I love the many century old blocks that line Toronto streets, but the detailed brick facades are often neglected. Some were banks, theatres, and hotels when built, now often it’s an abandoned storefront with apartments on top. You see it on Queen West or in the Junction, on Yonge on Ossignton. At one point many were painted, which was a mistake, because the building must then be regularly repainted, which is costly. Some where covered in ugly siding in the 60s.

  • guest

    Toronto is one of the ugliest cities of its size anywhere. It is an outrage that we have allowed this city to languish in a state of neglect and mediocrity for so long.
    Toronto is the economic and cultural capital of Canada. It should be the pride and joy of this country, not the embarrassment that it is.
    Most of this city ranges from the hideously ugly to just passably acceptable. Toronto is sinking further and further behind the rest of the world, as other cities devote considerable energy and resources into making themselves beautiful.
    We need to raise our standards and demand excellence for our city. The time for quiet complacence is over.
    Wake up Toronto. It’s already almost too late.
    —
    Most European cities and many North American cities have created stunning cities that are made for people, with large pedestrian-only zones, vast subway systems, and extensive above-ground, tram networks.
    Toronto however worships the car.
    It takes 3 hours to get from one side of the city to the other on public transportation. It is horrible to walk around downtown. Not only is Toronto incredibly ugly and run down, but there are cars puffing away everywhere.
    It’s absolutely pathetic! Toronto is not a “world-class” (for lack of a better word) city.
    It’s a crappy third-rate city without vision or ambition.
    —
    It would be great to have a follow up article on ideas from the public on how to make this city beautiful, which is then turned into an action plan that it sent to our politicians and the major newspapers.
    Major drastic changes need to be implemented to improve Toronto. This city is falling far, far behind other cities in the world and drastic action needs to be taken immediately to rectify the situation.
    We need to have much more public discussion and debate on this topic in order to raise awareness of how bad the situation is in Toronto and implement steps to improve it.
    And our politicians need to know that they won’t get our vote unless raising standards in Toronto to a “world class” (I also can’t think of a better word to describe this) level is made a priority.
    We’ve put up with mediocrity and apathy for long enough.
    It’s time to demand excellence for ourselves.

  • AR

    That just sounds ignorant. No vision? What about transit city? Closing the streets in Kensington Market to pedestrians on weekends? Dundas Square? The many parks we have, the distillery district, Queen West? The Gladstone? The ROM, AGO? The subway station makeovers? Sounds like you haven’t seen most of the city in awhile. You should check out Urban Toronto City Photos for the photo proof. Yes, more progress can be made, such as permanent pedestrian areas, and a new downtown line, but what’s already planned is great, and what’s here now is excellent too.

  • guest

    Why keep comparing Toronto to European cities? They were all born in a different time, when buildings were built with much more beauty and grace than can be expected to be done economically today. Many are not experiencing the same kind of growth that demands our extremes of condos and heights either. While Toronto may be more car dependent, it is a reality that must be worked with and minimized, not lamented constantly as if there is nothing that can be done. Toronto solutions for Toronto problems.

  • guest

    Toronto (and Canadian cities) unfortunately pale in comparison in almost all respects — not just architecturally — with major cities around the world. Read the Conference Report of Canada’s latest report which critizes Canada as a land of mediocrity that fails to innovate.
    This is especially true of Toronto. It’s quite shocking how incredibly ugly Canada’s most important city is and how complacent its citizens are about this ugliness.
    Citizens of other cities simply would not tolerate it. We however sit by idly, content with our mediocrity.
    It’s pathetic!
    ——-
    AR says: “No vision? What about transit city? Closing the streets in Kensington Market to pedestrians on weekends? Dundas Square? The many parks we have, the distillery district, Queen West? The Gladstone? The ROM, AGO? The subway station makeovers?”
    ———
    Most European cities and many North American ones have permanent, beautifully-designed pedestrian sections in their downtowns. In Toronto we’ve had to battle to close Kensington Market on Sundays. It’s a good first baby step, but far, far behind what other major cities have already done. This is simply not good enough.
    Dundas Square should have been a beautifully designed, architecturally brilliant square, along the lines of Columbus Circle in Manhattan. Instead we got a mediocre, sterile, bland strip of concrete. This is simply not good enough.
    Yes we do have many naturally occuring parks in the city, but none of them come even remotely close to the beauty of Central Park in New York, or Hyde Park in London, or Bois de Bologne in Paris, or Chicago’s Park District. We have been discussing Downsview National Park which should be this city’s pride and joy for decades, but we still haven’t done anything about it. This inability to get things done is typical of Toronto. This is simply not good enough.
    The subway makeovers? I am still waiting for them. Our subway system is one of the ugliest I have ever seen (designed with 1960′s bathroom tiles) and two measly subway lines are grossly inefficient for a city this size. This is simply not good enough.
    Toronto just doesn’t try hard enough to be a “world-class” city (for lack of a better word). There is no vision, no ambition, no desire to achieve greatness. We resist adopting great ideas from other places and implementing them here. We just settle for our own little provincial, mediocre way of getting things done. Meanwhile we sink farther and farther behind other major cities in the world.
    And this is simply NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!

  • guest

    Even our recent “architectural renaissance” is unambitious when compared internationally. If any building in the city should be a spectacular, visually-stunning building, it should be an Opera House. Our Opera House looks like a convention centre. An Opera House should NOT have such a bland design so as to be mistaken with a convention centre!!!!
    And the AGO renovation. Another second-rate project. Frank Ghery was born in Toronto, just around the corner from the AGO. If any city should have an extraordinary Frank Ghery design it should be Toronto, don’t you think??? Instead we are going to end up with a bland-looking, wind-shield wiper slapped across the front of the building. Big deal. Bilbao was put on the international map because of Ghery’s Guggenheim design. Why didn’t we aspire to a building of this caliber?
    Why? Because Torontonians love mediocrity. We are content with third-rate things. We don’t notice ugliness. That’s why.

  • David Topping

    (I’ve had to edit a few replies in this thread together because some people are leaving comments, one after another, all pretending to be different “guests” — though they all use the same IP address, meaning they’re almost certainly the same person. For the sake of all of us, please say what you want to say in one reply rather than leaving three separate replies 30 minutes apart.)
    I realize that I haven’t weighed in on this yet, but #2 put it best: even if we are ugly, which we occasionally are, that doesn’t matter. It adds to why our city is so interesting and beautiful.
    And I agree with a lot of the people commenting here that the solution to our ugliness — if it needs a solution — is not to compare ourselves to other cities. We’re unique and we need to act like we are.

  • guest

    I strongly disagree wuith David.
    We must continue to compare ourselves to other cities and learn from and adopt good ideas that work elsewhere. It’s the way we progress, improve and evolve.
    Sticking our heads in the sand, and wallowing in ignorance because it might be more comforting to us does not ultimately make for a good city or a good society.

  • rek

    Doing whatever New York does, just because New York did it, won’t make us a good city or a good society either, that’s for sure.

  • guest

    You have misunderstood the point.
    It is not about doing something just because New York does it. The point is to adopt great ideas from other cities and adapt them to Toronto to improve our own city.
    Toronto alas needs a lot of improvement.

  • rek

    Where exactly does Toronto need a lot of improvement? And how exactly do you propose these areas be improved? I’ve said it a couple of times now that I see a lot of moaning and no solutions.
    Could it be that a lot of the complaining really boils down to “well, in X-City they have this and we don’t, so we suck”? Is anyone else prepared to consider that Toronto isn’t New York or Paris or London or Rome or Chicago or Tokyo, and has completely different demographics, geography, budgeting, and priorities?
    It seems to me that the majority of griping is about superficial things of a commercial (including tourism) nature, and not about how the city actually functions or how people live. Ugly buildings? Areas of affordable (eeek!) shopping? Worst yet: ugly people? Spare me.
    Where Toronto needs improvement is how people interact with the city, and that has nothing to do with “ugliness” and everything to do with facilitating movement over short and long distances, and giving people things to do or places to do what they want. TTC, bike paths, wider sidewalks, pedestrian markets, street food, later last call, etc. These are the things we should be talking about, not weaselling around the issue of legislating aesthetics for buildings nobody wants built in their neighbourhood anyway.

  • guest

    I would like to write only one thing – I envy you all, because you’re living in Toronto and I’m not (and I know what I say, because I lived there and also in many other cities outside Canada).
    It makes me really nervous, when I read such whining about Toronto on every occassion – you should check FIRST how it is elsewhere and only THEN say how horrible Toronto is… but would it be possible to say such an opinion THEN????

  • guest

    Having lived in Toronto, Vancouver, Boston and Washington DC, I would have to say that rather than being ugly, or beautiful, Toronto is really just bland.
    T.O. is just generic enough to pass for nearly any other big city, which is part of what makes it so popular with the film industry.
    Toronto’s cityscape lacks the natural splendor of Vancouver, the intensely preserved history of Boston (Gov’t Center aside) and the self-stylized grandeur of DC.
    What Toronto DOES have however, is a great mosaic feel of different neighbourhoods that have grown into one another from all sides. When I talk to people about Toronto, that is what I focus on as the thing that most defines the city.
    I look at Toronto’s unassuming physical appearance, as something that is very appropriate for Canada’s largest city. To have a municipal architecture as in-your-face-beautiful as say, Barcelona’s, or as acknowledge-our-power-imposing as New York or DC just wouldn’t seem right.
    So stop second guessing yourselves, and love your city as it is. Otherwise, move somewhere else. Nothing shows you how to appreciate what a city has to offer better than living in a different one.

  • guest

    “To have a municipal architecture as in-your-face-beautiful as say, Barcelona’s, or as acknowledge-our-power-imposing as New York or DC just wouldn’t seem right.”
    Please! What you are saying is ridiculously small-minded. Toronto shouldn’t strive for greatness, Toronto shouldn’t raise its standards because what is appropriate for Toronto is bland, mediocrity!! Toronto should be satisfied with aiming for the average, while other places strive for and achieve greatness because it is all we deserve.
    This is exactly this kind of thinking that keeps Toronto (and Canada as a whole) from achieving its potential. It is thinking like yours that has resulted in the Conference Board of Canada releasing a scathing condemnation of Canada’s mediocrity and lack of innovation, and a dire warning that we are falling farther and farther behind the rest of the world because we are such complacent under-achievers!

  • rek

    41 – More griping and no solutions offered.
    I think if Torontonians wanted to live in a city displaced by tourist attractions, we would.

  • guest

    42 – “I think if Torontonians wanted to live in a city displaced by tourist attractions, we would.”
    I agree with you there. We’re a complacent, smug city uncomfortable with excellence and success. While the citizens of other cities demand excellence and high standards, we remain steadfast defenders of our bland, mediocrity.

  • guest

    And what is so great about NYC…??? Its dirty streets and neglected neighbourhoods? its claustrophobic streets packed with skyscrypers, with no sunlight on streets but with omnipresent irritating humming of airconditioning?
    What is so great about Washington? Maybe the highest crime rate, incomparable to Canada, not to say to Toronto?
    I really wonder what do you really see more in such cities…

  • rek

    43 – What you call settling for bland mediocrity can easily be explained a number of ways, including the groundbreaking: We’re just not interested in that stuff.
    What you call excellence and success can also be seen a number of ways; using the word ‘displaced’ was no accident.
    And still, no solutions, no suggestions, just more down-on-Toronto-for-not-being-New-York.

  • guest

    I am not comparing Toronto just to New York. I am comparing Toronto to the rest of the world’s great cities and Toronto falls far, far behind the standards which are the norm in other cities. You’re right. We just don’t seem to care here.
    As for a few suggestions:
    1) Create PERMANENT well-designed pedestrian-only neighbourhoods. These need to be carefully designed or they will fail. Toronto tried making Yonge Street pedestrian only in the 70′s and it was a dismal failure because there was no planning around it!! People don’t gravitate to a pedestrian-only section composed of strip clubs, bargain stores and porn shops!
    Pedestrian Only Sundays such as we have at Kensinton Market are a good first step, but not enough.
    2) Make the city bike friendly. This must be a priority.
    3) Improve the public transportation system, especially the subway system downtown. Two measly lines in a city this size is pathetic. It takes 3 hours to get from one end of the city to the other via public transit. Above ground transit is too slow. We also live in a city where it’s -30 degrees in the winter and +30 in the summer, so you need an extensive subway system.
    4) Plant trees and shrubs all over the city so the city stays green year round. Toronto is a depressing, grey, concrete jungle!!
    Make it mandatory for developers to design green space (landscaping with shrubs, plants and trees) along the front and entrance ways of buildings. This should not be an option, but should be made a law.
    Also, the City of Toronto has not watered a tree in 8 years, since they didn’t budget for watering. That’s why the trees in the city are dying and have to be replanted. This is unacceptable.
    5) Raise standards for architectural design. Our city is hideously ugly and getting uglier and uglier by the day as developers blanket the city with cheap, ugly condos and towers. We need to aim for architectural excellence with new signature buildings a priority.
    6) Integrate culture into the subway system with, for instance, frequent art displays, and book sellers at major stations (St. George, Yonge & Bloor, Union). Our subway stations are so sterile and depressing.
    7) Renovate Union Station. Put in a fruit market, upscale restaurants and/or bars. Again have booksellers in the station and on-going art displays. 8) Save and protect old abandoned (but beautiful) buildings and convert them into museums or galleries. Why have we let the two turn of the century buildings across from the Eaton Centre languish in a state of decay and neglect for decades? These should be prime cultural destinations. This should be an absolute priority for the city.
    9) Clean up Yonge Street. The fact that Toronto (and Canada’s) main street is a strip of porn shops and bargain stores is absolutely pathetic.
    10) Raise standards for Queens Park significantly. It’s a nice park with grass and trees, but it should be much better designed. Take some ideas from the Music Garden on the waterfront – now that’s a well-designed park! Or some landscaping ideas from the world’s great parks. Queen’s Park should be a beautiful, inspiring oasis in the centre of the city, not just a strip of grass with trees.
    I could go on and on and on, but here are 10 points to think about and discuss…

  • rek

    [46]; 1-3,8 I’ve addressed previously.
    4: I was going to say we can’t keep things green in the winter, which made me wonder why I can only remember seeing a single conifer on public property. Is there a Parks & Rec policy against them? Anyone know? Have I just been over looking them?
    5: Whose sense of aesthetics would you encode as law?
    6: Unfortunately most of our subway stations just weren’t designed for that. Where would you put a book stand at Yonge/Bloor, for example? Stations would need serious renovation to make room for things like that and still have rush hour capacity.
    9: This is more class snobbishness. As you say it’s Canada’s “Main Street”, but the Canada I was born in isn’t all ritzy high priced boutiques. I’d rather Toronto be a city where people can mix and we don’t hide human nature behind backgrounds for tourists’ pictures. There’s nothing wrong with porno shops and bargain stores. If Yonge was populated by pawn shops it would be a different story, as they’re an undeniable sign of urban decay, but Yonge as it is is perfectly fine.
    10: Going back to parks, what’s their budget like? Toronto has something like 300 properties designated as park. If the city can’t afford to water the trees it has, how is it going to landscape a city block worth of trees and grass?

  • guest

    6. There is plenty of space our subway systems for bookstands. Please! You don’t need serious renovations. Have a look at subways all across Europe if you can’t imagine it!!
    9. Porn shops, strip joints, and bargain basement shops ARE signs of decay. And Yonge Street is our most visible sign of decay.
    Toronto’s ritzy streets are few and far between. At least we have a few. But most of this city is a decaying dump.
    10. Cities all over the world have money to water their trees. It’s absolutely pathetic that the City of Toronto hasn’t been able to figure out how to do it. We’re not in a third world country. This is Canada, and Toronto is Canada’s economic captial. There is plenty of money here to water trees and to fix up decaying streets. City Hall needs to start thinking creatively.
    At the very least plant half the trees and then spend the rest of the money watering them so they stay alive!!! It takes money to plant trees which is a completely wasted investment when they die a few years later.

  • David Topping

    I’m sorry, #48, but “ritzy” should not be the benchmark for beauty in Toronto. When I think of “ritzy,” I think of Yorkville — which is great and fine and dandy; I live right around there — but I can’t imagine an entire city Yorkvillified.

  • guest

    I’m not saying the entire city should look like Yorkville. But we really must raise standards.
    WAY too much of Toronto is neglected, incredibly unattractive, and in a state of decay.
    This is not acceptable. It is a bad sign that people do not care enough about the state of the city to improve and beautify it for the enjoyment of all citizens.

  • rek

    “Ritzy” means exclusive. Restaurants and boutiques too expensive for the majority to justify frequenting with any regularity, rendering all of Yonge a rich-and-tourists zone. As I said, ‘displacing’ the city itself. Class division is not a tool we should be considering for urban beautification.
    Where are you picturing these book stands? On the platform itself? Unlikely. Which stations and where? Here in Seoul the stations downtown are massive — they’re also designed to be bomb shelters in the event of the North invading — so there are book stands, shoe stores, entire malls in some places like Eujiro 3-ga, but I can’t think of anything remotely comparable in Toronto, certainly not downtown.
    Porn and strippers are not a sign of decay when they’re as moderately spaced as on Yonge. This isn’t Victorian England or 1980s Times Square we’re talking about. Compare it to a few blocks east, where every other store, and sometimes stores right next to each other, is a pawn shop. That’s urban decay. That’s poverty shaping the landscape in a way that drives away the average citizen and creates a self-perpetuating problem. This is 2007: there’s nothing wrong with people wanting to get their sex on.
    As for funding: Toronto is hostage to the province and feds. Until the downloading it reversed, that won’t change. New taxes will only discourage people from moving to Toronto and encourage others to move out. This is not something Miller or the Council can do by itself, so it has to make do with the funds it has.
    When I was in Kanazawa, Japan, last year I noticed something interesting. Shop owners kept jugs of water in the tree/shrub beds in front of their stores, to water city plants. Toronto probably can’t afford to *pay* people to drive around the city watering everything, but does that mean there’s nothing the city can do about it? Evidently not.

  • guest

    Wow, [44], if you don’t get what’s great about NYC, then maybe you shouldn’t live in a city at all. It’s actualy cleaner than TO, those tall buildings create density which creates vibrancy, diversityl, not to mention a massive tax base to keep it all humming. The avenues are wide and stately, not claustrophobic. It’s a walking city. Those air conditioners are humming because it’s bloody hot, but Bloomberg is working on it and NYC has started on a massive initaitive to green themselves.

  • guest

    46:
    1 and 2: while not everything does nto have to help the whole city, these like so many other suggestions are downtown focussed. They are not helpful to the thousands of people who would live nowhere near these areas. And they help no areas in the winter.
    5: Presumably you will be starting a development company to do exactly this. There are enough people who think the same – pool your money. If not, why not?

  • rek

    53: Pedestrian-only neighbourhoods and bike paths don’t have to be downtown, I’m not sure why anyone would think that. Surely there are mixed-use neighbourhoods north of St Clair, west of Ossington, and east of … uh… you know, some street over there. There are definitely people living there, people who need to go places not necessarily lake-adjacent.

  • guest

    There absolutely should be pedestrian-only areas downtown. This is where we need it most.
    As for Yonge Street, I disagree with tyrannosaurus_rek. Yonge Street is a strip of cheap fast food joints, bargain stores, strip clubs and porn shops. And all of these buildings are decaying and neglected. It looks disgusting. And it’s absolutely inexcusable that the main street of our city looks this crappy.

  • guest

    Yes, Toronto is UGLY!! Concrete everywhere, unimaginative, delapitated buildings, very little landscaping, poorly designed streets.
    People here just don’t care about living in a beautiful place. Just look at how Torontonians dress!! Ugly.

  • http://null toronosan

    A lot of people are trying to stick up for Toronto – your heart is in the right place, but sadly ugliness is the reality for Toronto. This, happily, does not mean that Toronto is a bad place to live, just an unsightly one.
    Toronto has a number of major eyesore flaws – too much concrete everywhere – too many bland dirty-gray concrete brutalist buildings every where. Incredibly ugly parking lots in the middle of ugly concrete buildings. Very very few trees and parks – not a surprise since trees do not grow on ugly concrete. Absolutely pathetic waterfront. Absolutely ugly, inefficient, outdated and miserly subway. So wretched and disgusting it is, most stations are decorated by their corroded metal support beams and falling concrete. The vast majority of the rest of the city is build with shoddy workmanship, out of cheap materials with zero taste an pride.

  • http://undefined JavaVilla

    I am a European globe-trotting traveler living in HK/Singapore who flew recently to Toronto. I was truly shocked at how horrendously ugly Toronto is. I have never ever seen such an architectural catastrophe from end to end. Flying in over the lake looked so promising, as did the airport but upon leaving the airport and looking down the long tired highway towards downtown hinted at what was to come. I was honored with a tour of the city by my proud and wonderful Toronto hosts, but can not begin to tell you how shocked I was at what I saw. The waterfront, which should be the highlight of the city, looked like a giant waste dump, and the prime shopping area housing the likes of LV and Cartier was beyond repair. One would have expected the Four Seasons group, which having been founded in Toronto in 1961, to have placed the jewel in its crown there. Instead it was the worst FS I have ever seen in a major city and representative of the city as a whole (or should I say as a hole!). What is frightening to hear is that those living in Toronto still believe it to be one of the leading cities of the world. It is obvious that by looking at the new construction nothing has been learned by the planning department – that is if there is one. As ugly as the city is, I have to hand it to you locals, who speak about your city with such pride. If this though is a representation of Canada’s future at its best, be afraid, very afraid of the advances in Asia.

  • http://undefined Mark

    Urban experts? Urban experts think that Toronto is a terrible city. Totally terrible. Ask any urban planner in the field and then comeback to me.
    Room to grow? What room? first of all, not much room is left. Second of all, we’re talking about its current state not what it COULD be, every city could be improved, but today’s Toronto is an ugly, cold, cemented, wasteland. Aside from the dirty nightclubs and that old tower, nothing about Toronto interests me.