Results tagged “beautifulcity”

Late last night the City's proposed new billboard bylaw and tax [PDF] cleared a major hurdle, unanimously passing through the Planning and Growth Management Committee on its way to a hearing before the full City Council. The meeting ran 'til about 11 p.m. and had to be moved from one of the regular committee meeting rooms to the main Council Chamber in order to accommodate fifty-plus deputants and scores of other observers. It was a pitched battle, one that has lasted through several years of debate, consultation, and resistance leading up to this moment. A tremendous victory for public space advocates, progressive councillors, and Mayor Miller, the bylaw will provide harmonized regulation of the billboard industry (the rules haven't been updated since amalgamation) and the tax will create the revenue needed to enforce those regulations.

We've been at City Hall a fair number of times, but it wasn't until this week that we had the rather delightful experience of being met by a beatboxing duo at the front door or rocking out to OutKast in the Council Chamber. The occasion for this upending of formality? A town hall meeting, hosted by a network of organizations known collectively as the Beautiful City Alliance. The coalition is working to convince city council to direct revenue from the billboard tax it plans to introduce this summer towards art in the public sphere and is stepping up its campaign efforts as the vote on that tax approaches. The town hall, attended by some two or three hundred artists and activists, as well as several city councillors, was part informational meeting and part pep rally, with a bit of spontaneous art production thrown in for good measure.

The Toronto International Film Festival madness began today with this year’s Canadian press conference—whereas last year we were unprepared for the experience, this year we were ready. We didn’t eat lunch, instead eating our fill of the finger food on offer. Result!

In yet another show of contempt for the residents of Toronto, Transportation Services and "Clean and Beautiful City" staff have opted to put the models of the City’s proposed street furniture on display to the public for one day only; they will be visible in the City Hall rotunda from 8:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, April 4. This is a project that will determine the look and feel of all of Toronto streets from this September through August 31, 2027 — and you're being given an eleven-and-a-half-hour window to glimpse the possible outcomes.

Graffiti is one of those hot button issues in any large city. For some it's a symbol of urban decay and crime, a sign that a neighbourhood will soon be overrun by gangs, drugs and other unsavoury elements. For many others, it's a vital form of artistic expression for those who are disenfranchised and for whom the traditional gallery and art establishment isn't accessible nor relevant to their day to day experience.

Few public spaces in Toronto -nay, even in Canada- are as aggressively ugly as is Nathan Phillips Square. Take away the skating rink and the chip wagons and, especially in winter, the place has the grim, empty concrete vastness of a ca. 1950 Siberian planned city.