After my short talk I was feeling a bit like the black sheep of the group. Either nobody felt the same way as me, or nobody was willing to speak up. Most of the other people there seemed more enamoured by architect Les Klein’s “Green Ribbon” proposal.
But as I put down the megaphone and began walking to the next stop, a man came up to me. Truthfully, I didn’t know who he was at first, but he reassured me that it was the right thing to do. The Gardiner East should come down.
Eventually he gave me his business card. On the front it said: John Sewell. And as soon as I saw that I said out loud: “I know this name!”
After my short talk I was feeling a bit like the black sheep of the group. Either nobody felt the same way as me, or nobody was willing to speak up. Most of the other people there seemed more enamoured by architect Les Klein’s “Green Ribbon” proposal.
But as I put down the megaphone and began walking to the next stop, a man came up to me. Truthfully, I didn’t know who he was at first, but he reassured me that it was the right thing to do. The Gardiner East should come down.
Eventually he gave me his business card. On the front it said: John Sewell. And as soon as I saw that I said out loud: “I know this name!”
John Sewell was a member of Toronto City Council from 1969 to 1984 and was Mayor of Toronto from 1979-1980. Today, he is a Toronto activist and has written dozens of books, mostly relating to urban issues.
And today I’m delighted to share a guest post that he has written for Architect This City. The focus of his post below is on the importance of community participation in the planning process and how it was used in this city in the 1970s.
If you’re a developer, this post might scare you. I think there’s often the perception that communities will generally oppose any sort of development. But there are developers in this city, such as Westbank, which have been taking a more proactive approach to community consultations. And it appears to be working for them. So maybe this is something we should be talking about.
If you have any thoughts on this, let’s have a discussion in the comment section below. I hope you enjoy the guest post. Thank you again, John.
_________________________________
Transportation plans, redevelopment schemes, urban expansion: municipalities address big issues like these in several different ways. A staff report can be requested; consultants can be called in; a competition can be held.
The device used most successfully by Toronto City Council in the 1970s was a committee of citizens working directly with city staff and council members. It produced enormously successful results, as I recount in my new book `How We Changed Toronto’, but sadly it is rarely used in the 21st century.
In 1970 City Council appointed a working committee of local residents and several councillors to create a new plan for the Trefann Court Urban Renewal Area, a neighbourhood that had been fighting the city’s plan of demolition for half a dozen years. With the help of a city planner hired specifically for this task, a new plan satisfactory to the different factions in Trefann was hammered out within a few years, then successfully implemented.
In 1973, when the new Council pondered how to rethink a downtown designated for more office towers, it appointed the Core Area Task Force, a body of community representatives and developers, to give direction to city planners as a new approach to the downtown was devised. The result was the remarkable Central Area Plan which encouraged housing downtown and mixed uses, put an end to windy plazas, and generally created an environment that was active and felt comfortable to anyone on foot.
In 1974, as Council faced the problem of how it would redevelop 45 acres of wasteland on the edge of the downtown, it appointed a working committee of concerned residents and councillors to give direction to city staff. It’s fair to say that no one had a good idea of how the site should be developed, but the working committee and city staff conceived a brilliant plan which was quickly executed – the first new building was under construction within two years of the working committee being established - and the neighbourhood, now known as St. Lawrence, remains one of the great successes of the latter half of the 20th century.
From the 1980s onward, City Council has touted the idea of citizen participation, but confined that activity to public hearings on decisions recommended by staff. That generally is the practice today, although open houses have been added, as though showing people plans and getting informal comments is a good way of involving people.
What’s lost in public hearings and open houses is the creativity that a group of committed, diverse individuals can bring to a problem when they meet together over a number of weeks and months. The members of the group know the local scene but they aren’t experts, so they must be advised by planners and other professionals about the issues they should address, the pitfalls of some options, and the trade-offs available before decisions are taken. It is an open ended process fueled by debates about different opinions, but held together by a common purpose and the realization that those around the table are playing an important role in shaping the direction of the city.
The working committee that started meeting in Trefann had no clear idea in advance of what the plan it finally arrived at would look like. It was the same with the Central Area Plan, the St. Lawrence community, and the other processes in the 1970s which I touch on in the book. The process that the politicians, staff and residents committed themselves to made all the difference.
One reason this kind of process is not employed much today is because too many elected figures take an ideological approach. They think they have the answers which they have been elected to implement, rather than to establish ways in which many more minds can be involved in seeking results which are widely agreed on.
As well, city staff are not seen as independent professional advisors serving the public at large, but as a part of a corps serving the mayor and city councillors. In the 1970s in Toronto there was a clear separation between the politicians and the administration, and there were frequent (and welcome) debates on the floor of City Council between the two factions. Both were there to serve the public although they might have different ideas of how that should be done. This kind of tension was seen as entirely appropriate.
In Toronto (and probably other cities) the situation is now even more complicated as councillors see themselves not as public servants for a few years, but rather as individuals with a lifetime commitment to holding public office. Too many members of Toronto City Council have been there for more than 15 years, and they fear that taking a principled stand on an important issue might result in the worst of all possible outcomes, their defeat. They decide not to take on the big issues.
Toronto is currently facing significant problems. The downtown is being overrun with new tall condo towers, for which the city does not have the infrastructure, and the new housing is not designed to meet the needs of future residents. It is the perfect opportunity for a new look at the Central Area Plan, using the same mechanisms as in the 1970s: a holding bylaw so the new plan won’t be pre-empted by development applications; a citizen-led task force including some councillors, advised by city staff. Who knows what brilliant plan an open ended process can recommend?
Another problem is money. Toronto does not have enough money to upgrade its transit system or repair the affordable housing it owns, let alone build the new affordable housing it needs. The demands of the mayor that other governments should pay are understandably disregarded. It is time that the city had its own revenue sources, and what better than a citizen led initiative to point the way?
It’s the same with a plan to build the affordable housing the city needs, to ensure development activity enlivens the near suburbs, to put some restraint on the continued low density subdivisions which are being unrolled far beyond the city’s borders, to restructure the megacity into something which works for the different communities within the city. These challenges all need strong citizen driven processes.
As I recount in `How We Changed Toronto’, the 1970s really did change Toronto for the better. The city has been coasting ever since on those successes. It is time for renewal, and using the successful mechanisms from forty years ago is something worth doing.
We are all selfish bastards when it comes to sharing road space and public space.
When we drive, we complain about pedestrians jumping out in front of us, crazy cyclists who get in our way, and under-utilized bike lanes that are taking away valuable driving space and creating traffic jams.
When we take surface transit (such as buses and streetcars), we want all the cars out of the way so that we can move more efficiently. And we complain about drivers who don’t stop to let us off and on when the streetcar doors open. (Toronto specific reference.)
When we cycle, we complain about cars parked in the bike lanes, people who don’t look before changing lanes or opening their car doors, and drivers who honk at you because they just want you off the road and onto the sidewalk.
And when we walk, we complain about cyclists who ride on the sidewalk (they should be on the road!), cars that don’t stop to let us go, and slow walking groups who linearly block the entire sidewalk so you can’t pass.
We are never happy. And we automatically assume that we could do it better. (I know I’m guilty of this.)
But here are a few things to consider the next time you’re flipping the bird to someone on the streets. Here are a few things that we do know about urban mobility.
There is an unprecedented number of condominiums in the development pipeline right now in Toronto. For argument’s sake, let’s assume 75,000 condominium suites – many of which will be built in central areas of the city.
At a parking ratio of 0.6 stalls per unit, which isn’t an unreasonable assumption today, that’s 45,000 new parking spots and potentially 45,000 new cars in the city.
If you think that 45,000 new cars will be able to get fully absorbed into the core and somehow move around in an unfettered way, then I believe you are mistaken.
If you think that there’s something that can be done to magically expand road capacity to handle all of these additional cars in the city, then I believe you are mistaken.
And if you think that adding a bike lane is the only reason you are currently stuck in traffic, then I believe you are missing the bigger picture.
Over a decade ago, we made a decision in this region to encourage building up, instead of building out. And along with that decision came a necessary rethink of how we get around. That transition is what we are living through right now.
The other thing we know is that the 4 modes of mobility that I started this post with are ordered from least sustainable to most sustainable.
Electric self-driving vehicles will reduce the impacts of driving, but it will also transform it into something that feels more like transit and less like the driving we know today. That will be a very good thing.
But I’m not yet convinced that it will solve all of our problems. To do that I think we will need to adopt a much more balanced and unselfish view of what it takes to move around a city. That, of course, isn’t always easy.
Northern Ireland (mostly Belfast) has its Peace Walls that still separate Protestant loyalists and Catholic republicans from each other.
Beirut had the Green Line, which separated the predominately Muslim side in the west from the predominantly Christian side in the east during the Lebanese Civil War. And I understand this is still the case today.
Detroit has 8 Mile Road, which is a psychological barrier rather than a physical one, but one that still sharply separates whites (blue dots, below) and blacks (green dots, below). The image below is from Wired Magazine.
John Sewell was a member of Toronto City Council from 1969 to 1984 and was Mayor of Toronto from 1979-1980. Today, he is a Toronto activist and has written dozens of books, mostly relating to urban issues.
And today I’m delighted to share a guest post that he has written for Architect This City. The focus of his post below is on the importance of community participation in the planning process and how it was used in this city in the 1970s.
If you’re a developer, this post might scare you. I think there’s often the perception that communities will generally oppose any sort of development. But there are developers in this city, such as Westbank, which have been taking a more proactive approach to community consultations. And it appears to be working for them. So maybe this is something we should be talking about.
If you have any thoughts on this, let’s have a discussion in the comment section below. I hope you enjoy the guest post. Thank you again, John.
_________________________________
Transportation plans, redevelopment schemes, urban expansion: municipalities address big issues like these in several different ways. A staff report can be requested; consultants can be called in; a competition can be held.
The device used most successfully by Toronto City Council in the 1970s was a committee of citizens working directly with city staff and council members. It produced enormously successful results, as I recount in my new book `How We Changed Toronto’, but sadly it is rarely used in the 21st century.
In 1970 City Council appointed a working committee of local residents and several councillors to create a new plan for the Trefann Court Urban Renewal Area, a neighbourhood that had been fighting the city’s plan of demolition for half a dozen years. With the help of a city planner hired specifically for this task, a new plan satisfactory to the different factions in Trefann was hammered out within a few years, then successfully implemented.
In 1973, when the new Council pondered how to rethink a downtown designated for more office towers, it appointed the Core Area Task Force, a body of community representatives and developers, to give direction to city planners as a new approach to the downtown was devised. The result was the remarkable Central Area Plan which encouraged housing downtown and mixed uses, put an end to windy plazas, and generally created an environment that was active and felt comfortable to anyone on foot.
In 1974, as Council faced the problem of how it would redevelop 45 acres of wasteland on the edge of the downtown, it appointed a working committee of concerned residents and councillors to give direction to city staff. It’s fair to say that no one had a good idea of how the site should be developed, but the working committee and city staff conceived a brilliant plan which was quickly executed – the first new building was under construction within two years of the working committee being established - and the neighbourhood, now known as St. Lawrence, remains one of the great successes of the latter half of the 20th century.
From the 1980s onward, City Council has touted the idea of citizen participation, but confined that activity to public hearings on decisions recommended by staff. That generally is the practice today, although open houses have been added, as though showing people plans and getting informal comments is a good way of involving people.
What’s lost in public hearings and open houses is the creativity that a group of committed, diverse individuals can bring to a problem when they meet together over a number of weeks and months. The members of the group know the local scene but they aren’t experts, so they must be advised by planners and other professionals about the issues they should address, the pitfalls of some options, and the trade-offs available before decisions are taken. It is an open ended process fueled by debates about different opinions, but held together by a common purpose and the realization that those around the table are playing an important role in shaping the direction of the city.
The working committee that started meeting in Trefann had no clear idea in advance of what the plan it finally arrived at would look like. It was the same with the Central Area Plan, the St. Lawrence community, and the other processes in the 1970s which I touch on in the book. The process that the politicians, staff and residents committed themselves to made all the difference.
One reason this kind of process is not employed much today is because too many elected figures take an ideological approach. They think they have the answers which they have been elected to implement, rather than to establish ways in which many more minds can be involved in seeking results which are widely agreed on.
As well, city staff are not seen as independent professional advisors serving the public at large, but as a part of a corps serving the mayor and city councillors. In the 1970s in Toronto there was a clear separation between the politicians and the administration, and there were frequent (and welcome) debates on the floor of City Council between the two factions. Both were there to serve the public although they might have different ideas of how that should be done. This kind of tension was seen as entirely appropriate.
In Toronto (and probably other cities) the situation is now even more complicated as councillors see themselves not as public servants for a few years, but rather as individuals with a lifetime commitment to holding public office. Too many members of Toronto City Council have been there for more than 15 years, and they fear that taking a principled stand on an important issue might result in the worst of all possible outcomes, their defeat. They decide not to take on the big issues.
Toronto is currently facing significant problems. The downtown is being overrun with new tall condo towers, for which the city does not have the infrastructure, and the new housing is not designed to meet the needs of future residents. It is the perfect opportunity for a new look at the Central Area Plan, using the same mechanisms as in the 1970s: a holding bylaw so the new plan won’t be pre-empted by development applications; a citizen-led task force including some councillors, advised by city staff. Who knows what brilliant plan an open ended process can recommend?
Another problem is money. Toronto does not have enough money to upgrade its transit system or repair the affordable housing it owns, let alone build the new affordable housing it needs. The demands of the mayor that other governments should pay are understandably disregarded. It is time that the city had its own revenue sources, and what better than a citizen led initiative to point the way?
It’s the same with a plan to build the affordable housing the city needs, to ensure development activity enlivens the near suburbs, to put some restraint on the continued low density subdivisions which are being unrolled far beyond the city’s borders, to restructure the megacity into something which works for the different communities within the city. These challenges all need strong citizen driven processes.
As I recount in `How We Changed Toronto’, the 1970s really did change Toronto for the better. The city has been coasting ever since on those successes. It is time for renewal, and using the successful mechanisms from forty years ago is something worth doing.
We are all selfish bastards when it comes to sharing road space and public space.
When we drive, we complain about pedestrians jumping out in front of us, crazy cyclists who get in our way, and under-utilized bike lanes that are taking away valuable driving space and creating traffic jams.
When we take surface transit (such as buses and streetcars), we want all the cars out of the way so that we can move more efficiently. And we complain about drivers who don’t stop to let us off and on when the streetcar doors open. (Toronto specific reference.)
When we cycle, we complain about cars parked in the bike lanes, people who don’t look before changing lanes or opening their car doors, and drivers who honk at you because they just want you off the road and onto the sidewalk.
And when we walk, we complain about cyclists who ride on the sidewalk (they should be on the road!), cars that don’t stop to let us go, and slow walking groups who linearly block the entire sidewalk so you can’t pass.
We are never happy. And we automatically assume that we could do it better. (I know I’m guilty of this.)
But here are a few things to consider the next time you’re flipping the bird to someone on the streets. Here are a few things that we do know about urban mobility.
There is an unprecedented number of condominiums in the development pipeline right now in Toronto. For argument’s sake, let’s assume 75,000 condominium suites – many of which will be built in central areas of the city.
At a parking ratio of 0.6 stalls per unit, which isn’t an unreasonable assumption today, that’s 45,000 new parking spots and potentially 45,000 new cars in the city.
If you think that 45,000 new cars will be able to get fully absorbed into the core and somehow move around in an unfettered way, then I believe you are mistaken.
If you think that there’s something that can be done to magically expand road capacity to handle all of these additional cars in the city, then I believe you are mistaken.
And if you think that adding a bike lane is the only reason you are currently stuck in traffic, then I believe you are missing the bigger picture.
Over a decade ago, we made a decision in this region to encourage building up, instead of building out. And along with that decision came a necessary rethink of how we get around. That transition is what we are living through right now.
The other thing we know is that the 4 modes of mobility that I started this post with are ordered from least sustainable to most sustainable.
Electric self-driving vehicles will reduce the impacts of driving, but it will also transform it into something that feels more like transit and less like the driving we know today. That will be a very good thing.
But I’m not yet convinced that it will solve all of our problems. To do that I think we will need to adopt a much more balanced and unselfish view of what it takes to move around a city. That, of course, isn’t always easy.
Northern Ireland (mostly Belfast) has its Peace Walls that still separate Protestant loyalists and Catholic republicans from each other.
Beirut had the Green Line, which separated the predominately Muslim side in the west from the predominantly Christian side in the east during the Lebanese Civil War. And I understand this is still the case today.
Detroit has 8 Mile Road, which is a psychological barrier rather than a physical one, but one that still sharply separates whites (blue dots, below) and blacks (green dots, below). The image below is from Wired Magazine.
And even here in Toronto you could say that we’ve become a divided city, albeit without the civil wars or race riots that have plagued the other cities listed above. Our voting patterns suggest a real urban-suburban divide and the many ethnic groups in this city continue to concentrate themselves in specific areas.
The argument made in the article is that people who are able to position themselves in open networks – that is, become the connector between diverse kinds of social groups – are more likely to succeed than people who position themselves in closed networks where they are only surrounded by people they already know and by people who are similar to themselves.
And the reason for this is because people in open networks end up getting exposed to a broader set of viewpoints and ideas. They get a more accurate view of the world and they are able to problem solve better than those who may be coming at it from a more myopic or singular perspective.
But the challenge with open networks, is that there seems to be an innate human tendency towards closed networks. We love what is familiar. We love what is comfortable to us. In other words, we are attracted to people that are similar to ourselves. This is known as homophily.
So it’s not surprising that we tend to cluster ourselves in cities. Yes, there are economic benefits to doing so (known as agglomeration economies), but there’s also a certain feeling of solidarity that comes from being around other people with the same view of the world. There’s no tension because everyone has the same beliefs, whether that be religion or politics or sports or what to eat.
But just like there’s an argument to be made that successful people should try and resist the pull towards closed networks, I think there’s also an argument to be made that successful cities should try and resist the pull towards closed and divided cities.
And even here in Toronto you could say that we’ve become a divided city, albeit without the civil wars or race riots that have plagued the other cities listed above. Our voting patterns suggest a real urban-suburban divide and the many ethnic groups in this city continue to concentrate themselves in specific areas.
The argument made in the article is that people who are able to position themselves in open networks – that is, become the connector between diverse kinds of social groups – are more likely to succeed than people who position themselves in closed networks where they are only surrounded by people they already know and by people who are similar to themselves.
And the reason for this is because people in open networks end up getting exposed to a broader set of viewpoints and ideas. They get a more accurate view of the world and they are able to problem solve better than those who may be coming at it from a more myopic or singular perspective.
But the challenge with open networks, is that there seems to be an innate human tendency towards closed networks. We love what is familiar. We love what is comfortable to us. In other words, we are attracted to people that are similar to ourselves. This is known as homophily.
So it’s not surprising that we tend to cluster ourselves in cities. Yes, there are economic benefits to doing so (known as agglomeration economies), but there’s also a certain feeling of solidarity that comes from being around other people with the same view of the world. There’s no tension because everyone has the same beliefs, whether that be religion or politics or sports or what to eat.
But just like there’s an argument to be made that successful people should try and resist the pull towards closed networks, I think there’s also an argument to be made that successful cities should try and resist the pull towards closed and divided cities.
