Yesterday, when I was reading up on Toronto’s “TOcore” initiative, I came across a report from 2014 called Not Zoned For Dancing: A Comprehensive Review of Entertainment in Downtown Toronto.
It was prepared by five graduate planning students at the University of Toronto: Anna Wynveen, Brenton Nader, Carolyn Rowan, Chris Hilbrecht, and Kyle Miller.
The entire report is fascinating, but here’s one diagram that stood out to me:
It shows the migration of bars, clubs, and lounges westward, away from the downtown core, from 1991-2013.
This migration doesn’t surprise me at all. I saw it happening and I understand the market forces at play here. There’s also the simple fact that nightlife is often viewed as a nuisance.
But it’s worth calling this out.
Because I don’t think enough city builders appreciate the value of nightlife. It can and has served as a valuable catalyst for urban regeneration and I believe that it should form part of any city’s economic development strategy.
A lot of cities are focused on things like bike lanes, public spaces, and on becoming the next Silicon Valley. And don’t get me wrong, those are all important things (though we could debate the Silicon Valley part).
But let’s not forget about nightlife.
When I was 18 years old, I moved from the suburbs of Toronto to Waterloo, Ontario, which is about an hour west of the city.
I largely did this for two reasons.
Firstly, I had started visiting friends at both Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo while I was in high school, and I thought that I wanted that kind of University town experience.
Secondly, I started University as a Computer Science student and I figured that Waterloo was a pretty good place to study that. Research In Motion (later renamed to Blackberry) was an important company at the time and interesting things were happening.
Though to be clear, I was a student at Laurier and not at the University of Waterloo – the better of the two schools for Computer Science – because I didn’t have the grades for the latter.
But a funny thing ended up happening. I hated living in Waterloo. I felt so out of place. So much so that I spent every weekend back in Toronto visiting my friends who had instead decided to go to the University of Toronto.
And I remember vividly how I felt during those weekends. I would stand in my friend’s apartments – most of which had dens and solariums that were hacked into bedrooms so that they could afford to live there – and I would look across the skyline and think to myself: why the hell do I not live here?
So I transferred to the University of Toronto. And that solved that.
The reason I bring up this story today is that I was reminded of it while reading a recent CityLab article by Richard Florida called, The Self-Confident City.
The three main arguments in the article are:
(1) Where we choose to live has a massive impact on our life outcomes.
(2) Self-confident people – according to a recent study – seem to be drawn to big cities.
(3) Self-confidence can also be a self-fulfilling prophecy for people in big cities.
Now, I don’t know if it was really self-confidence and youthful hubris that told me I needed to live in a bigger city than Waterloo. (It was probably part of it.) All I know is that I wanted to live in a super dynamic place that felt bigger than me. I wanted to feel like I was a small fish in a big pond trying to make some sort of meaningful dent.
That was true for me when I was 18. And it remains true for me today at 32.
Yesterday, when I was reading up on Toronto’s “TOcore” initiative, I came across a report from 2014 called Not Zoned For Dancing: A Comprehensive Review of Entertainment in Downtown Toronto.
It was prepared by five graduate planning students at the University of Toronto: Anna Wynveen, Brenton Nader, Carolyn Rowan, Chris Hilbrecht, and Kyle Miller.
The entire report is fascinating, but here’s one diagram that stood out to me:
It shows the migration of bars, clubs, and lounges westward, away from the downtown core, from 1991-2013.
This migration doesn’t surprise me at all. I saw it happening and I understand the market forces at play here. There’s also the simple fact that nightlife is often viewed as a nuisance.
But it’s worth calling this out.
Because I don’t think enough city builders appreciate the value of nightlife. It can and has served as a valuable catalyst for urban regeneration and I believe that it should form part of any city’s economic development strategy.
A lot of cities are focused on things like bike lanes, public spaces, and on becoming the next Silicon Valley. And don’t get me wrong, those are all important things (though we could debate the Silicon Valley part).
But let’s not forget about nightlife.
When I was 18 years old, I moved from the suburbs of Toronto to Waterloo, Ontario, which is about an hour west of the city.
I largely did this for two reasons.
Firstly, I had started visiting friends at both Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo while I was in high school, and I thought that I wanted that kind of University town experience.
Secondly, I started University as a Computer Science student and I figured that Waterloo was a pretty good place to study that. Research In Motion (later renamed to Blackberry) was an important company at the time and interesting things were happening.
Though to be clear, I was a student at Laurier and not at the University of Waterloo – the better of the two schools for Computer Science – because I didn’t have the grades for the latter.
But a funny thing ended up happening. I hated living in Waterloo. I felt so out of place. So much so that I spent every weekend back in Toronto visiting my friends who had instead decided to go to the University of Toronto.
And I remember vividly how I felt during those weekends. I would stand in my friend’s apartments – most of which had dens and solariums that were hacked into bedrooms so that they could afford to live there – and I would look across the skyline and think to myself: why the hell do I not live here?
So I transferred to the University of Toronto. And that solved that.
The reason I bring up this story today is that I was reminded of it while reading a recent CityLab article by Richard Florida called, The Self-Confident City.
The three main arguments in the article are:
(1) Where we choose to live has a massive impact on our life outcomes.
(2) Self-confident people – according to a recent study – seem to be drawn to big cities.
(3) Self-confidence can also be a self-fulfilling prophecy for people in big cities.
Now, I don’t know if it was really self-confidence and youthful hubris that told me I needed to live in a bigger city than Waterloo. (It was probably part of it.) All I know is that I wanted to live in a super dynamic place that felt bigger than me. I wanted to feel like I was a small fish in a big pond trying to make some sort of meaningful dent.
That was true for me when I was 18. And it remains true for me today at 32.
Recently I wrote about the first Night Mayor Summit being held in Amsterdam. As part of this, I spoke about Amsterdam’s first night mayor – Mirik Milan.
Since then (but obviously not because of my post), the idea has seemingly taken off. Below are a couple of excerpts from a recent Guardian article.
This pragmatic and classically Dutch notion is now being copied across Europe: Toulouse, Zurich, Paris as well as several other Dutch cities have night mayors too.
This week the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, announced plans for a “Night-Time Commission”, a six-month assessment of how to protect and manage the city’s £66bn night-time economy which is likely to recommend the creation of a “night-time champion” role.
Berlin is considering it too, and in April, Amsterdam will host the first global Night Mayors’ Summit.
Why is this happening? Simple:
“Late-night people are typically young, educated, creative, entrepreneurial – people you want in your city, and who work in the creative industries and startups you also want. If places like Berlin have flourished, it’s not just because of low rents. It’s because they’re nightlife capitals.”
So if you’re reading this, Mayor John Tory, now is probably your last chance to make Toronto a North American leader in this regard.
It’s great that we are trying to push the Toronto - Waterloo region as a global startup hub, but so is every other major city and region in the world. A focus on startups is so commonplace in today’s economic development strategies, that at this point it almost feels meaningless. What are we going to do to stand out in this competition for the world’s best talent?
If everyone believes something to be true – such as, there’s value in having a robust startup ecosystem – then it’s no longer innovative. It’s just the way things are. To take it to the next level, we’re going to have to do things that will probably feel uncomfortable at first – particularly for old establishment Toronto.
I’m not saying that having a night mayor is going to be the silver bullet for our startup ecosystem. There’s no such thing. But I am saying that it should be one component of our larger strategy.
Because already there’s a growing number of European cities who have come to this one simple realization: people are drawn to kickass places.
If you agree with this post, I would encourage you to leave a comment below and also tweet the Mayor of Toronto.
Image: Berlin nightlife by Tom Stromer
Recently I wrote about the first Night Mayor Summit being held in Amsterdam. As part of this, I spoke about Amsterdam’s first night mayor – Mirik Milan.
Since then (but obviously not because of my post), the idea has seemingly taken off. Below are a couple of excerpts from a recent Guardian article.
This pragmatic and classically Dutch notion is now being copied across Europe: Toulouse, Zurich, Paris as well as several other Dutch cities have night mayors too.
This week the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, announced plans for a “Night-Time Commission”, a six-month assessment of how to protect and manage the city’s £66bn night-time economy which is likely to recommend the creation of a “night-time champion” role.
Berlin is considering it too, and in April, Amsterdam will host the first global Night Mayors’ Summit.
Why is this happening? Simple:
“Late-night people are typically young, educated, creative, entrepreneurial – people you want in your city, and who work in the creative industries and startups you also want. If places like Berlin have flourished, it’s not just because of low rents. It’s because they’re nightlife capitals.”
So if you’re reading this, Mayor John Tory, now is probably your last chance to make Toronto a North American leader in this regard.
It’s great that we are trying to push the Toronto - Waterloo region as a global startup hub, but so is every other major city and region in the world. A focus on startups is so commonplace in today’s economic development strategies, that at this point it almost feels meaningless. What are we going to do to stand out in this competition for the world’s best talent?
If everyone believes something to be true – such as, there’s value in having a robust startup ecosystem – then it’s no longer innovative. It’s just the way things are. To take it to the next level, we’re going to have to do things that will probably feel uncomfortable at first – particularly for old establishment Toronto.
I’m not saying that having a night mayor is going to be the silver bullet for our startup ecosystem. There’s no such thing. But I am saying that it should be one component of our larger strategy.
Because already there’s a growing number of European cities who have come to this one simple realization: people are drawn to kickass places.
If you agree with this post, I would encourage you to leave a comment below and also tweet the Mayor of Toronto.
Image: Berlin nightlife by Tom Stromer
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