I care a lot about transit.
I fundamentally believe that it needs to be the backbone of any well functioning and thriving metropolis. As the global economy continues to become an increasingly more urban one, we are seeing the rise of cities at a scale the world has never seen before.
Tokyo is over 37 million people. Jakarta is almost 27 million. Seoul is almost 23 million. And the list goes on. With cities of this size, do we really think it’s reasonable for everybody to be driving around in cars? It ain’t going to work.
Here’s an image from the Guardian, with the title, “Imagine if Paris had as many new cars as Mumbai”:
Now, by global standards, Toronto is a relatively small city, at just over 6 million people in the region.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t have challenges. In my view, the single biggest threat facing Toronto’s long term economic competitiveness is our severe infrastructure deficit. It’s impacting productivity levels, social cohesion, the environment, our global brand and many other things.
Because of this belief, I’ve become interested in the work of CivicAction. It’s a group of non-partisan civic leaders who care about the future of our city. They have 3 areas of focus:
Accelerating regional transportation
Enhancing the region’s economic performance
Fostering inclusion and resilience
They’ve just launched a pledge that allows Torontonians to make their voice heard to elected officials. I just pledged to support new ways to raise funds for a better transportation network, and I would encourage you to do the same if you care about the future of our city. I know I certainly do.
At the time of writing this post, 2,821 members of the general public and 126 elected officials had pledged.
If you’re into cities, then you’re likely familiar with the Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann.
He was Napoleon III’s urban planner and the man responsible for the Paris we all know and love today. Those broad avenues radiating from the Arc de Triomphe are his doing. His plans transformed Paris from a medieval city into what was considered to be, at the end of the 19th century, one of the most modern cities in the world.
What spurred this post is an exhibition currently on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. It’s on the photography of Charles Marville, who was, interestingly enough, initially commissioned to document Paris before Napoleon and Haussmann “destroyed” it.
In reading NPR’s summary, I was amazed to learn about the meticulous detail that went into the redesign of the city, which went all the way down to the gas street lamps that were rolled out following the “Haussmannization”of Paris. In fact, so much thought went into the appearance of these street lamps that their heights were actually modulated to match changes in street elevation; the effect being that as you looked down an avenue, the street lamps always appeared even and harmonious despite any ups-and-downs in the road.
But beyond street lamps, the exhibition also got me thinking about urban renewal as a broader concept. Today, I suspect that most people would consider Haussmann’s interventions to have been a positive thing for Paris. Before these changes, Paris was a cramped and crumbling medieval city.
However, while in retrospect these changes might seem positive, Parisians at the time hated what was happening to their city. The entire place was under construction. And if you’re a fan of Impressionism, you’ll know that many artists at the time began lamenting about the regularization of Paris. They yearned for the visual variety that once characterized the city.
But as any developer will tell you, change is not something most communities tend to embrace. In fact, it’s human nature for us to down play positives and play up negatives when faced with uncertainty (see Prospect Theory).
And sometimes it’s merited. Fast forward to 1925 and you have yet another audacious Frenchman trying to destroy and rebuild Paris: Le Corbusier. Come to think of it, I wonder if he thought of himself as the next Haussmann. He certainly thought of himself as the man responsible for ushering in the next wave of modernity.
But while he didn’t execute on his Plan Voisin in Paris, he certainly left his mark on cities all across the world. The plan he intended for Paris, was more or less what we used to clear slums in a lot of cities. However it turned out to be a complete failure.
So I guess the moral of the story is that some change is good and some change is bad. But most of the time it’ll seem bad at first, making it hard to tell which is which.