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.

I was recently on a call with someone living in California, but who is originally from Toronto. He told me that every time he comes back to Toronto to visit, it feels like the city has changed, grown, and become even more cosmopolitan.

That is a great compliment, because every city today is in a competition to remain relevant. Which means that if a city is not changing, evolving, and adapting, then it is falling behind. Competition is fierce and it’s global.

Toronto is fortunate enough to be experiencing rapid population growth and that is driving a lot of this change. But at the same time, it naturally raises questions about how to best manage and leverage that growth, particularly in areas like the downtown core where a lot of that intensification is happening.

To that end, the City of Toronto has been working on a three year study called TOcore, that will, among other things, result in a new comprehensive plan for the downtown core. (I’ve blogged about this before and it has come up in the comments a few times.)

Today, however, marks the start of their public engagement process. And so if you’d like to have your say (there will be implications for developers, architects, and other city builders), you can do that here. There’s an online survey, an email address, events you can attend in person and, of course, a hashtag: #DTadvice.

But the tool I think is really neat, is their “Favourite Places” map. What it allows you to do is drop pins onto a map of downtown and describe your “Favourite Places” and places that have “Great Potential.” Notice that the focus is on positivity. There’s no pin for “Shitty Places.”

I have a lot to say, so I’ve been flooding the map with pins. I would be curious, though, to hear what you would like to see happen in downtown Toronto – and so would the TOcore team.

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.

I was recently on a call with someone living in California, but who is originally from Toronto. He told me that every time he comes back to Toronto to visit, it feels like the city has changed, grown, and become even more cosmopolitan.

That is a great compliment, because every city today is in a competition to remain relevant. Which means that if a city is not changing, evolving, and adapting, then it is falling behind. Competition is fierce and it’s global.

Toronto is fortunate enough to be experiencing rapid population growth and that is driving a lot of this change. But at the same time, it naturally raises questions about how to best manage and leverage that growth, particularly in areas like the downtown core where a lot of that intensification is happening.

To that end, the City of Toronto has been working on a three year study called TOcore, that will, among other things, result in a new comprehensive plan for the downtown core. (I’ve blogged about this before and it has come up in the comments a few times.)

Today, however, marks the start of their public engagement process. And so if you’d like to have your say (there will be implications for developers, architects, and other city builders), you can do that here. There’s an online survey, an email address, events you can attend in person and, of course, a hashtag: #DTadvice.

But the tool I think is really neat, is their “Favourite Places” map. What it allows you to do is drop pins onto a map of downtown and describe your “Favourite Places” and places that have “Great Potential.” Notice that the focus is on positivity. There’s no pin for “Shitty Places.”

I have a lot to say, so I’ve been flooding the map with pins. I would be curious, though, to hear what you would like to see happen in downtown Toronto – and so would the TOcore team.