Toronto Election 2010

None of the city’s challenges exist in isolation. We need to tackle them as a group.

None of Toronto's basic challenges exist in isolation. We know that a sense of inclusion and belonging contributes to productivity, competitiveness, and sustainability. Cross-sector collaboration and strategic partnerships are essential as we reinvent our economic base, retool our infrastructure, expand our cultural sector, and plan for an aging population.

We cannot deal with transit, traffic, cyclists, pedestrians, and the economic vitality of our retail strips in isolation. Intellectually we know that these things are connected but, to our detriment, our bloated civic machinery often still functions as if these challenges occupy separate spheres.

By embracing a perspective of convergence and pulling these issues out of their silos, it becomes possible to accomplish more with less, aligning priorities to achieve multiple goals.

Frankly, we can no longer afford to solve one problem at a time. When we make expensive investments in transit infrastructure, for example, we also have to make the corridors serviced by transit denser. We need to do this not just with planning permissions but with proactive development initiatives to get more people living and working at the “hubs” that increase ridership and get more people out of their cars. Otherwise, these investments are seriously underperforming.

We need to use our existing civic buildings and spaces more effectively. We used to have shared-use “Community Schools,” which were available outside of school hours for evening classes and community recreation, a better use of scarce resources than buildings that sit empty for long periods of time.

As new issues arise, it is much easier to keep adding new layers of regulation, new agencies, new “secretariats,” to keep putting more players on the field than it is to take a hard look at the ones we already have. Paradoxically, in many cases we can accomplish more by just subtracting the old structures that are no longer useful and are getting in the way of creative solutions. There are many areas where we could apply sunset provisions to arcane restrictions and unblock the hidebound internal workings of the city.

The loosening up of restrictive land use provisions to enable the “Kings” – King/Spadina and King/Parliament – to emerge on the shoulders on downtown as vital mixed-use neighbourhoods with high percentages of residents who walk to work and impressive job creation is a classic example of unleashing synergy and investment by simply removing unhelpful regulation.

To be effective in city building, we have to get the focus back on the real issues and harness the full power of city design for strategic problem solving in the broadest terms. This means not just using the full capabilities of urban design professions but also linking the physical and operational decisions to economic, environmental, and social considerations.

The “design” lessons to be drawn from the St. Clair street car go way beyond improving poor construction coordination and oversight. This project should have been about strengthening the street as a neighbourhood retail environment while balancing the needs of pedestrians, transit users, cyclists, and drivers to create a great urban place, not pitting one set of priorities and users against another.

A positive example that proves the point is the Lower Don Lands planning effort led by Waterfront Toronto with the support of the city. The project has simultaneously tackled flood proofing, land reclamation, urban re-development, extending transportation networks and municipal infrastructure, and parks creation by recognizing that these diverse goals could only be successfully addressed through comprehensive “design” as fundamental cross-disciplinary problem solving.

The pot is boiling on a complex nexus of issues. There has been a dramatic increase in pedestrian fatalities as we encourage more people to walk, more pedestrian-cyclist conflicts, shortcomings in transit service, and a high level of frustration by everyone trying to get around the city. Clearly we need to make a big shift in the design and management of our streets to make them safe and useable for everyone, no matter what their mode of transportation.

This means more than tinkering; it requires bold strategies skillfully applied on the ground. Road pricing is probably an inevitable component, but it will need to be paired with major investments in new and improved transit alternatives.

We also need to harness the incredible momentum for change in the private sector boom in downtown residential development. Thousands of studio apartments in condominium towers with no supports do not make sustainable new neighbourhoods. We need inclusive strategies to make our city centre inhabitable and affordable for young families, seniors, and everyone in between. This means creating viable, complete communities with a well-maintained public realm and a full range of services and housing options.

In the same vein, we need to make major coordinated efforts in our struggling first ring suburbs with strategic interventions that combine improved transportation, access to employment, support for education at all levels, and improved housing and community services.

So what does all this mean for the next round of leadership in Toronto? The city is unavoidably a problem of organized complexity, and while there are no silver bullets, there are creative ways forward. To face our linked challenges, we cannot afford to let this next election be reduced to dueling one-liners. We need candidates who demonstrate a real understanding of how things are connected and how they plan to increase our competence and restore our confidence by effectively tapping the extraordinary resources of this amazing city.

This is the second of a two-part series on Toronto's civil service by Ken Greenberg. You can read the first essay here.

This is one in a series of essays on the big issues in Toronto's upcoming municipal election.