A quick glance at Toronto’s skyline will reveal that an astounding transformation is taking place. This city is becoming dense with skyscrapers. Whether you live here, but have not had the wherewithal to look up from your desk, or you are a visitor for the first time in a few years, Toronto may well have become unrecognizable to you.
established network of transit and we’re choking on cars,” Greenberg says. “With all this development, we’re now experiencing the problems of enormous success—and the Achilles heel in all of this, is transportation.” The person responsible for ensuring that the city’s development successes outweigh its problems, is Jennifer Keesmaat, the City of Toronto’s Chief Planner and Executive Director since September, 2012. Every new project in the city must cross her desk—the good, the bad, and the downright ridiculous—and she has proven herself to be forthright in her assessments.
The past decade has brought unprecedented development to Canada’s largest city and there’s still more on the horizon. In fact, some studies report that there is more development planned here than all other cities in North America combined. Given the recent softening in the residential real estate market, quality control issues with condominium projects, and continuing challenges with infrastructure, industry experts have begun to question how Toronto will develop in the future.
An advocate of commuters cycling to work and children walking to school, she recognizes that urban mobility is a big problem for Toronto, but she maintains that progress has been made. “We’ve got a completely maxed-out public transportation network and a completely maxed-out road network,” she admits. “But we’ve also got consensus across the spectrum at City Hall that we need better transit. We just need to figure out where it goes, who gets served first and where the money’s going to come from.”
Ken Greenberg, an architect, urban planner, and former Director of Urban Design and Architecture for the City of Toronto, sees bright spots in the city, but expresses cause for concern as well. “Toronto is experiencing a rate of growth that is unbelievable. We’re now seeing hyper-density,” he explains. “It’s almost as if Dubai has come to the centre of Toronto—and the city was never prepared for that.” For Greenburg, “city-building” is an essential but under-utilized concept. Traffic-stopping works of architecture and spiraling towers can be compelling from a visitor’s standpoint, but the residents of any given city crave quality of life in the form of walkable neighbourhoods, green space, and an efficient transportation system.
As with all things business-related, it makes sense that money is at the crux of this issue. In certain cases, at times like these, a cash-strapped city will set their long-term thinking aside and look at the more immediate benefits of buying into a developer’s grand vision. This is how you get proposals for sports stadiums, Ferris wheels, monorails, casinos, and shopping malls. This is how you get Las Vegas.
The last point, in particular, is one that has concerned citizens. “If you compare Toronto to Hong Kong or Tokyo or New York, they have an
There is no question that Toronto needs a better transit system. The only question is, at what cost? One project that has crossed
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