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The city as a growth machine
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Edward Keenan discusses in his article, “What do Torontonians really want their city to be?”, that the people and the politicians of Toronto want to have a great city, but they do not have the funding or the budgeting in place to make the plans transpire. Mr. Keenan quoted Toronto’s city manager, Peter Wallace as saying, “areas of really big failure”, in spite of the successes that have been seen in the city. In Mr. Keenan’s words, this is in relation to the “congestion and transit, housing, and child poverty” issues. In the article Mr. Keenan describes how Peter Wallace showed slides of the steady decline of revenue and told how the politicians kept voting to decrease it. Mr. Wallace went on to say that the government has really great
plans, but they are “aspirational”. Mr. Keenen compared the city’s aspirations to “looking at the pictures of $78,000 handbags, even though they cannot expect to ever afford them”. The council has approved good plans for changes to the city, yet has no money to pay for them or any plan to raise the money to pay for them. Mr. Keenan suggests that if you want to have a great city, you’ll have to pay for it, otherwise, it should be decided that the people don’t need a great city.
In Barbara Berlund’s Making San Francisco American: Cultural Frontiers in the Urban West, Berlund explains how San Francisco grew from a young settlement which grew rapidly thanks to in part of the California Gold Rush which took place in 1949. Of course with the growing of this small settlement came it’s conflicts and how it rised to where it stands present day. A primary factor which helped San Francisco flourish a ton was the influence from those who had power and chose what would happen throughout the city, for example the Big 4. Those who were wealthy did not make this city what it is today without the help of people who made up the middle class as well. Every establishment within this city set the social order as to how the inhabitants of San Francisco would go about their life in society.
Downtown London had the highest vacancy rate in the city space was being rented for prices between fifty cents and two dollars per meter which was lower than the average in London.
There are many examples of cities reforming itself over time, one significant example is Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. More than a hundred years after the discovery of gold that drew thousands of migrants to Vancouver, the city has changed a lot, and so does one of its oldest community: Downtown Eastside. Began as a small town for workers that migrants frequently, after these workers moved away with all the money they have made, Downtown Eastside faced many hardships and changes. As a city, Vancouver gave much support to improve the area’s living quality and economics, known as a process called gentrification. But is this process really benefiting everyone living in Downtown Eastside? The answer is no. Gentrification towards DTES(Downtown Eastside) did not benefit the all the inhabitants of the area. Reasons are the new rent price of the area is much higher than before the gentrification, new businesses are not community-minded, and the old culture and lifestyle of the DTES is getting erased by the new residents.
Yet, It has only been in very recent years that we have seen a trend moving in the direction of Municipal fiscal autonomy. The trend towards Municipal fiscal autonomy is possibly more prevalent today then it has ever been. The proposal of such things as Glen Murray’s New Deal for Winnipeg, and Paul Martin’s proposed change in federal-provincial-municipal relations (of the same name), provides optimism for local fiscal autonomy in the future.
... many parts of the city are breaking down, the school system and the children of the city are suffering more than anyone. There are school buildings that are falling down with leaking roofs. There are classrooms that are overcrowded because the district cannot afford to pay additional employees. Test scores of the students are suffering and many children are falling further and further behind the national standard. In order for the city to rise from the ruins it is in right now, it is necessary for someone to take responsibility for the issues within the schools and fix them. It is impossible to increase the population and tax income in the city when people are continuously moving away. It is time for Detroit to make their children feel safe and cared for at school, and time to make school an enjoyable place again so that the students can begin to thrive again.
Jelier, Richard W. and Sands, Gary. Sustaining Michigan : metropolitan policies and strategies. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2009. Book.
The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto consists of the city of Toronto and five boroughs, with an estimated population of 4.7 million (2000), and covering an area of about 625 square miles. It is a beautiful city of parks and trees with a mixture of old and new buildings, connected by an excellent network of
Rob Ford: Toronto Finally Knows the Truth is a very biased article written by John Cruickshank, published by the Toronto Star on Friday November 1st of 2013, about then mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, who has since passed away. The article writes of the dispute between Ford and the Star's journalists, and of the allegations against Ford stating that he has been spotted smoking cocaine and expressing homophobic and racist statements. The article is quick to remind the readers in every opportunity, of the evil, Ford, and the good, The journalists. It writes of Ford and his brother asking their supporters to cancel their subscription of the Star, because of their belief that the Star's form of journalism is "unethical". It mentions Mr. Ford's "drug
This article is about the city of Camden and how they went from being a thriving city to a city that is now in economic crisis. The city has a population of 70,390 and is the poorest city in the nation (16). Camden has an unemployment rate of 30-40% and has an average household income of 24,600 (16). In the past Camden was an industrial giant with several large companies like Campbell’s soup and RCA having factories there, which employed 36,000 people (17). Closing of the factories is one of the main reasons for Camden Counties' high unemployment rate. Over the past few years Camden has been forced to make “$28 million in draconian budget cuts, with officials talking about cutting 25 percent from every department, including layoffs of nearly half the police force” (16). With the lack of funds the counties education system is beginning to suffer with them having to cut the library rate by 2/3, now they have a“70 percent high school dropout rate, with only 13 percent of students managing to pass the state’s proficiency exams in math” (16).With all of the empty factories, empty houses, and vacant lots Camden is beginning to become a very unappealing and unhappy place to live.
Even though there are positives to having public housing there are still some negatives that are present when looking at the way government is involved with housing programs. With having the federal government involved and giving up most of the responsibilities to provincial government it was a loss for the money that would be provided to fixing up and creating new public housing. Like in Regent Park a lot of the public housing that had been made by the federal government has been starting to be demolished to make areas that will bring in more economic
Toronto in the 1920’s included the advancement of woman status and rights, new leisure activities, the creation of the NHL and technology (cinema, radio and television). The leisure activities included travelling to cottages and beaches, sports and recreational activities included topagging, bob sleighing and the introduction of hockey (White 47).White collar workers and blue collar workers caused a class division and placed workers in separate industries and created a class system ( Piva 17).
In 2011 May 7th, my parents brought my twin sister and me to Halifax, Canada, in hope for a brighter future. That brighter future meant a healthier environment to live in and a better opportunity for our education. A few months after our arrival, we heard of a high standard program in Toronto, known as TOPS. My parents decided that TOPS would be our key to that bright future, and so we decided to move to Toronto. After a couple of weeks, we packed our bags and headed to Toronto, where our bright future lay.
Urban elite theory will provide students with a theoretical lens by which to understand the redevelopment projects initiated in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver during the lead-up to the 2010 Olympic Games. Urban elite theory extends the scope of classical elite theory by adding that a metropolis is divided by its physical districts based on class distinctions (Darity et. al., 2008). The presence and power of elites, however, is not seen as entirely negative according to this theoretical perspective. Instead, the collusion of elites is necessary for stability and efficiency within a political system. If urban elite theory were to be applied to the Vancouver case, one hypothesis would be that urban elites participate in development projects in order to maximize their political power and consolidate their involvement within certain communities. A successful gentrification project redevelops an area through the collaboration of political and business elites. Such a project would provide housing that caters to young professionals who will so...
Toronto city is one of the world’s most cosmopolitan, diverse and tolerant cities and is consistently ranked as one of the best cities to live in terms of life quality. Toronto located on the northwestern shores of Lake Ontario in the Southern Ontario district is home to more than 2.5 million residents. This Canadian city is unique melting pot of diverse cultural and ethnical immigrants from all over the world. The city is renowned for its high quality of life, economic and financial position and as an important socio-cultural center of North America.
As previously implied, cities are currently the antithesis of even the barest sense of sustainability. To succinctly define the term “sustainability” would be to say that it represents living within one’s needs. When it comes to the city, with almost zero local sources of food or goods, one’s means is pushed and twisted to include resources originating far beyond the boundaries of the urban landscape. Those within cities paradoxically have both minimal and vast options when it comes to continuing their existence, yet this blurred reality is entirely reliant on the resources that a city can pull in with its constantly active economy.