Sunday, February 06, 2005
One Year
Just over a year ago fifteen dogs were poisoned in Withrow Park. One, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel named "t-bone," died. The city responded by enclosing the 21 acre park with a chain-link fence. No charges were ever laid in the incident.
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Posted by Editor on 02/06
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Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Can We Prevent Another Withrow Park Closure?
The discovery a week ago of a bag of bullets in Riverdale park signed, "Rx for Pit Bulls" reminds us that not everyone out there has a healthy respect for dogs or the law. Last year's poisoning and subsequent closure of Withrow Park is an event that none of us want to experience again. The question we might ask Riverdale residents given this latest incident is how dog owners and the rest of the community can learn to coexist.
Are dog owners respecting the rules of the park?
As a community, are we flexible enough to accommodate the growing trend of dog ownership and its associated impact on the local infrastructure?
Communities change and good communities are capable of adjusting to those changes. What are your thoughts? Are we doing enough? What can the city do to help prevent these kinds of incidents?
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Posted by Editor on 01/05
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Sunday, June 06, 2004
Bottom Up Government
This article by Gary Imhoff (themail@dcwatch.com) discusses the power of bottom up government. New technologies, like the blog software that powers this site, get us closer to a model for participatory democracy. Will it work? Read on:
We're used to the minimalist argument for democracy, the argument that even though the mindless masses are stupid as cattle (nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public, right?), it's still better to let people participate to some degree in their own self-governance. Let them vote every two or four years, and then let the experts who know better make all the decisions between elections. Certainly, that's the assumption behind the way local government is conducted in DC. Whether it's building a baseball stadium, redeveloping entire neighborhoods of the city, or running the public schools, experts and the special interests meet with the bureaucrats and the elected officials, and when the plans are completed, they are either sold to the public in medicine-show tents disguised as town hall forums or passed so fast the public doesn't become aware of them until after they are a done deal. Things are done this way because the experts and the special interests and
the bureaucrats and the elected officials know that they know best ò they know that the public couldn't have anything of value to contribute to the process.
Well, the minimalist argument for democracy is all wet. Democracy works because the people, the stupid mob, the ignorant crowd, are smarter and make better decisions than all the experts and special interests and bureaucrats and elected officials combined. Let me recommend a book. James Surowiecki, a columnist for the New Yorker and Slate.com, has written The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations. Here's how the publisher's web site describes its central idea: "large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant " better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future (
http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0-375-43362-7). The review in the Christian Science Monitor explains: "As counterintuitive as it sounds, however, the mathematics work so long as Surowiecki's three key criteria: independence, diversity, and decentralization" are satisfied. "If you ask a large enough group,'" he says, 'to make a prediction or estimate a probability,' the errors they make cancel each other out. 'Subtract the error, and you're left with the information.' In this fashion, the TV studio audience of 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,' guessed the right answer to questions 91 percent of the time, torching the 'experts,' who guessed the right answer only 65 percent of the time (
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0525/p15s02-bogn.html).
If you want an informed, intelligent, wise decision on matters of public policy, leave the decision making to the much despised "masses" to us. If you want bad government, leave it to the small, closed circles of people meeting behind closed doors who make the decisions now.
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Posted by Editor on 06/06
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Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Should Government Have To Pay The Whole Tab?
Project for Public Spaces (PPS) | Public Parks, Private Partners
There are new ways to pay for the costs associated with upgrading our urban parks. This book, "Public Parks, Private Parteners," was published by the Project for Public Spaces. This publication illustrates how public and private interests can come together to pay for park improvements.
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Posted by Editor on 05/25
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Thursday, May 06, 2004
Toronto's Waterfront History
Before Khadafi came to power in Libya, Tripoli was known as the jewel of the Mediterranean because of the beauty of its waterfront boulevards. Beauty, however, can be dangerous especially when it references a colonial code that has just been overthrown. Khadafi's social revolution obliterated the legacy of the old political order by crushing the boulevards under a bleak shipping terminal that stretched far into the Mediterranean.
What does that have to do with Toronto's waterfront? When there were no railways in Toronto's core, the waterfront was accessible and the young city on the edge of Canada's wilderness aspired to its own grand boulevard on a picturesque harbour. We know what happened to that vision. Toronto's waterfront was in-filled and industrialized once the railways severed the city from the lake. Due to an industrial rather than a social revolution, our waterfront was destroyed and Torontonians searching for natural beauty had to go north to cottage country.
After more than a century we are being presented with an opportunity to re-beautify the waterfront. We all want it. Going to the cottage to find a piece of nature is a dream for most of us not to mention being environmentally harmful on a large scale. Why then are we unable to agree on an effective waterfront plan? What is preventing our governments from taking the money they have allocated and moving ahead with a sound vision? Why is the public good stymied by inefficient, quasi-political organizations like the Toronto Harbourfront Commission? Who gave these people the power to squander this rare opportunity to reconnect with Lake Ontario and add a social amenity to our city? Does anyone have the answer? We would like to know.
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Posted by Editor on 05/06
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Sunday, April 11, 2004
The Politics Of Placemaking
Making Places, September 2003: Feature Story
"You can't create great places without getting people involved from the bottom up, but it certainly helps to have friends at the top." The UK is making its public spaces, "Cleaner, Safer, Greener." Can Toronto and other North American cities learn from the British? Read this article and find out.
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Posted by Editor on 04/11
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Tuesday, April 06, 2004
The Mathematics Of Urban Theory
"Theory of the Urban Web", by Nikos A. Salingaros
Nikos Salingaros paper, "Theory of the Urban Web," gives a mathematical description of the priciples underlying good urban design. While not specifically focused on parks, the concepts he discusses in this easy to understand work help us appreciate how urban parks fit into the complex web of day to day human activity and help make cities livable.
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Posted by Editor on 04/06
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Thursday, April 01, 2004
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Why Invest In Downtown Amenities?
Imagine Toronto with a Detroit-like centre. Not a pleasant thought but one that is becoming increasingly likely. Why? Our downtown neighbourhood infrastructure was paid for long ago, yet, because of amalgamation and expansion, our tax dollars go to pay for infrastructure and amenities in North York and beyond (remember when Queen's Park said amalgamation would save Toronto money?). Developments there may never be self-sustaining given the much lower density and tax base. So, our tax dollars effectively go into the destruction of some of the best farmland and watersheds in Canada. What does that have to do with urban parks? Sooner or later we will hit a tipping point where the cost of living downtown will no longer be offset by the attraction of our urban amenities. Urban parks like Withrow are a key reason why people choose to live in downtown communities. If the City stops investing in them it will be one more reason to move out of the core. When that trend begins it will not take long for Toronto's centre to decay. Property values will drop. To the people who say we cannot afford to improve our urban parks, remember, the alternative is far more expensive.
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Posted by Editor on 03/30
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Monday, March 29, 2004
End Of The Affair?
Yesterday, more than one-hundred Riverdale residents turned out for the initial public meeting of W.I.N., the Withrow Improvement Network. Toronto Architects James Brown and Kim Storey started the meeting with a brief history of why Toronto parks look the way they do, followed with samples of urban parks from Canada, the U.S., and Europe. Brown and Storey's talk gave context to a spirited community discussion on possible alternatives for Withrow Park. Many people who attended expressed interest in joining W.I.N.. Congratulations to Joe Murray, Rob Roberts, and Sarah Bonsall for their work in organizing yesterday's very positive and successful meeting. W.I.N.'s web site,
www.withrowpark.org will have more information about the meeting and about how people can get involved with the Network.
What about this site? The Park Affair is retiring, in a way. Rather than being a Withrow specific discussion site,
http://www.theparkaffair.com will focus on providing a forum for information on urban parks in general with an emphasis on non-traditional uses like leash free areas, etc. Thanks to the many people who got involved and who contributed to The Park Affair. Your comments helped all of us overcome the effects of a pathetic criminal act and allowed for a better understanding of the multiple voices that give shape to our community.
Robert Ouellette
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Posted by Editor on 03/29
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