How you can save Windsor
How similar are the issues in North American Cities. Here’s an edit of someone elses article. Its difficult writing articles when others can express the sentiments better
Forget pointing fingers and make your own investment in our city
By Rob Granastein
Saving Toronto. Windsor
Sounds like a massive project.
Maybe an assignment too large to swallow.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
But that’s what Toronto Windsor needs.
In this city we have more than enough people willing to point fingers, lay blame, look the other way, or not be engaged at all.
But that’s not what saves a city.
What saves a city is elbow grease. It’s people, it’s initiative, it’s wanting to do better and be better.
So I’m asking for an investment in our city from you. That’s personally and financially. Time, money, energy, enthusiasm, whatever you have to offer.
It’s amazing when it happens. I see it in my neighbourhood. It took more than a decade and it missed a whole generation of kids growing up.
But now we have a great playground thanks to the phenomenal work of a few local residents.
I see it in and around my own house.
We’re unhappy with our local stretch of Danforth Avenue Pelissier, so we’ve teamed up with many of our neighbours to start a new community association. In a few short months weeks these go-getters have generated excitement, new ideas and are pushing hard to bring vitality to the street.
It would be nice if the city helped, not hindered, these groups.
Just knowing your neighbours these days seems to be a major accomplishment in Toronto Windsor.
At the Toronto Sun we’re Local Newspaper, they’re proud to be a community partner in many initiatives, from Caribana to the 20-Minute Makeover. Most local festivals to the W.E. Can Campaign
It’s happening on a larger scale, too, as government and corporations have come together to provide a cultural renaissance in this city.
The new and improved Royal Ontario Museum, Gardiner Museum, opera house, Young Centre for the Performing Arts, and the under-construction Art Gallery of Ontario Caesars Convention Center and Entertainment arena, The WFCU arena, Riverfront Peace Beacon, New Ouellette Streetscape, tree and decorative Lights and the 160 soon to be installed Flower Planters are refreshing the face of this city.
BEST AND BRIGHTEST
It’s the arts, culture, sports and recreation venues that could help a city not only attract, but keep, the best and brightest people and corporations.
Toronto needs to be a desirable place to live, work and play.
That’s not to say there aren’t problems. We just can’t be defined by them.
Our city is not as clean as it used to be. The homeless panhandling problem is a boil right on our face. Toronto Windsor is safe for most of us, but especially dangerous for youths growing up in the city’s most troubled neighbourhoods, and that’s unacceptable.
The gap between rich and poor, what’s affordable and unaffordable continues to grow, and the price of food is set to skyrocket.
As the price of oil soars, the benefits of living close to work and public transit increase exponentially.
So does the price of housing. While our residential property tax rate housing prices remains a relative bargain, the cost of buying to take advantage of that low rate nullifies its value for people who don’t already own. The city’s land-transfer tax exacerbates that cost if you’re not a first-time homebuyer. The land use policies that encourage sprawl and the complete lack of financial incentives for those wanting to redevelop and live in the core prevent smart growth
This city has, in many ways, stagnated. We find ways not to get things done. At City Hall and Queen’s Park, we find paralysis by analysis too often.
It takes far too long for anything to get done in this city. Finally, the waterfront effort is about to take shape. But how long until it’s a viable part of this city? How long before people start moving next to it in meaningful numbers. Probably another five to seven three to five years at least.
The priorities of our politicians seem at odds with the needs of the city.
The TTC is stalled. Instead of incremental building of the subway system, everything came to a grinding halt after the Sheppard stump finished construction.
The TTC has been far too slow to integrate new technology. As for cleanliness, it’s a disaster, but that’s our fault, not the Red Rocket’s. We need to take responsibility for ourselves.
The limping rocket ride transit system means people have no urgency to get out of their cars, leading to cost innefficiencies
Our recreation facilities core housing development policies are like our transit system, outdated, overcrowded and aching for new investment.
One part of our investment, Saving Toronto Windsor, starts today. We hope you
join in. Invest in this city. You get out of it what you put in.
Post Feedback
I agree. No need to point fingers. We need to work together. Having the WFCU Centre service the local community is a great idea. It leaves open the opportunity to build a 9,090 seat arena downtown to service the Essex & Chatham-Kent County Region.
Amen to that! We spend so much money on big ticket items we are forgetting about the small things that make big differences like a good parks and rec’s budget.
What happened to the investments in our neighbourhood? Instead we are seeing the opposite. The reason? We need the money for big items like a tunnel deal, lawyers to fight the multitudes of perceived lawsuits, fighting lawsuits against those who were trying to help us in the first place.
One of the biggest issues is that Windsor does have a lot of people willing to chip in. The problem is that we have a city hall (no not all who work there nor all of the councillors) that ignores the same people who want to make a change for the better.
Telling people that the “free ride is over” while gobbling down taxpayer lamb chops does not promote a healthy environment.
Saying “save water” and then increasing bills so that it doesn’t matter if yoiu conserve or not, your bill is going up much higher doesn’t make people even want to conserve regardless of the environmental payoff.
What we need is for a city hall to embrace these people. The same people who often work at no cost other than to see their city become what they know it can. The same people who put in thousands of hours a year and thousands of dollars of their own money to improve their community. The time has come to STOP ignoring these people and to embrace them, to understand them. It is time to quit makiing excuses and start to listen to the residents of this city.
Mark, with the amount of RSS feeds I get daily on sprawl, sustainability, walkable etc., what you edited above can be done to any article it seems. It has become a North American plague of writing about the failure of our cities and what to do about them. What is interesting it the same problems!
We all have the same problems is the moral of my story. I agree and disagree with you Urbanrat. What I did could be done to any article and I will probably continue use this easy out of not having to publish my own articles.
But I disagree with your characterization of what it is. I see it as a way for us to connect to other cities. This is an example, like G.L.U.E. about the fact that we’re not alone in Windsor.
I get the feeling from the critics that somehow our issues are more difficult or our people are more to blame and this finger pointing has got to stop.
We all have the same problems. Today I read a blog that was particularly nasty. It got real personal, it was part of the “miasma” (my new favorite word) that plagues our city.
How do you fight that kind of mean spirited talk. Do you ignore it, do you call it out. I prefer calling it out but some get angrey at me for doing so, trying to use free speech as a defense. They say I should rise above it.
well,here’s my free speech
I have to say it, I can’t hold it back. Its intellectual terrorism. not because its intellegence, but because it uses information(intelligence) to terrorize our city.
How do differentiate it from other bloggers? Easy. if you consistently feel angry and sick after reading it, you’re a victim of intellectual terrorism. If your cynicism has increased, you’re a victim
I’ll keep saying it. People attribute bad policy to bad motives when in reality bad policy is mostly the result of bad judgement of the situation. Stop making it personal as we all have to look our kids in the eye and explain to them why the “jack*ss” on the blog is saying we’re the bad guy
Mark, you’re right in saying that it is time for cities to connect and possibly work together for the betterment of all who live in cities, which now has become a global situation/crisis. What I attempted to say is that the patient has woken up out of a coma, to realize that it is dying, that it can’t support the continual unregulated sprawl that put the cities on life support for almost seventy years.
It is not that the right diagnosis wasn’t there, everyone it seems from mayors, city planners, developers and the consumers were on drunken binge, the building spree would go on forever! When actually all the underlying facts to the cancer and its generation were there in its own growth, that eventually the growth of the tumor will kill the body!
Cities through history have always mattered in the ways that Jane Jacobs has pointed out time and again, they are the womb of innovation, culture et al, not the limbs and arteries. If by posting articles on what other cities are doing in coping with sudden diagnosis of a dying heart is terrorism, then it is a good sense of intellectual warfare in presenting more information than one city administration, city planning department or a citizen can handle in a day. I fully believe that the more ideas, attempts to overcome the miasma of our critical condition is better than having no idea, insight or challenge to bring it all to a point of action in resuscitating the patient. Rules for Radicals( a book form the 79’s), identify the problem, state the problem, organize the problem into action, act, and keep the problem front and centre.
Is it terrorism to point out this city’s recent decisions to allow the go ahead to build even more sprawling enhanced big box stores on either end of this city, when we are trying to revitalize the core of this city with retail, with people living here etc. That with the current conditions of fuel supply and its prices that such development can’t be sustained. I don’t think so!
Mayors, city planners are aware of the reality but yet, at least in this city the facts of our present situation are doing nothing about it or making bad decisions.Then who can do something about it, the citizen(s)? Citizens can demand change if they have more facts and arguments and the knowledge that they aren’t alone in this world, that there are concerned citizens around the world at this time demanding a change in the conversation, that the status quo can’t be sustained.
But we haven’t as citizens come to a critical mass…yet, in demanding that things must change for the welfare of all in this city and region. Yes, there are angry citizens out there, they are just as confused as city officials on what course of action to take, where to start, if the whole city is in denial in that the world as we have known it, is changing more rapidly than we can cope or change, yes people want action, they want solutions, supplying those ideas and what other cities are attempting only holds out hope that we are not alone in this sudden diagnosis of a city on life support.
PS: When Chris started this, then blog now website, with his education and training, and seeing that things must change in this city in which like all of us deeply care for, was an act of terrorism in a sense, that he saw a problem(s) that the city can’t sustain itself and it stepped out of the norm of thinking prevalent in this and it seems all cities in North America and acted alone in a single act of concern, which wasn’t being heard or addressed in this city.
If pointing out a problem or a situation is an act of terrorism, then so be it!
Its not terrorism to criticise as a means to an end, it is wrong when criticism becomes an end in itself
There has to be more to the conversation than Mayor Bad, ABC good.
The newest biggest development over there is that now the Windsor Star who, separately, from their writers and editorials, do so much to support this community is now under attack. as a disclosure Windsor star sponsors the Film Festival event I am involved in along with so many other ones. They are now sponsoring the W.E. CAN Campaign and are being attacked for trying to help. That just really sucks.
Yeah, we should just ignore it, whatever, and all that.
MArk, I will kindly disagree with you about The Windsor Star. They are being PAID to champion Windsor. That is NOT to say that they don’t suppport Windsor causes because they do. But they also get free advertising fro it as well. It is as much a business approach as it is a donation approach.
Do you not find it odd that there is a relationship between the Mayor’s office and that of the Editor of the Star? It wouldn’t be so odd if we see constructive criticism on behalf of The Star towards the Mayor’s office when it is justified. However, we rarely if ever see this.
The same could not be said about Mike Hurst, our former Mayor. he was attacked consistently by The Star yet made far fewer gaffs than our current Mayor. Sure Hurst spent money like a drunken sailor but he tried to make changes for the better (and most didn’t turn out that way).
Our current Mayor has micro-managed this city to death. We have see no movement forward other than a knee-jerk reaciton to the arena to save face (forget the 20 year sessions, this arena came to light because Toldo and McNamara put our elected officials in the corner). Other than that we now have an administration that calls the shots though un-elected. Council looks to them for adivse but are told what they can and cannot do. Just look at last nights downtown debate. Diane Sibley was filleting the steak so well I thought no one was going to get out of there before midnight.
The Star magically had an “Editor’s reply” on Saturday calling for a positive movement to happen. All well and good but give the residents something to be positive about and they will speak of it. To tell them to speak about it, rather demand they speak about it, speaks of elitism. When that same reply is attached to Greenlink’s campaign on taxpayers dime then once again we see the real connection; That being The Star was paid to reply.
I would lik eot see a more balanced approach to the reporting about what happens in this city especially with regards otthe mayor and council. When they do wrong, report it, when they do well report it. I dont think that is too much to ask do you?
As for other bloggers, if they have a personal vendetta that is their business and thier blog to do what they wish. But in-fighting amongst bloggers does no one any good, especially the blogger world when it comes to being recognized as a legitimate news source.
Mark consistently fails to recognise the purpose of “political” blogs and attempts to equate, as the Mayor does, criticism of the politics with criticism of the city.
Unfortunately for Mr. Boscariol, they are two separate entities - but Mr. Boscariol knows exactly why he equates the two as one.
Frankly, Mr. Boscariol’s obsession with other bloggers and their own unique styles is curious at most. As I have bluntly told him, his continued attacks only serve to promote and undermine his own credibility.
I call a spade a spade, but I also do not go out there, holier than thou and self-righteous doing exactly what I criticise.
Mr. Boscariol calls this “free speech,” but it is also free speech wrapped in hypocrisy.
Democracy is founded upon opposing viewpoints coming together in consensus - parliamentary tradition rests on opposition - it is only through criticism and opposition that sound public policy is developed.
As I’ve directed at Mr. Boscariol, I let his ever shifting positions stand for themselves - as that in of itself speaks louder than he ever could.
But the same applies to myself and other bloggers. We are in control of our credibility. If what we say is offensive or “insulting” - readers will be the judge of that.
It’s clear that Mr. Boscariol doesn’t like mine and another blog - get over it.
But at least we are upfront with our statements, and Mr. Boscariol fully understands what I mean by this.
Our words will judge us, our actions define us.
That said, I do enjoy reading scaledown - I may not agree with everything stated (which is fine in my books) but it does get me thinking.
I don’t equate your criticism of the politics to criticism of the city. I’ve repeatedly said that my issue is that people attribute bad policy to bad intention when that is almost always not the case. It is normally the case of bad judgement of the situation. And personal attacks normally do not make someone reconsider their position, only entrench them in it defensively
I actually like your blog, just disagree with some of the ways you go about things sometimes. and no I don’t understand in the slightest what you imply by the upfront statements
You want me to get over my obsessions when an entire blog exists for a singular intention of “Mayor bad, ABC good”. And you call me hypocritical?
O.k. folks. Once again you need to be separated. Don’t you all realize that this is what certain politicians want? The dividing of the bloggers? You are all playing into their hands. All Blogs have a purpose and that purpose works in many different ways. There is no need to go on the attack against anyone.
One thing I will say for Mr. Boscariol is that he does know when to say he was wrong. I have yet to see that from most people that I meet on a daily basis. If he has changed his stance (to which I applaud because to be steadfast even when proven wrong it just plain stubbornnes) then it is because he has learned something. Most people do not even come close to having that characteristic.
So please for the sake of the blogosphere stop the petty bickering it undermines ALL OF YOU and only strengthens the one’s who don’t want to see the blogs around.
Thanks.
I get it ME, and the odd thing is that I really do respect Chris’s blog. I’d like to say more but will stop
I first would like to say i agree with Me in that arguing amongst your selves will accomplish nothing.With that said i was very impressed with the residents of downtown.I listened and realy under stood where they were comming from.It wasnt rocket science and yet some of the council people must of been asleep.They wanted to make a mountain out of a mole hill. I thought the residents had truly done their homework.It seemed to me that some of council had heard this for the first time.I belive that its time for a change in council.Time for some young new blood,people who get it who live in the downtown area.Who live it every day.Im pleased that council did infact pass this the new bylaw one small step for mankind.Lets keep going and save this downtown it should belong to everyone not just the bars ,niteclubs,stripbars.What about up comming children its aheart warming feeling to hear children laughing and playing outside.A sound im afraid hasnt been heard in downtown Windsor for many years.
Today’s radio show spent the entire hour on the topic of the residents association. We covered a great deal of topics.
We mainly focused on the fact that now the 4am is passed, what do we do to make it work better.
What do we talk to police about?
licencing?
the DWBIA camera program?
the clean team?
Neighborhood Watch?
Neighborhood Block Parties?
Streetscape (lighting)?
DWBIA grants to fill storefronts?
Residential recruitment on Pelissier?