The same must be true for anyone commuting to and from work. I mean, you can make the best of a traffic jam, but who in their right mind would enjoy it? At least, who would rather spend their time sitting idle in traffic then doing something (anything) outside the confines of their commuting can?
The way in which one confronts a weekend getaway from the city creates a similar amount of stress and displeasure as the daily commute. Measures are taken to minimize the time one has to spend on the road, like plotting to leave work early; strategicly evaluating which route out of the city should be taken after consulting the latest traffic and weather reports, the advice of friends and coworkers, and the stars; and praying to whatever gods or spirits they choose. But, in
Last weekend my cousin Eric, his friend Abby, and myself borrowed our roommate’s van for day-trip to an apple orchard to pick apples. It was a mini-escape type of venture that took us through the congestion of Saturday afternoon downtown traffic and the sprawl of suburbia before coming into the rolling hills, open farm pastures and fields of the communities to the north-east of the city.
The place we went, Algoma Orchards, was pretty busy, eventhough it was late in the season. The sky was a mix of clear blue, fluffy white clouds, and dark fat-bellied thunderheads, and the nip of winter cold was distinct in the air. Relatively few apples remained on the trees and the sweet, musty smell of rotting apples that had fallen to the ground swirled in the wind that blew through the orchard. The apples which remained on the trees were mostly on the topmost branches, safe from the reach of the children and adults who infest the trees like some kind of biblical plague every weekend.
We sauntered the aisles falling upon any good cluster of fruit that we could see, because at first apples seemed to be scarce. Then, as we made our way into the rows further away from the parking lot, we found trees still full of apples! At this time we were overcome, and in an act of pure opulence and waste, began to take single bites from different kinds of apples to see if we liked them enough to pick more. Upon realizing our frivolousness, we realized that many of the apples already on the ground were victims of the same mentality. We rationalized (a useful method for guilty sinners) that the apples we threw away would become the winter fodder for deer, birds, and other animals, though I don’t think we really knew.
As we walked back to the parking lot, I thought about the simple act of picking apples and how it’s one way that denizens of the city are able to reconnect, if briefly, to the source of their food. It isn’t that the concept of “pick your own” farms is new. However, their continuing popularity says something to me: people are interested in being part of the process that brings food into their homes. A quick search on the Internet reveals a bunch of such places where you can pick everything from pumpkins to peaches. One site offered contact info for farms around the world, www.pickyourown.org. Hell! Some farmers actually CHARGE people for the privilege of coming to do their work! Granted, for many people, perhaps this is simply a novel way to spend an afternoon like going to see a movie; they don’t necessarily learn anything about how orchards work by coming to pick. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be a big leap for them to ask about it, if they were interested. And, any time you bring children to a new environment different from what used to the city, there is likely to be lots of curiosity about how things work.
First, what is Toronto? Toronto isn’t just one city. In 1996 Toronto and several of the surrounding municipalities (including Scarborogh, Etobicoke, North York, and East York) amalgamated to form the MEGA CITY of Toronto as a way of reducing overlapping services and cut costs. Which, though it caused a bit of a furor at the time, was probably a good idea. Mega Toronto is part of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) which is made up of 25 municipalities. According to Wikipedia, the GTA is the 7th largest metropolitan area in North America; it covers 7,100 square kilometers and has a population of over 5.7 million people.
In short? Toronto is big.
Here lies Toronto’s major problem. The GTA is one of the more striking examples of what happens when urban sprawl goes wrong. In the post World War II years, as Toronto proper continued to grow in importance, obviously the number of workers needed grew too. And so began the build up of the adjacent municipalities which would become the bedroom communities housing these workers, now commuters. This sprawl created the nightmare of suburbia across North America which would go on to provide a seemingly endless source of teenage angst and frustration, a major theme in popular music from the 1970s right up to now. Sure, there were lots of nice houses on nice streets with nice strip malls close by, but there was/is very little in the way of real "community."
Why? As asserted by people like Jane Jacobs and the makers of End of Suburbia, people didn’t want to build the existing urban corps more densely so they just moved out of it; they all wanted to have the illusion of life in the country without coming to terms with the reality that they lived a city life. This still holds true today.
This attitude helped delay the renewal of many urban communities and spaces because such issues weren’t in the interests of tax payers earning income from the city and taking it out to suburbia. Evidence of this dysfunction is still evident in crusades for more low income housing and preservation of important green spaces.
Other casualties of Toronto’s sprawl are the small towns and amazingly fertile farm lands which surrounded the city. They are perpetually in the shadow of the mega city.
So, sprawl and all the things that are associated with it (destruction of farm land and green space, traffic congestion, air pollution, and material waste) is the bad thing about Toronto. There is much that needs to be addressed in the city, however I think that it’s ironic while sprawl has ruined much of the periphery, it has left intact many of the neighbourhoods that make up the corps of the city itself (the parts that aren’t yet built up, but maybe should be, and maybe soon will be). Many of these neighbourhoods seem to have a very distinct culture and sense of community. I mean, there are the typical problems of theft (my neighbourhood apparently has the highest rate of bike theft in Canada), drugs, poverty, and homelessness. And Toronto’s troubles with its trash have been widely talked about. Yet the people here seem to be attentive. People I pass on the street meet my eyes and smile of their own volition, and it's not because I’m falling over my feet. There is a rich cultural mix to the demographics of the city. Many of the old regal houses have been converted to apartments and are well maintained. The residential streets have big trees- very big, old, shady trees. There are parks. There are services close by. There is decent public transit: buses, subway trains, trains, and STREET CARS (I will reserve my complaints about the cost of transit for another time). They have wet bins to sort out organic waste material. They only collect garbage once every two weeks; yet, they collect organic waste every week. In my neighborhood (Little Italy) and the Annex people have window boxes and flower gardens, and in their back yards they have vegetable gardens growing. There are bike lanes and many people commute on them on bikes of all varieties, from the old, creaking, rusted out bike to the swankiest duded up race bike. OH! And there are girls, lots of girls, on bikes looking very dignified like empresses on Arabian horses. There is every kind of food that you could possibly want to eat at little restaurants close to you. There are little corner stores close by too, as well as shops like bakers, butchers, laundromats, dry cleaners, and tailors. And, there is easy access to a multitude of museums, cinemas, galleries, theatres, and venues for live music.
In the end, I guess it depends on what you are looking for in a place to live. And I suppose that's how my perspective on Toronto has changed: I now understand and accept that most every city, town, or place to live has its pros and cons. For my part, I’ve always been a small town boy. And coming from the life I was living while working with Dan on the road and being in more remote areas, I guess I was expecting to find the transition to life in Toronto more difficult. Rather, it’s been surprising how much I like living in Toronto. I mean, I'm certainly still in the honeymoon phase of my relationship with the city: all starry-eyed and overwhelmed by my new environment. But, I expected to be pining for the road and for the experiences that the road will be continuing to unfold to Dan. Well, I am, but not as intensely as I thought I would. Yet, I'm interested by my new surroundings and whether there is real substance to life in Toronto after all, or if it is just a beautiful window dressing for a lie. I’m interested to think about how, what is basically a city state, is going to evolve and whether it is going to provide an example not just for other Canadian cities, but Canadian communities and thereby world communities who aspire to move out of twentieth century urbanism. Or rather, if it is going to remain a place associated with waste, egocentrism, and money grubbing.
Stay tuned. I’m back online.