A city in continuous modernization, home of Google’s titanic “Sidewalk” project, Toronto is attracting more and more Canadians, but it is also dividing. We have put down our bags and gotten caught up in this city of remarkable and controversial change.
Many urban planners have looked at this city: its true testing ground for urban innovation makes it Canada’s new Eldorado. This English-speaking capital is innovative, pioneering, ambitious, cosmopolitan and above all multicultural, … so many attractions that have enabled the city to radically transform itself. The province that was called York just two centuries ago no longer has much to do with what it is today. And in order to build itself, the city undertakes many changes by involving its inhabitants in them. But while this affluent city attracts people, it is also a city that many Torontonians are afraid of: voices are raised against its big projects and its astronomical prices. This multi-faceted city therefore deserves to be highlighted!
From simple province to world city
We had left the Quebec metropolis with nostalgia. Although geographically close, the two rivals showed us a very different facet of each other: Toronto is opposed to Montreal by its more rigid appearance. Montreal’s human warmth dissipates when one arrives in the financial capital of Canada: the city at first glance gives the impression of being that of the great players who take possession of it. But while Montreal has charmed us with its colourful appearance that leaves the “right to the city” to its inhabitants, Toronto has no shortage of resources to seduce us in its turn.
Toronto has offered us a cultural diversity that will probably be hard to find elsewhere. Lara Muldoon, Head of Partnerships, Engagement and Projects at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities comments, Toronto is a city of neighborhoods, each with its own unique character and personality. Neighborhoods have strong identities, and a change of street is all it takes to change the mood. From Kensington Market to Yonge Eglinton, there’s a whole world out there: from small local grocery stores to skyscrapers, it’s just a few steps to discover another facet of the city. And we found this diversity on our plates: Montreal’s gastronomy had left us hungry; Toronto’s was there to satisfy our appetite.
And with good reason! Toronto has been a true land of welcome for many migrants since the end of the Second World War, and this has contributed to the city’s unique construction. At the same time, the inhabitants gradually settled in new suburbs. As a result, the city has grown. And as the city has become a megalopolis, many actors are working to create and maintain links and to encourage citizens to take ownership of the city.
Informing and consulting: a real political will to involve all inhabitants
Carried by the city in collaboration with many organizations, the programs are built with the inhabitants. Our meeting with Daniel Fusca, head of public consultation in Toronto’s Parks, Forests and Recreation Department, gave us an insight into this desire to co-construct the city with all residents. The citizen consultations are numerous and inspiring.
Among them, “Planners in Public Spaces” is a citizen engagement initiative in urban planning that has been supported by the municipality in recent years. The goal was to give Torontonians the opportunity to express themselves on city issues with planners. The principle was simple: three times a year, the city offered residents the opportunity to talk with planners around a table in a park, on the street or at the market. This allowed the inhabitants to give their comments and the town planners to adjust their urban planning projects.
A few months ago, “My City Too”, led by 880 cities and EcoKids in close collaboration with the City of Toronto, helped to create a more child-friendly city by promoting free outdoor play and independent mobility. For too long, the city has tended to view traffic as a threat to children’s safety and well-being. In response to this finding, the agencies in charge of this programme have reviewed numerous studies, interviewed experts and exchanged views with parents and children. The program resulted in ten recommendations for making Toronto a more child-friendly city.
But while these citizen consultations are inspiring, they are not new and raise the question of representativeness. Who really participates in these consultations? Is the sample consulted truly representative of the entire population? These are questions that Toronto City Hall has asked itself. In response to these questions, the Toronto Planning Review Panel gave new impetus to the citizen consultations. Launched in 2015, this initiative has improved public engagement and intelligently informed certain urban planning choices by giving a voice to the entire population — certain segments of the population that had long been sidelined.
How does it work? About 30 people are randomly selected to serve a two-year term. Specifically, more than 10,000 Torontonians received a letter in November 2017 (for the constitution of the second panel) inviting them to apply to become members of the new panel. More than 400 residents applied to participate in this program and about 30 people were selected to ensure that the panel was representative of the population as a whole. This process ensures a diversity of profiles.
Toronto, whose strength lies in its multiculturalism, has for too long tended to forget this; these panels allow us to hear from all the communities that live together in the city, including Aboriginal communities. As we have been told many times, the people who take part in the citizen consultations are mostly white men over 50 years of age: far from representing the city’s diversity. It therefore seemed essential to succeed in capturing those who do not participate naturally in order to give them the means to be heard in turn.
In the same vein, Park People, a non-profit organization whose goal is to “activate the power of parks in the city,” invites Torontonians to participate in the transformation of their parks. They are doing so by providing grants ($2,000 CAD) and support to project leaders throughout the project’s implementation. Park People is committed to serving all communities with a special focus on disadvantaged communities. “We need to reach out to these communities. They’ve never applied for grants before, they’ve never done programming, … They often don’t think they’re “up to it” to apply for funding. They often don’t think they’re ‘up to it’ to apply for funding,” explains Minaz Asani-Kanji, Broadcast Manager at Park People.
Like Park People, many community centres hold workshops to explain how the city works and how to get involved. This approach aims to encourage more people, with a variety of stories, to participate in the life of their urban environment.
As these latest initiatives bear witness, the city is now reflecting on a model to go beyond “simple” consultation. Based on the spectrum of public participation proposed by IAP2, the challenge is to go beyond the stage of information and consultation to successfully involve, collaborate and delegate.
A controversial consultation in the spotlight
In Toronto today, one project is in the international spotlight: the Quayside Smart Neighborhood, designed by Google’s sister company Sidewalk Labs. Launched at the end of 2017 following a call for projects led by Waterfront Toronto, the company in charge of revitalizing the city’s riverbanks, this project will reach a major turning point in a few days: its approval or rejection. This project, which has been the subject of numerous public consultations, has therefore aroused our interest.
We met with many actors who seem hesitant about the “relevance” of the public consultations conducted by the private actor. One of them explained to us that “the consultation for the Sidewalk Labs project was bad. They had all the tools to carry out a good consultation, but the question for me was how did it all fit together? The process was not transparent! I wonder where my feedback was going? “. This same person adds that an effective consultation process must be iterative and transparent: “There must be points of contact with the public, you must confirm that what you heard was correct, you must agree together on the point of progress in order to move forward. And that was not the case”.
So, if Sidewalk Labs had deployed many means to interact with Torontonians, we can’t help but wonder about the purpose of these consultations and Google’s real willingness beyond wanting to consult Torontonians to co-construct this neighbourhood project. What about all this data retrieved during the “open discussions”? The opacity concerning the follow-up of these public consultations leaves some of the residents sceptical about the giant’s approach.
Thus, while the municipality has demonstrated a real willingness to involve all Torontonians, we must remain vigilant with regard to the interest shown by certain private actors.
“A Mosaic City”
Toronto is a city that is committed with its people and for its people. As a growing city, it faces significant challenges, and fortunately it has many resources to meet them, among them the rich diversity of its people. The city and community organizations have understood this: their initiatives have helped to rebalance the representativeness of the city and thus enable city planners to take a more accurate look at the city. We have discerned this through our various meetings: there is not one Toronto, but an infinite number of Toronto. But if this diversity is a true richness, it must be nuanced. We liked the description of Rachel Lissner, the founder of the Young Urbanists League (among others), “Toronto is a mosaic”; the communities live side by side but an effort still needs to be made to strengthen cohesion and unification. Rachel Lissner adds, “Diversity is a richness for the city but there is a lack of unification, a common identity. In order to build the city we want, it is essential that people come together”.
An article to be found on the website Envies de villes by Nexity : https://www.enviesdeville.fr/penser-la-ville/toronto-lurbanisme-en-perpetuelle-mutation/
