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Originally Posted by Janey
I love your story Tiberious (!). You do have a real sense of place. It's funny how people gravitate to the familiar. I ended up in The Beaches area of toronto, and mostly because of its connection with the water. And it's feel. I lived in Kitsilano while in Vancouver, and while going to Queen's I was in the lakefront area of Kingston. To me The Beaches brought back all of that, except that there is more of a neighbourhood feel here than the impersonal-ness of Kitsilano, and much more of a cross section of activity than there was in the (primarily sophomoric) environment of the Queen's student ghetto.
The neighbours on my street actually party together. We convene for impromptu verandah parties or BBQs where much booze and pot goes around. Many kids of all ages ( toddlers through university) live on the street, so it is very vibrant, and the parents are a cross section of blue collar (school custodians) throught to white (laywers and film producers). There are two gay families, one with adopted children, and three mixed race families (chinese/white, black/white, chinese/philippino). Last July 1, we collected over $500 amongst us, and put on a fireworks display with pulled pork BBQ in the middle of our street for Canada Day.
I couldn't think of living anywhere else where I can go windsurfing and tobogganing on the same day (i really did this!!)
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We have parties on my street too, though I couldn't imagine my neighbours passing dubes around!! Usually in May all the neighbours are invited over to my next door neighbour's and in December to one or another neighbour's.
I am hoping to have my renovations done by next summer so I can invite them over.
The thing I love about living in an urban environment is the sense of neighbourhood, and the feel of the areas. I love the sound of the street cars, or the far off rumble of the CPR pulling out of Toronto West Junction at night. From my bedroom window I can hear the freights as they pull west along the track into the night. There is a very real sense of comfort in that sound.
What also amazes me about Toronto is how alive its inner core is. You can drive the length of Queen Street and there are literally thousands of shops with maybe three that are for rent. Same goes for Bloor, College, Dundas and all the rest of the inner city streets. In Toronto people WANT to live in the inner city, in an urban environment. I like how I can walk down to Bloor Street and the world is at my beckoning. I can find it all, and it never sleeps.
I could never see myself living a 905 existance now. Mini vans, freeways for streets, desolation, green fencing, and dust are that exists in the outlying burbs. Everything you do is predicated by the extensive use of an automobile. (At least Hamilton is a city unto itself (mind you a city that needs a whole heap of fixing, but that's another story)).
So many North American cities, in particualar in the USA, have suffered urban blight. When I meet Americans and I tell them that I live right in the city, they think I am nuts. To them, the American dream is a big house in the suburbs with an SUV in the double driveway and a huge green deck out back. To me, this isn't the American dream, it's the American nightmare.
Toronto has managed to avoid this urban rott half by luck and half by foresight. At one time the fools in local government had in mind extending the Gardiner Expressway right through the Beaches (it was going to be called the Scarborough Expressway). This is why the old Gardiner (before they tore it down) had an elevated stub at Leslie Street. They figured that the American model of living in the burbs and using expressways and interstates to "wisk" commuters home was the way of the future. God, if anything could be further from the truth. In truth, the development of expressways and urban one way streets leads to the death of a street and eventually the area. Streets become freeways complete with high speeds, noise pollution, and dust and grime.
Toronto right up until the 80's was also planning to build the Spadina Expressway. That's why when you are heading eastbound on the Gardiner right before Spadina, the lanes get reaallllyyy wide (where they planned the exit) and at one time they ripped out the old Spadina Street Car line (only to replace it in the 90's). They were going to loop that baby right overtop the Gardiner and right up Spadina. Can you imagine an elevated expressway running right up the middle of Spadina and another one cutting through the beaches to "wisk" commuters home to Scarborough and north to whereever?
Toronto could quite easily have ended up like any other American big city.
The last thing I would ever want to see in Toronto would be more expressways. Subways yes. I would love to see a Queen Street line from Vic Park to Sherway Gardens, and an Eglinton line from York City Centre to Laird, and another north south line on Keele and Vic Park. But expressways, nope. I wish that they would bury the Gardiner under the lake and build a nice green belt in place of what's there now.