Mimico waterfront: Another “wall of condos” disaster in the making?

In 1997 Doug Holyday, then mayor of Etobicoke, announced plans for a new neighbourhood: Humber Bay Shores. The former “motel strip” — a seedy area south of Lake Shore Blvd. W. and east of Park Lawn Rd. — saw its first new condo a year later.

Since then, highrises have sprouted like toadstools.

“There’s very large numbers of people in buildings that are just higgledy-piggledy scattered across that area. There’s no coherent pattern of public spaces, there’s no shopping or retail,” says Ken Greenberg, an architect and urban designer who has consulted for Waterfront Toronto.

“It’s one of the most egregious, terrible examples of lack of any kind of decent planning one can think of.”

Some may disagree. But many in Mimico — the next community over, where a massive revitalization plan known as “Mimico 20/20” is underway — look east to Humber Bay Shores as a warning.

“The multi-multi-multi-storey buildings? It scares me,” says Bob Poldon, president of the Mimico Residents Association.

…

Via The Star

Having lived in the area for several years, I truly believe that the high-rise condos on the water are the last thing Mimico needs.

Why can’t our city learn to capitalize on one of our greatest assets (the lake) and instead allows unimaginative, greedy developers permanently change the face of the city? Why are we building a shoebox of a city instead of a tourist destination?

Do you think ten years from now Toronto will take the top spot in National Geographic’s Top Trolley Rides? With a view of hideous concrete and glass – I doubt it.

Toronto doesn’t lack imagination – it lacks leadership to translate it to sound development policy.

Freiburg, Germany has become a stunning model of sustainability, thanks in part to Wulf Daseking, the city’s Head of Urban Planning since 1984.

For Professor Wulf Daseking, the City of Freiburg’s Head of Urban Planning, longevity and continuity aren’t just buzzwords on a whiteboard but themes to live and plan by. After 26 years at the helm of Germany’s Environmental Capital, Daseking embodies the notion of sustainability in a city that has seen only four planning directors since World War II.

However, the secret ingredient that earned Freiburg the Academy of Urbanism’s European City of the Year Award in 2010 is Daseking’s flair for bold and unconventional thinking. From Seepark, a former gravel pit turned recreational eco-park, to Wiehrebahnhof, an old train station cooperatively rebuilt into a thriving cultural arts center, the Professor’s fingerprints are all over the projects in the “you can’t do that” category.

Read the intervew

Our goal is to build a strong and vibrant transit advocacy group that gives a voice to the interests and concerns of the millions of us who use the TTC.

Are You Concerned about Transit in Toronto? Then Join the Crowd!

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Wednesday June 22nd, 2011
7:00pm – 9:00pm
North York Civic Centre
5100 Yonge Street (at North York Centre Subway station)
Committee Room 3

Paris, 1883

Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, 1876

Oakland visual and media artist Jeff Goodby has covered the Oak Avenue house with a series of enigmatic words, set in a typeface designed in the 1760s by John Baskerville. The effect is a combination of Harry Potter and Andy Warhol and has challenged the meaning of home and book alike.

http://poemhouse.org

Whenever it seems like there’s a surplus of doom and gloom running through the headlines, you hear about a story like this: at-risk teenagers staying in Covenant House, a homeless shelter in New York City, have set about cultivating green roofs on skyscrapers around the city. Their goal is to create a citywide “skyscraper garden” across Manhattan.

The teens recently completed the first stage of the project, done in collaboration with Seeding the City–planting a green roof on the ninth story of a building in midtown Manhattan.

Read the rest on TreeHugger

The French artist JR first made his mark in Rio de Janeiro last year, as giant posters of staring eyes started appearing on buildings in the city’s oldest favela. He was drawn there following the controversial deaths of three young men, amid alleged collusion between Brazilian soldiers and a drugs gang. But now JR’s work has made it on to some of Rio’s grander structures. Take a tour of the city with the artist himself, and meet the people who inspired him.

See the slideshow on BBC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUGLIYMVOaw

More on illegal signs in Toronto.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylOSGLhafho