Everything old is new again...

I read a great article in the Toronto Star over the weekend about the little details that essentially make up the bigger product, making it either a great product or one that just "works" -referring to Toronto as such.  The little details like sidewalks that are cleared in the winter, every surface route transit stop having a shelter and a store only a block away because of proper zoning in neighbourhoods are only scratching the surface when it comes to making a city work, and essentially making it great.  Toronto is on the cusp of a huge change, one that most don't recognize or even really understand, because most don't remember the Toronto of years ago.  I joke that I'm one of 5 people that were actually born and raised here in Toronto, everyone else migrated here from destinations far from the reach of the 416 or 905.
 The Toronto of yesterday had a downtown that was literally a ghost town on weekends.  I remember as a child going with my father to an institution in its time on what was once looked at as a backstreet, not a major artery to and from the downtown core.

 Lichtmans was a bookstore located on Adelaide where the new Bay Adelaide complex is now situated.  You could park on the street, scream at the top of your lungs, hell, run naked down the street, and only a hand full of people might hear or see you back then.  I remember sitting in the car waiting for my father, looking around at the parking lots, and the demolition of the low rise buildings being cleared for a future tower later known as Scotia Plaza.  It was a quiet, desolate place, few interruptions, with so much change only years away.  Sunday shopping wasn't an option back then, nor was living right in the heart of the financial district.  Traveling to the downtown core for work from the suburbs of Don Mills was commonplace, roads were not runways of potholes back then, and homeless people did not wander the streets asking for change on weekends south of Queen-because there was no one there.  Sure Toronto had its issues, but they were a different set of issues, little details, relevant for its time.
Fast forward to 2010... Toronto is again coming of age.. but in a more mature way.  With high density living right downtown,  Sunday shopping no longer a new way of life and bike lanes suffocating the driver right out of the one lane left on some streets, there is a whole new set of little details which need tweaking, that one would have laughed at only 10 years ago.  I have talked about Toronto being the city that now can't keep up with its own growth when only 30 years ago it was known as the city that works..  Don't get me wrong, Toronto works, and has definitely come a long way in a short period of time, but the little details are snowballing into bigger issues.  We can no longer wait for city hall to fix them.  As proactive residents of a city that grows bigger each day, we begin to take these issues personally if they directly effect us.. We depend on transit, roads and our parks to always be there, but when they are not, we voice our concerns through comments left at the end of articles on websites where bantering and bickering is the new "in your face" argument.  As a society that has become so advanced in letting our emotions show through social media outlets and status lines, good old fashioned town hall meetings and protests just don't seem to have the same effect they once had.  It was so simple 30 years ago.. no cell phones, no internet, no up to the minute updates on who staffers in city hall are sleeping with.  The Star has started a "Your city my city" blog where people can contribute their thoughts on an evolving city and where it is headed.  With change, brings hope and new ideas.  Utilize what we have, make the best of what we've got and don't break what isn't broken, truly words to live by.  Contributing to a city takes vision and ideas, some of which were lost and not even thought of years ago when visions and ideas were needed for the Toronto that is today.   The quiet serene downtown that once was Pandora, can be that utopia we all envision,  I just hope that with the new level of awareness which has been created for our communities and city, people actually start do-ing rather than just tweeting.