Build it and they will come

Imagine a Toronto where people travel by river and bus and RV to spend part of their vacations. A Toronto with a bustling downtown, an active water-front in the summer and which is known as a destination for all sorts of sportsmen and history buffs and romantics year round. This Toronto is a place where our children not only want to stay to raise their own families, but which also is attractive to "new blood."

What would it take to make this Toronto a reality? Better schools? Increased job opportunities? More choices in leisure activities? Well, I believe all of this is possible with a simple adjustment in some outdated attitudes.

Toronto has been playing it safe for years, and where has it gotten us? We are losing job opportunities, losing population, and losing time to turn things around. If we don't change things quickly, we will have to consolidate school systems soon, and possibly lose our status as a bonefide city. According to the most recent census, Toronto barely qualifies as a city as it is. By 2010, at the current rate of attrition, we will be downgraded to a village after the next head-count.

So how do we fix this? Obviously no single step is going to turn things around. It will be a complicated process, and it will require the involvement and cooperation of government, businesses, civic groups and the population in general. But it does have to start somewhere, and I think the best place is with a grass-roots movement to create a larger and more user-friendly downtown commons area.

Twice now an effort has been initiated to build a park unifying the gazebo commons with the WWI Soldiers and Sailors monument. The proposed park would close-off a little-used segment of Market Street, and would make the commons area more accessible to foot traffic. Both times this idea was suggested in the past, it was given no serious consideration by the powers-that-be in the city building, and it died unceremoniously. I think it is time to try a different approach.

I believe that a petition should be circulated demanding that the park idea be placed on the ballot for the public to decide. Then a media blitz demonstrating public support and corporate sponsorship should be launched to create interest in the project. This is how they built the Milsop, and there is no reason we can't do it here in Toronto as well.

Once the park is built, cross-promotion of the historic landmarks of our town, our strategic location for fishermen, water sports and hunters, and our beautiful downtown could quickly increase tourist traffic, and begin the revitalization of Toronto for ourselves and our posterity.

In addition to the park, a community-wide project utilizing civic groups, government and interested businesses working in tandem to create a wireless mesh to provide free Wi-Fi city-wide would also help promote Toronto to business and to both maintain and potentially increase our population base. In my next installment, I'll explain how the objections to the park can be overcome with simple logic and quiet reasoning, and how the Wi-Fi plan would work.