[URBAN NOTE] "Practical back alley or cottage dock? Waterfront debate splits Toronto"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star's Eric Andrew-Gee summarizes the centuries-long debate about what to do with Toronto's Lake Ontario waterfront. I'm personally fond of most anything that bonds the city closer with the freshwater sea literally on its doorstep, myself, but I get the conflicting uses.

In 1852, civil engineer John G. Howard drew a colour map of his plan for the Toronto waterfront. The sketch showed a park stretching from Bathurst to York Sts., awash in green and webbed with footpaths. In his very Victorian way, Howard imagined “Pleasure Drives, Walks and Shrubbery for the Recreation of the Citizens.”

Unveiled last Friday, the renovated Queens Quay recaptures some of Howard’s concept. If it isn’t quite a consummation of his dream waterfront — less shrubbery, for one thing — it’s certainly an approximation of it.

[. . .]

That it took more than 150 years to build a central waterfront “for the recreation of the citizens” is testament to the ambiguity of purpose that has dogged the shoreline for generations. Long pulled between competing jurisdictions and priorities — now a patch of wharves and factories, now a route for city highways, now a federally run tourist draw — the area bordering the lake has struggled to find an identity.

Those tensions have been given new life this summer, amid the fight over the eastern Gardiner, the Queens Quay reopening, and last week’s vote by city council’s executive committee to continue supporting Waterfront Toronto — but commission a value-for-money audit.

At stake is the future of the lakefront, which advocates say is crucial to staying competitive in the 21st century, particularly in attracting skilled workers. Broadly speaking, should the lakeshore be more like a back alley or a cottage dock? Cheap and functional, and mostly used for transportation? Or leafy and leisurely — a place to hang out on a summer’s day?

More at the Toronto Star.