[URBAN NOTE] "Are we killing Yonge Street?"

[rfmcdonald]

NOW Toronto's Robert Allsopp fears for the future eof Yonge Street as a dynamic urban streetscape.

Downtown Yonge Street isn't what it used to be.

The high energy of street life is fast disappearing. There are not many people around. We rarely walk far along the street because it lacks a sufficient variety of shops or range of sensory experiences to tempt us.

We do most of our specialty shopping and eating elsewhere. We do our chain-store shopping in the Eaton Centre and the many other interior malls linked by the underground PATH network that are vacuuming the life and the paying customers from Yonge.

The Bay and Saks Fifth Avenue (which occupy the old Simpson's store) are still in full-blooded conversation with the street. Yonge-Dundas Square and Ryerson U have made a big difference, but their energizing effects seem locally concentrated.

The condo invasion has hit Yonge, but oddly, the hyper-densities haven't added much public life to the street.

The key to Yonge Street's success has been the rows of independently operated, narrow-fronted shops and businesses that collectively support intense social and commercial activity. What sustains Toronto's main street are the many comings and goings from shops, cafés and bars at street level and the offices, showrooms and apartments on the upper floors. Entrances occur every few metres. There's an intense synergy between the repetitive building type and the street. But this synergy is disappearing as buildings are stuffed and preserved in a lifeless trend I call urban taxidermy.