[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto parks suffer from lack of pride"

[rfmcdonald]

Marcus Gee in The Globe and Mail argues Toronto's parks are neglected. I've been to Canoe Landing, by Fort York and Bathurst; his testimony is all too true.

When the City of Toronto assumed control of Canoe Landing, it was in pristine condition. The creative new park with its signature red canoe overlooking the Gardiner Expressway was built by the developer of a vast residential complex, CityPlace. Gabriel Leung, an executive with the company, Concord Adex, remembers the painstaking care needed to make sure the park was in tip-top shape when the city took it over, making it part of Toronto’s public park system.

He has photos to prove it. They show meticulous new landscaping and close-cropped lawns. The giant fishing floats that are another centrepiece of the park gleam in the sun and light up in the dark. So does the stylized beaver dam with its artificial white logs.

But within months, Mr. Leung says, company officials noticed, “to our horror,” that the grounds were already looking tatty and rundown. Ever since, he has been battling with the city over inferior upkeep of the park.

He is so frustrated that he has approached city officials about having the company, rather than the city, do the maintenance. He is certain that if the city handed over whatever amount it spends on the park, he could hire a professional firm to do the work and keep the grounds in a much better state.

Canoe Landing stands as a sad example of a much broader problem: Toronto’s failure to maintain its parks and public spaces. Weedy grass, chipped and rotting benches, fountains that fail to function, dead trees in concrete planters – these things give the city an air of neglect and dysfunction. It’s an embarrassment. A city as big and as rich as Toronto should be able to keep its urban spaces from looking so shabby.