In an aging society, cities without places to sit are effectively closed to older pedestrians.
When international rankings tabulate the liveability of cities, they often base the score on tangibles such as school quality, commute times, air pollution or real estate costs.
But there are intangibles that are equally important to good city life. And one of those is hospitable streets. While this means different things to different people, most enjoy safety, a pleasant environment and good amenities. Also, somewhere to sit.
There are plenty of reasons why people might want to sit down in the middle of a city. Chatting with a friend, taking a look around, reading a book or maybe just having a rest on a hot summer day. Without good public seating, these options disappear. That turns cities into places merely to move through rather than to stop and enjoy. And in an aging society, cities without places to sit are effectively closed to older pedestrians.
Which makes it frustrating that too many Canadian cities treat public seating as a necessary evil at best, grudgingly installed and poorly maintained, or sometimes pushed so far down the priority list it gets skipped entirely.
That happened this summer in Toronto.
A city councillor tried to make progress on the long-overdue idea of installing seating throughout the expanse of concrete in front of city hall. This area, called Nathan Phillips Square, is anchored by a fountain and bandstand but is made up mostly of open space. Its central area lacks anywhere to sit.
So Paul Ainslie asked city staff to “review the feasibility and associated costs of procuring and deploying benches at Nathan Phillips Square for the 2026 summer season.” The request just about sent staff to the fainting, er, bench. According to their response, doing so was just not possible this summer owing to “procurement and implementation timelines,” as well as activities that had already been planned for the square, including those related to the World Cup.
A counterargument would be that Toronto hosting World Cup games, and associated activities, is exactly the time to install lots of public seating – all around the city. Thousands of tourists visited for the first time, locals spent more time out and about and viewing parties were packed.
In fact, a number of games were screened at Nathan Phillips Square itself, which would have been good reason alone to install better seating there.
What’s particularly galling about the limited love for public seats in major Canadian cities – Montreal, as always with urbanism issues, does better here – is that this is not rocket science. Install simple benches in large numbers, more than seem necessary. Put them in places where people will want to sit. And then stop them falling into disrepair.
It really is that simple. But for cities that want to do better, seats that are not fixed in place are a more user-friendly option. Urbanist and social observer William Whyte noticed a half-century ago that people liked the autonomy offered by movable seats. As he wrote in The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, this sort of seating allowed people to shift into the shade or under the sun, close to a friend or away from the guy with the boom box.
This approach is old hat in many European cities and helped revitalize New York’s Bryant Park in the 1990s, but it has been slow to emerge in Canada, where leaders appear paranoid about theft. The good news: Two locations in Toronto have in recent years installed chairs that are not fixed down, and they don’t seem to be walking away. Assuming the best of people, rather than the worst, can sometimes pay off.
The humble park bench may not seem a terribly important concern in the big picture. It may not be at the top of very many people’s wish-list. But it’s not just a nice-to-have, either. Securing Canada’s future requires strong cities, which drive the economy. Cities that are more livable are more likely to attract people and more likely to succeed.
Just last week, the federal government announced grants that will allow dozens of prominent scholars to come to Canada, many of them fleeing an increasingly anti-university attitude in the United States. Such academics can go anywhere. What draws them to Canada are predictable funding, research opportunities, the political climate and, yes, the liveability of the cities to which they will be moving.
As these people settle into Canadian homes, walking the streets and exploring new neighbourhoods, the least city governments can do is give them a place to sit and ponder.