Dmitry Lovetsky
Q: You've lived and worked in Toronto since 1964. So, what makes Toronto so special?
A: Perhaps because we live with it we don't recognize the tremendous strengths of the physical layout of this city: Just contrast it, for example, with almost any other North American city. Those cities are characterized by a dense core - high-rise buildings clustered in a small area of the city, but most of the city as flat as a pancake. The contrast in scale and segregation of uses are notable. One could call that a uni-centered city.
By contrast Toronto is a multi-centered city. The stark contrast in scale between the uni-centered city and its surrounding areas is absent here.
Q: What brings it all together?
A: Toronto has a more nuanced, integrated and convenient arrangement of sub-centres that accommodate regional functions, in turn linked by arterial roads that carry a mix of local commercial services mixed with mid-rise residential uses, and, within super blocks, a hinterland of protected low rise, exclusively residential, uses.
The transportation grid is calibrated exactly to this arrangement - citywide movement by subway, with stations at the sub-centres, local movement by streetcars and buses that feed the metropolitan reach of the subway, or simply to provide for shorter-range movements.
Such a mix of uses and appropriate scales of development result in stable neighbourhoods, high transit ridership and appropriate scales of development.
Q: And our topograpical layout - that plays a role too?
A: What might otherwise be seen as a relentless grid is broken by the ravine system of the city, green lungs that meander in contrast to the grid.
The grid is also broken by buildings of public importance. We give pride of place to such institutions: Queen's Park at the head of University Avenue, Osgoode Hall, the law courts, at the head of York Street and old City Hall closing the vista of Bay Street, are good examples of this fine gesture.
This is why Toronto works. This is why we have safe streets, with buildings providing streetscape continuity and informal surveillance of the sidewalks. This is why the street grid is not overpowering and why, in true Canadian fashion, we balance private and public interests.