Planners think the problem is a lack of planning, but the things that make the city great are the unplanned ones. Most desirable places in the city are the ones

Planners think the problem is a lack of planning, but the things that make the city great are the unplanned ones. Most desirable places in the city are the ones that were mostly left alone. It has become a city of busybodies and corrupt developers. The growth in Toronto is going to come from foreign capital flight, not endogenous growth, and it these days it might as well be an extended international airport where people and capital just pass through. We should rename it Greater Pearson. The planning we have today has been anti-restaurant, anti-patio, anti-car, anti-nightlife, and anti-street-life. Street level retail is dominated by money laundering operations run out of nail salons, massage parlours, and tattoo shops, and the rents are so expensive it's too much risk to start something unique, so we get a bunch of overcapitalized global franchises on every corner. The condos are just cells masquerading as display cases for shallow consumer lifestyles for people who won't have kids. The best possible solution to the waterfront would be to fence it off and leave a few thousand storage containers for people find and inhabit, and in 10 years you will have a real local culture based on an equilibrium of desire.