This is an aerial shot of a part of town close to where I live. It's taken from a fascinating website that examines suburban trends around the world. More than ever, it's becoming obvious that the economic resonance is that such designs are no longer economically, nor environmentally, feasible. Jack Diamond, the head of Diamond and Schmitt Architects Inc., weighs in on the relationship between the collapsing auto sector, the mismanagement of public funds, and the importance of curbing suburban sprawl, in today’s Globe and Mail. The piece provides a key element to the discussion about the sources behind the current recession. Here’s a taste:
Just as Detroit was warned about fuel-inefficient automobiles, so was Toronto alerted to unsustainable sprawl in 1996 by the Golden report.
It has been clear for some time that fuel-inefficient sprawl is an obsolete, unsustainable form of development. As difficult as it is for General Motors to restructure its business, with so-called legacy issues imbedded in the way it does business (gas guzzlers, too many dealerships, union contracts and so on), so it is difficult to restructure the shape of our cities. But it is not impossible, and like GM, we have no option. The sooner we acknowledge the problem, the better our prospects for a sustainable future.
Not only did the Big Three automobile manufacturers fail to recognize the problem of excess gas consumption, they actively resisted the call for fuel-efficient automobiles. So, too, did Mike Harris's Ontario Conservatives ignore the recommendations of the Golden report. Even the most efficient automobiles are nothing in comparison to the fuel efficiency and pollution-reducing characteristics of public transit.
It doesn't end there. Both hard services (utilities) and soft services (schools, universities, clinics, libraries and research facilities) cost far more spread out over hell's half-acre than they do in compact urban configurations. As a result, we're going broke - for every $1 earned in real-estate taxes in low-density areas, the city pays $1.40 to service the land... full article.
Interestingly, the online comments accompanying the article don’t come from a single person living in the actual area(s) Diamond is writing about. And it’s such areas –not only around Toronto, but dotting and spreading around the entirety of North America –that are inherently involved in contributing to the current economic climate.
As I wrote yesterday, a change –of lifestyle, of attitude, of choices –is in store. To quote John Lennon, “better get yourself together.” Now’s the time, and now’s the opportunity.
For those unaware, Ontario law requires older cars be regularly tested for their pollution output in order to receive compulsory license stickers –in essence, you can’t drive without a license sticker, and in order to get one, you have to get the other. All in all, it adds up to roughly $200 –and that’s not including license renewal fees.
Now, I’d never normally line myself up with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation or any of their edicts, but I had to wonder: where does the money from this go, exactly? To credit those who buy hybrids? To increased funding for infrastructure? To curb the seemingly out-of-control suburban sprawl that's infected the entire continent? Hmmm. As I sat and watched the mayors beg and moan about the damage that will be wrought to their communities by the possible auto sector layoffs, I heaved a big sigh. Job losses suck.
But did no one see this coming? Toronto, or more particularly, the Greater Toronto Area (or GTA) has seen unchecked growth over the past ten years, with absolutely no proper funding or infrastructure to support it. The community where I have lived for years has grown exponentially, tripling its population in a matter of two decades. And yet, for all the self-congratulatory noise made about public transit, the truth is, it really stinks. Ask anyone in or around Toronto: you’ll get the same answer. TTC, sucks. YRT, sucks. GO, sucks. In rushhour, it takes up to two hours (or more) to commute, via public transit, downtown, uptown, or across town. No wonder so many people are opting to work at home.
Still, the problem of car-reliance looms large. Developers have been given a carte blanche by the Ontario Municipal Board to build as they please. None of the areas they build are adequately serviced by public transit, nor are they walk or bicycle-friendly. Owing to the soaring price of gas prices over the summer, I opted to use my bicycle as often as I could, but I realized in doing so, at least in my neighbourhood, I was taking my life in my hands. Rows of SUVs roared past me, cutting sometimes perilously close to where I carefully, patiently pedaled. Some of the roads have bike lanes, but drivers, not accustomed to them, frequently ignore them. It’s frustrating, frightening, and disheartening.
And I genuinely feel for those who are being forced into an unpleasant, scary situation right now. To those people who are facing the loss of their incomes as a result of a slowing auto sector, I can only offer my sincere condolences –but at the same time, I hope you take action to encourage your management to be more accountable. There’s something about job losses and Lear jets that, to my mind, doesn’t add up. Same-o, wasteful business practices that ignore environmental realities somehow doesn’t compute either. And it’s the workers on the assembly lines who have to start making noise about this. I believe they can.
To the mayors, I can only say this: stop your political posing, and start saying no to the developers. Put better infrastructure into existing areas. Start using tax revenue in a more responsible –and environmentally smart –fashion. Oh, and start putting pressure on Big Three management, too. If the election of Obama south of our border means anything, it’s change –a change we may not initially like, a change we may not be comfortable with at first, but any change at this point is good change. “Drive Clean?” Please. That would mean not driving at all; if I lived in a community that supports and encourages alternate modes of transportation, I’d be fine with that. That's change I can believe in. Otherwise, it’s Prius or bust.
History, Humanity, Hope
Current mood: determined
Category: Blogging
Yesterday marked forty-five years since the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
I wasn’t alive when it happened that day in Dallas, but I’ve always had a fascination with the life –and awful death –of America’s 35th President. That interest was fomented when, in 1991, Oliver Stone released his passionate, angry, probing film, JFK. It was the film that launched a million readers, I think –young readers who, like me, may have not been around to experience Camelot first-hand, but who nonetheless had a few questions about what happened to Kennedy, and why it happened. Maybe we were unburdened by history, by time, or by cynicism, but either way, Stone mobilized a younger generation to go and find out the truth –however elastic it may be –for ourselves.
Both AMC and the History Channel aired JFK lastnight, presumably to mark the morbid occasion. I re-watched it with two things in mind: on an epic scale, the election of Barrack Obama, while more intimately, remembering my time spent in Dealey Plaza. I visited Dallas years ago, and when I landed, the first thing I wanted to do (aside from grab a nap) was to go over to Dealey. It turned out I was within walking distance, so I asked the doorman for directions. With a weary look, he pointed me down the street; it wasn’t the first time he’d been asked for directions, obviously, but it sure seemed like he wished it was the last. A confluence of perpendicular streets confused me (easily done to one running on roughly four hours’ sleep) and I went into a nearby museum to ask again. As before, the same weariness, the same pointing, the same sighing. I guess it’s hard to live in a city famous for so infamous a crime.
Taking the directions, I made an abrupt stop at… the Book Depository. My goodness, here it was, before me, the building of a billion dreams and conjectures and theories. The windows had been replaced, and it had been cleaned up –but it was still the looming, grey, haunted building of my imagining. The bronzed plaque affixed to its front entrance read something along the lines of: “This is the building where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot at John F. Kennedy.” The “allegedly” had been underlined with scratches, to the point of creating a huge dip, gouging out the bronze finish and making the plaque look like a strange, Burroughs-inspired artwork.
Call it over-familiarity with the film or years of reading various books, but it was instinct to know exactly where to go in the plaza. I walked down the road, and… there it was. The spot where Kennedy was shot is marked with a small, white, painted “x” on the pavement. There’s a small dip and curve in the road, and it’s used regularly –just another busy thoroughfare in the city. There's a little plaque on the side of the road too. I stood and stared at that X. A million things went through my mind, and then… nothing. Blank. It was like standing in a black hole, a void, where a sense of hope, promise and optimism for an entire generation had been sucked away.
I went and sat on the stairs built into the pergola that overlooks Dealey. Cheerleaders, school kids, and tourists all came by in swift succession, grinning and posing ridiculously in front of the X. Looking at that spot, I felt the same things I did when I visited Ground Zero three months after 9/11: overwhelmed, awed, saddened, and very, very small. Many people there were softly weeping, hugging family and friends; others, like me, were sitting in a hushed, reverential silence, looking at the hole in the ground, numbed, and (again) overwhelmed. I returned to the same spot almost a year after the fact, and the mood was very similiar. Like 9/11, Dealey Plaza is a spot where hope seemed to die, and, to this day, I wish a greater measure of respect and propriety was in place there.
Encouraging independent thought within the locale’s educational programming would be good, too; I overheard more than one guide leading groups of curious school children through the Plaza, pointing out the X, and saying, in measured, definitive tones, “This is where President Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald,” before earnestly pointing over to the Book Depository.
(For conspiracy theorists, I’ll tell you that it was, in fact, blocked by the foliage of that famous live Texas oak. Dealey Plaza is a place of wide-open spaces, except, notably, there. The fact there's a museum in the Depository seems, to me, to confirm the continuance of the lone-nut mythology, but... that's another blog. )
As I sat and watched people come and go, looking and meditating on that X, my vantage point suddenly struck me: I was essentially sitting in the infamous grassy knoll. If there ever there was an ideal spot to shoot a man, I thought, this would be it. But having the will, the fortitude, the absolute conviction of murdering someone publicly, someone who represented hope and change to so many... I couldn't (can't) get my head around it. I looked at the X. I looked at the people. I thought about history, humanity, hope. Everything changed here, I thought. Everything.
I felt the same way watching Barrack Obama’s acceptance speech the evening of November 4th. Everything changed, but in a different way. Watching him move across the stage with a charming mix of shyness, exhaustion, and pride, I remembered back to the election of 2004, to Obama’s DNC speech. On election night, as results began to roll in, the newsroom realized the tide was going in the Republicans’ favour. One station re-played Obama's speech, and for a few moments, the frenzy stopped. We all watched and listened. My Jamaican-Canadian work colleague then pronounced, “He’s going to be the next President.”
JFK ends with the words, “What’s Past Is Prologue.” Let’s hope so. The hope that was extinguished in Dealey Plaza has been reignited. American, Canadian, Berliner, Cuban, Afghan, Iraqi… it’s up to us.
<a href="http://www.msplinks.com<br><br>
Currently
listening
:
Essential
By
Evgeny Kissin
Release date: 2008-08-05
Why I Hate Lists
Current mood: annoyed
Category: Music
Rolling Stone magazine recently released their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.
Now I know why magazines like RS do this: it gets people talking (and arguing), it increases their presence within the public sphere, plus it's a gift for the artists and their fans (sort of). I tend to avoid list arguments, because everyone opinion will be different, but this one just hit something that provoked commentary. Perhaps it's my own proclivities towards the vocal, or simply my own dislike of blanket judgments (maybe a mix) -but this list is stupid. Like, really stupid.
First let me state that I love Aretha Franklin. She's #1 on the list. Past the hair-splitting over whether or not she's a rock singer (her 'Queen of Soul' moniker still stands), there's no denying Aretha rocks. But placing her within an order that also features singers who are more well-known as being rock singers proper is... ridiculous. When the words 'rock singer' are spoken, what do you think of? Hmmm. Perhaps guy with tight pants, big hair, bombastic voice? Perhaps the guy whose picture pops up on the Rolling Stone site specifically about the feature. The guy that won't go out on tour with his old band. The guy that ranked #15.
This isn't meant to be a diatribe comparing Robert Plant to Aretha Franklin. They are both amazing, beautiful, unique, and talented. But putting them into a system where 'rank' comes into play at all is ... again, ridiculous. Years ago, I recall extolling the virtues of Plant's Zeppelin-prime wail to a friend, noting how that sort of raw vocal power incorporated so many elements from the past and made them new: it was high but indisputably male, rough but mysteriously smooth, blues but unmistakably rock. I remember saying, if there was one voice that sounded like rock and roll, it was Robert Plant’s. I remember reading an interview in which Plant was asked about his famous Zeppelin-era wail, and he said he had to shout to be heard over Bonham's drums. Ha. What an excuse for the sound he made.
In the same issue, Bono makes a wonderful, brainy contribution paying tribute to Bob Dylan; as with many articles the U2 frontman has written, it’s proof positive there’s a novel or poetry collection in him waiting to get out. I’ve always regarded Bono in much the same light as Dylan, really: they’re poets who happen to sing. When I think of Dylan, Bono, or Leonard Cohen for that matter, vocal quality doesn’t hit me so much poetry. Their singing is inextricably entwined with their words. Bono and Dylan are, to quote Ginsberg (whom he himself quotes in the tribute) “beat down to their soul.” I don’t know if it makes them better singers or not, but I never tire of hearing –or reading –them. A classic rock voice? Hmmm.
The first rock and roll voice I ever heard was Janis Joplin’s. She was singing “Try.” For me, it was, to borrow Plant’s phrase, otherworldly. It hit me like a thunderbolt, and indeed, it still does. Mean, growling, tender, passionate, rich, and broadly resonant, Joplin re-defined the sound of rock, and a woman’s place within it. Listening to her now, you have to wonder how her voice would’ve changed and matured had she lived past 1970. Melissa Etheridge's assertion that 'she would kinda sing and scream and cry' is way off -Joplin didn't 'kinda' do anything, ever. It cost her her life. Joplin did shout, as befits a good rock star. But more than that, she'd feel her music, live inside of every note, and translating that understanding to a sound that originated somewhere in the Blues Delta, her unique, entirely captivating combination of feral and ferocious emanating through the haze of Southern Comfort and suburban Texas memory. Equally, Etheridge noting that 'she'd try and sound like an old black woman' isn 't quite accurate. Joplin knew how she sounded; she was aware of the walls she was knocking down, and the impact she had on both white and black America at the time. But she was always, defiantly, her own vocalist. Her voice was hers, no one else's. It contained all the pain and longing of heartbreak, but also expressed moments of sheer transcendence and joy. If I had to make a Top Ten of rock vocalists (with of course, no one figure weighted more than the others), she’d definitely be there. As it is, RS has her at #28. Ridiculous. No more lists. Only the magical sound of the human voice matters at the end of the day.
Currently
listening
:
At Last
By
Etta James
Release date: 1999-11-23
Cause I Gotta Have...
Current mood: good
Category: Blogging
Today on Facebook, a friend of mine posted a note relating to the nature of inspiration. I see he copied it over to Myspace to share his ideas with a wider community. Re-reading it, there are a lot of interesting ideas and insights. Going back and reading my own reaction (posted at FB) has proven even more enlightening:
"Faith" is a word that has been co-opted, misdefined, misinterpreted, and just plain misused in popular discourse over the past decade or so.
But faith is so much bigger than a religion, belief, creed, or movement. Faith is a state of being, intimately and inextricably tied to inspiration.
It's the universal thread that links moments, people, and opportunities. It's the voice calling those of us lost in the wilderness. It's the harmony with the melody. It's the space between notes. It's John Cage's Silence. It's gratitude for present and belief in future. It's inspiration, conception, creation and cessation. It's the seasons. It's living, breathing, being, like attracting like, cycles moving ever-forwards, only looking back to admire the black-and-white while shifting into colour.
Inspiration begets inspiration... through the miraculous everyday-ness of faith. We're not in the hands of fate -we're in the embrace of faith.
After a week fraught with personal challenge, I really have no idea where this came from, but I do know that when things seem darkest, light becomes brighter. And perhaps, in a wider sense, this is what the election of Obama this past week represents. We all know these are dark times –but there is existant, somewhere, some way, a knowledge that the wheel will turn. And it will –thanks, in no small part, to faith.
awake
This is an aerial shot of a part of town close to where I live. It's taken from a fascinating website that examines suburban trends around the world. More than ever, it's becoming obvious that the economic resonance is that such designs are no longer economically, nor environmentally, feasible. Jack Diamond, the head of 
determined
But did no one see this coming? Toronto, or more particularly, the Greater Toronto Area (or GTA) has seen 
)
annoyed
good
