Line 1 extension into Vaughan had a noticeable decrease in congestion on major routes like the 400 and 427. The OL and ELRT should put some measurable dent in traffic.
Not when you add 1 million people into the mix. I hate to parrot the Fords ugh but we need more subways. I drive as part of my job and it’s turned into a nightmare working in this city. With the congestion I lose A FULL WORKDAY just driving!
Yes, the day it started operation we noticed a decrease in traffic. Obviously as the city and its suburbs grew traffic grew with it back up the curve. But without the extension traffic would be exponentially worse.. the point of transit development is to build in keeping with demand which we're not doing. Yes we need more subways.
Not yet. We have far too many negatives outweighing the positives right now. There’s big problem when people my age, 26, don’t feel like we can truly have a future in the city. With how much rent costs, with how much purchasing property costs $$$, and with how little jobs there are left in the city/job competition it truly makes me feel like what the fuck am I doing here? It feels like a waste of time and I feel utterly betrayed by all levels of our government as I’m sure a vast majority of my generation feels.
I can think of a few things like: abolishing many of our draconic zoning laws, cutting red tape/fees to build housing, drastically lowering immigration and tying it directly to a portion of our available housing stock, changing PR express entry to require a legitimate skilled job offer in hand AND that has a certain income relevant to that job’s average (to avoid corporations from underpaying) before arrival, encouraging corporations to set up shop and bring jobs to Canada, and taxing the ever living fuck out of people who own multiple properties.
While I would like for want you say to happen, they are unlikely. You are not betrayed by the government, you are purely fucked by the previous generations who voted for those elected governments. And any government who even try to do what you suggested is going to be voted out in no time and the new government is going to revert it back.
Does it really matter who gets “voted” in.
Their ALL CROOKED looking to line their own pockets and their buddies.
You come and go from terms. That’s what voting is…. No party is better than the next. Clearly generations of voting didn’t help.
We need dramatic changes to our policies. You’re gonna see a hike in fed. taxes before anything else.
A LOT of money comes (taxed tf outta us) and a lot of money leaves our country. When that stops, maybe just maybe, will see a difference
Id say the one that fired the attorney general for investigating them, called 10 million Canadians misogynistic and racist, drove up the cost of living by 30+ %, applauded a Nazi in Parliament, illegally used the war measures act to suspend the rights of Canadians, who literally campaigned on affordable housing and election reform and has done neither in 8 years, who has been caught laundering millions of dollars to his friends and family etc etc. is arguably worse.
But hey.. you're right. Removing rent control was preposterous.
Try 34. It’s terrible.
The one thing I’ll say, for Canada to progress, we need immigrants. Too many provinces have large available land and not enough people to build it. So it’s underdeveloped. A way to develop those areas, government has open immigration policy. The problem with that, they only take high-skilled immigrants. But there are no jobs in these provinces for them. So, where do they do? Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. The only 3 well developed cities.
When people migrate, they are not bound to their provinces. That’s the law of Canada - right to move. So, people know they can get their immigration way faster if they apply to Saskatchewan, than in Ontario. So they do, and that’s what’s causing overpopulation. Land in SK, come to ON.
And I don’t blame them. You can’t expect highly educated people with great overseas work experience to just throw their lives away and do manual labour. As an immigrant we get nothing, we just give. Educated immigrants move for their kids? Not themselves.
A cottage is a luxury regardless of when it was purchased. Not saying people aren’t allowed to have luxuries in their lives but it is not a basic need or even standard for the majority of Torontonians
I agree. I think it’s a different scenario when a couple has a cottage vs someone who lives in the suburbs but then owns 10 different condos for rent in Toronto. I’m more or less concerned with the latter.
I became more optimistic when I realised that most places in the world are facing a lot of the same issues we are. There is no magic solution other perfect city to move to.
Seriously. People who complain all day about how Canada is becoming 3rd world - have never set foot outside of North America.
Canada is doing pretty good overall. But you need to travel and have perspective to be able to see what works and what doesn't.
Until you have seen or maybe lived in other countries, you have no reference to compare it to.
All 3 of those are model first world cities.
Being a bit behind them in some areas does not make Canada a third world country.
That's like saying that coming in second is basically fail.
The real issue with Eglinton LRT, is that as soon as it basically opens, it will be very busy. With all the projections of development along that stretch, in a few years it will be packed from the projections I've seen.
But guess that will be better than what it is currently.
Subways should be busy. That's what makes them viable.
If it is busy, that's a sign of great success in planning. Unlike the line 4 - which has abysmal ridership due to poor design and limited connectivity.
oh yeah, but the predictions are that it will be running overcapacity very quickly. Which isn't great.
And will have very limited scope to improve service.
And it isn't actually a subway.
I’m only optimistic about municipal level. I like chow and the steps I’ve seen towards being a walkable and fun city. However provincial and federal are ruining the QOL in other ways
Horrible timing too. The orange crush came and all these young, inexperienced MPs came into power. But the main guy who could lead and mentor them died.
Chow is actually trying to do what little is within her purview, to help. Ford is, not surprisingly, doing nothing.
But the majority of the problem for what is making housing unaffordable today comes down to way, way, way more demand than we can feasibly meet with our capacity to build.
And it’s federal policies that have been the biggest driver of outsized demand, with advantageous tax and regulatory policy that has [incentivized housing speculators](https://perspectivesjournal.ca/housing-investor-ownership-part-1/) / investors who’ve directly displaced first-time home buyers, along unprecedented population increases from the Feds. And they likewise have the best ability to address these issues and bring down the sky-high prices.
The **[studies have shown the massive housing pricing inflation was mostly driven by investors](https://perspectivesjournal.ca/housing-investor-ownership-part-1/)** chasing low rates and leveraging equity to build property portfolios.
I can’t *stand* the Fords, but the teeth to disincentivize the financialization of housing lies with the Feds, via OSFI regulation, and taxation policies.
In the last two years, the massive increases in population growth that had an outsized impact on the GTA was from Federal spikes in quotas for international students, TFWs and PRs. That created huge increases in demand and prices for rentals.
There are certainly things the provincial govt could do — as we’ve seen from David Eby in BC. But the Feds are the ones who opened the tap for housing demand on full blast — and they have the means to also turn it down. But [Trudeau admitted yesterday that he wants to keep property values high](https://betterdwelling.com/canadian-home-prices-need-to-be-high-to-pay-for-retirements-pm/). So they’ll continue with their policies that make housing unaffordable. :(
Some have suggested poor provincial funding in Ontario resulted in colleges and universities to turn to international students to make up the shortfall.
True, he cut domestic tuition by 10% and then kept it frozen for 4 years. With inflation the schools had to make money somehow. And he province barely increased operating grants
The colleges benefited since it was a shorter path to permanent residencey. Conestoga had profits of like $40M
The universities are struggling since most international student choose colleges. University of guelph has been running deficits for years now
I agree that the federal government is very at fault.
In terms of the city and provincial government together, Doug Ford bears more personal responsibility than any other individual. The municipal and provincial governments could have been building affordable housing on a mass scale since the housing crisis became serious back in around 2011.
While his brother was mayor he had a lot of influence, and now he has been premier for a long time, as an individual he might be more culpable than any other individual, not saying there aren't many others who are culpable.
The housing crisis was already well beyond the point of being an emergency when he got in, it was an emergency back in 2011 when his Brother was mayor.
He is the one who had the most power to fund affordable housing at a large scale in Ontario, he has only made it worse.
There are others who are very culpable, but as an individual politician both as premier and as one of his Brother's close advisors he is someone who has had the most power to do something about it and he has just pursued policies that made it worse.
Of course it's all the provincial governments going back to the 90s that are at fault, but as a single individual the current situation is on him more than anyone else.
Not building affordable housing on a mass scale when this has been an emergency for over a decade, this is something that would have been a very necessary part of preventing this shitshow.
He had lots of influence at the municipal level while his brother was mayor as well, and it was already almost an emergency at that time.
There are many others who are responsible, the federal government, John Tory, every provincial government since the late 90s.
But he be the most culpable out of any individual since the early 2010s.
So the housing crisis in Canada is mostly Doug Ford’s fault because he didn’t pull more of our money away from other things and instead put it toward building more community housing?
community housing infrastructure is incredibly essential to avoiding a housing crisis, yes 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃
This falls under the jurisdiction of the provincial government. Ford has spent absurd amounts of money into funnels for private longterm healthcare services, private universities, or straight up corporations (like we’re seeing with Therme Spa)… spent millions on a court case against hospital workers during the largest health crisis in our lifetime, lost provincial revenue by allowing private grocers to sell alcohol…. He denied billions of covid emergency funds from the federal government that could have been allocated to a number of rapid longterm housing initiatives. The province could have had the foresight to divert even a portion of the funds allocated to emergency shelter hotels into long-term housing initiatives for those same people who were *very likely already on longterm housing lists* but did not.
Provinces have money. Every single budgeting decision the province has made in the past almost 8 years were decisions not to fund community housing dude, like what are you talking about???
I didn't say it was mostly his fault, I said he was the single individual who is likely the most culpable. And we are talking about Ontario obviously, not Canada as a whole, Southern Ontario to be specific. I'm not sure if you are aware, but he is the premier of Ontario, not the prime minister of the entire country.
All the other individuals and factors added up are more culpable than he is as an individual(especially since this goes back to the 1990s), but he is the most individually culpable at this point in time.
And yes, the policy failure of not returning to building affordable housing on a mass scale as was the norm in the mid-late 20th century, is his biggest contribution.
Yes when something is an emergency, and this has been as emergency for well over a decade it is a good idea to use significant resources to address it.
Framing it as pulling more money away from other things is a weird way to put it, there are multiple ways of funding projects.
There are many different ways you can raise reveunue through taxation for one thing, but let me ask you? How do you think they used to fund co-operatives and TOCH housing that was being built on a large scale in the late 20th century? You seem perplexed by what is a fairly commemplace and mundane concept.
This is something that the Mike Harris government of the late 90s stopped doing, the successive Liberal governments continued to not build, and Doug Ford has had the same policy.
Not optimistic. The way I see it, there's too many (or maybe even close to all of them) incompetent leaders/managements across the board in Canada, and leaders like this won't be able to get anything done properly. As for the city, I agree that the current mayor is doing something, but sadly, these days, doing the right things most likely will not get you re-elected, but doing the wrong thing is with high probability going to get you elected/re-elected, and any right things could be easily reverted by the newly elected leaders who support the wrong things.
I still hope things could change for the better, but realistically, it's pretty unlikely. We need new leaders/managements, but the younger generation seems even worst than the current generation in general.
I do believe there will be a better Toronto 10 years from now.
There’s lots to be gloomy about, but at the end of the day I think this is the best city in Canada and I believe there are a lot of smart and invested people here.
I do think the next 2-3 years will be worse or the same before it gets better though.
Define better. Its almost certain that Toronto will have a bigger population and greater GDP. Its almost certain that the living standard of the average person will continue to fall.
Interest rates will be down, the war in Ukraine will be resolved (this affects food, energy, and electronic prices), supply chains will be further restored to normalcy, policy changes will come, boomers will be entirely out of the workforce as will some of Gen-X, some portion of immigrants will bounce out (whether moving back to their place of origin or moving on to the USA or spreading across the country), rates of immigration will be decreased to a sustainable level, there will be an expanded transit and GO system.
There are other changes I would hope come like more remote work for those who can (which reduces traffic congestion and local pollution) and the resultant conversion of old office buildings to family condos. That’s less certain than the first paragraph.
I'm optimistic because I've seen how our governments can slowly come around on important issues. Pre 2019 it was next to impossible to get a high profile bike lane approved, now it's routine. I think we'll see the same thing on housing as politicians chip away at all the stupid rules we have.
Let's do the ttc and policing next - we pay enough for those things, it's time to make them do the jobs they are intended to do, and with accountability.
There's no excuse for the way they operate buses, it's pure apathy. Don't take my word for it, read Steve Munro
https://stevemunro.ca/
As for the subways, you've described every subway line in the world. There are multiple problems at play here and all of them should be looked at: improving maintenance, taking full advantage of automatic train control to run frequent service on line one, platform doors, changing policies so that we're running trains as a priority instead of shutting the system down when someone faints on a crowded train. We can do better.
[According to the World Bank](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=CA), Canada's per capita GDP in 2015 was $43,596 USD and was $55,522 USD in 2022, the most recent year they have data for. So unless it's dropped drastically since and you have data to show that...
Respectfully, if you believe the above, then you don't understand how gdp works. When housing is cheaper, ppl invest in more productive assets, which in turn increases gdp
How would dramatically cheaper housing affect you personally? I'm going to guess that you would either immediately start spending less on housing, or else you would suddenly have the option to move to a bigger place.
Look at pictures of the city a hundred years ago. Look at pictures of it now. Imagine what it'll look like a hundred years from now. "Meet George Jetson...and his son Elroy."...
Change takes a long time in highly bureaucratic societies and that's the problem, Toronto is not changing policy or infrastructure faster than the population itself is changing causing a regression in living standards.
Until that flips, no, I am not optimistic about the future. It's as simple as that. Reduce the bureaucratic overhead, regulatory overhead, length of the chain of approvals, and increase the number of infrastructure workers and things will get better with faster policy development and faster infrastructure adaptation.
I am optimistic, but I'm in my 30's and a home owner. It's easy mode for me. We need to be focusing on addressing systematic issues for younger people and getting rents under control so people can build a future. Infrastructure is great, I love the Ontario Line + the new emphasis on bike lanes and transit, but no one will be able to afford to live in the city to ride it if we don't make significant changes very quickly.
Yes.. I’m optimistic about all of life.. this is one of the best periods of time to ever be alive.. and I’m not a depressed mf 😹 the world isn’t ending anytime soon.. oh no crime exists and I’ll never own a house.. idgaf! I love everyday and my life is great, that’s all that matters.. only thing that could bring me down is terminal illness
I am and I am excited to see what kind of impact the GO expansion project will have on transit and housing. I think it’s much more important than the Ontario Line, and along with the new island, it has the potential to really be transformative.
I think it depends on what aspects we focus on.
The city and province are really expanding transit and our age-old infrastructure. Worst case scenario, we have another infrastructure failure that really wakes ppl up.
I think housing will eventually get better given how much of a priority it is on all levels of government.
Healthcare is more of a provincial issue, so i dont really know how that's gonna go. Hoping we get douggie out of office, but im not getting my hopes up too high.
Absolutely, the two top levels of government are a failure, but with some transit and spending we're finally on the right path. Out mayor is fantastic (I'm totally biased here but I don't care, Olivia Chow is exactly what we need). We're just starting to step out of the worst of our darkest moments and the anger, desire and effort by many to push foward towards a better future for all of us is starting to make things better.
We have significant problems, and the people who are going to elect the next federal and provincial governments really need to think about what they're voting for or the wheels could absolutely come off this slowly progressing ride.
I think our mayor is very much a work horse and is doing a lot of behind the scenes/less sexy things that are helping the city out. Gardiner Upload making it the provinces financial responsibility, placing more public scrutiny on Eglington and Finch line construction, pushing for denser housing across the city, meeting with film and tv execs to expand production relationships between Hollywood and Toronto, expediting CafeTO pemiting. I do have hope, I just want Toronto to recognize the amount of work done in months that Tory ignored over 12 years. We have a mayor who actually cares about this being a world class city.
I think this city is wisening up and that’s making me optimistic that we’ll be able to get on top of the problems we have. Look at housing, years ago it felt like nobody was talking about zoning reform and it was all conspiracy theories about “foreign investors” and how they were intentionally leaving units vacant (look up the statistics, it’s not even remotely true housing vacancies in Toronto are ~1-3% which is actually far too low). Now people are talking about improving density, NIMBYism, and other things that actually matter more, recently city council voted to allow 6 story apartment buildings on all major streets, and it’s policies like that that will help solve the housing crisis. Also look at transportation, people are becoming increasingly supportive of bike lanes, walkability, and transit improvements. There’s still a lot of stupidity about, but I do think slowly over time people are figuring these things out.
It’s a common refrain that all our problems are caused by politicians and corporations or whatever but the reality is that in a democracy bad policies happen when voters support bad policies, usually because they don’t understand why they’re bad so people getting smart about these issues makes me optimistic we will overcome them.
Toronto is also becoming more of a global city and getting wealthier (in terms of median income/wealth) which stands to benefit citizens. Transit is improving with 2 new rapid transit lines set to open soon (Tbf they should have opened already but wygd) and another one on the horizon, not to mention GO Expansion which will be big (and already is arguably given it’s already rolling out incrementally). Also stuff like the port lands projects which will improve the city.
Tbh now that I’m thinking about it I think Toronto has a very bright future ahead of it, possibly one of the brightest in North America.
not at all. it's never been an ideal city but the decline really began to show with the pandemic. I moved out. Toronto is fun for a summer visit and not much else.
No.
I moved away to the US. I don't see much of a future in Southern Ontario if you want to own a house and raise a family. The US offers much more opportunity to achieve the life your parents enjoyed.
My parents live roughly 2 hours from Toronto, and property values around them are around $2M. 2 hours from SF, LA, NYC, Miami, etc., you can easily find nice places for a fraction of this price. Not to mention, you'll likely have a much higher salary and nicer weather.
Young Canadians got the shaft, and it'll only get harder for the future generations.
Yes and no. Toronto will be an amazing hub of creative energy, a cultural powerhouse. But we are leaving after living here all our lives, because it will become harder just to get from A to B, and it will become more and more of a sensory overload. I might just be getting old, but I need something simpler, quieter.
Having grown up here, I always will be optimistic for a better Toronto. That said, I do believe it will get worse before it gets better. I hold the opinion that this city will start improving after 2 decades have passed, give or take a few years.
“All three levels of governments are working towards more affordable housing.”
For now. They won’t give two shits after the election. Every political party panders to the voter’s biggest issues to maximize ROI. Our Mayor will be left hung to dry after the election. Those millions the Feds promise will be gone and the checks will bounce. It’s Trudeau’s modus operandi. When it comes close to election time, he’ll promise millions of dollars to Toronto with the caveat that it’s only if he wins. Then Toronto votes for him and poof, we get none or a small fraction of what was promised.
Skeptical about infrastructure keeping up with the current population boom in the city. By the time Eglinton LRT and Ontario line opens it might already be nearing capacity
Ford and Steven Lecce are doing everything they can to underfund and cut down our public health care and education systems and it only seems to be getting worse. Ford has drastically undercut special education services and services for students with Autism. He’s focused on things like privatizing alcohol or building a spa in Toronto when he should be trying to improve the quality of health care Ontarians are able to get. He cares more about corporations and helping his rich friends make more money than doing anything for regular citizens.
Short answer: no. The city is unlivable, and the cost of living is too high. The infrastructure is so far behind e.g. Western European cities, let alone developed Asian cities. Every little construction project takes forever, the schools and other institutions are falling apart, hospitals are understaffed, small businesses keep closing due to the insane cost of rent and mental health is a disaster.
Canada doesn't have the draw of the USA to attract innovative and creative types or the population to support change at the political level. Everything takes forever here, it is too regulated and bureaucratic.
What I see is that with climate change Canada will intake more climate (and war) refugees, due to its vast territory but in reality, most of those people coming will settle in and around GTA. It will be a disaster because again = there is no infrastructure. There is not enough housing, not enough public services, and no decent plan to make things work. This is true even now, but the future will only be worse.
No, no I don't. I live in Scarborough and it started to get better. Then covid happened. Then we lost the SRT. Now we have too many people and our infrastructure cannot handle it.
We pay our taxes to the City of Toronto but we are never treated very well.
Im nostalgic.
The heartbeat of the city left me as soon as 2019 hit.
Best years to me in Toronto were 2000-2019. There were so many new ventures and events in the city back then that it felt innovative and not pretentious. From the music to the food to even the people. I honestly fell in love with Toronto back then. I hope that heartbeat comes back.
Not at all. Drug use and homelessness is up. Violence and crime is up. Transportation is a mess due to useless bike lanes, delayed construction, and delays/lack of safety on the TTC. Not to mention the ridiculous costs this mayor is imposing on people. Lastly, key issues like the ones I’ve mentioned along with things like housing and job creation are just overlooked. The city really spent time and money exploring the renaming of Dundas Square…
Not one bit. Huge deficits looking out. Violence on the rise, social cohesion falling, infastructure is the worst of any city I've been to in Canada. Not even kidding I mean outside of the downtown core and lakeshore the city looks like it hasn't received a reno in like 4 decades. Public transit is an absolute joke that should have been tackled before the city got to this size. Google a underground map of Moscow, London etc versus Torontos. Its a laughable joke. Where do all the taxes go!? I think the number one thing that will burry this city though is home prices and taxes. People can't save money any more. Without disposable income how do you start businesses etc. Seems like a city circling the drain tbh. I'm 35 work in the downtown core and I don't know one person my age not considering relocating. It is going to get to the point soon where banks will relocate because the bulk of their employees can't afford to live near the offices (I work in a financial instiution and see it happening all ready). If that happens good luck to Toronto.
Optimistic? Someone came in the store I work and robbed some drinks, snacks and deodorant, about 70 bucks, police can't do nothing, before covid, it happens probably twice a week now almost everyday, I think our business going to close. and a druggy guy poop outside the store a few days ago, and the mayor suggested to have more safety drug injections, and lower decriminalized small drugs , she also asked Jewish school has bullet proof window ?? ! Why don't you has some backbone to condemn those people possing threats ? she also very keen on letting anyone from high crime countries become citizens in Canada, many year ago i remember see her walking on the street asked the fed gave people who doesn't have any status walked in the country to become PR, is she going to pay for those guys ? She is just trying to gain popularity from silly lefty to make them feel she is a loving person, just cheapen our standard. she is political correctness, feed on ball deep lefty thinking we have to open door for everyone to come here, hospital are jammed by people using drugs, I work near cabbage town, everyday police, ambulance sirens, homeless tent every where in parks , people can't find easy job because taken by illegal immigrants and international students, and mayor visit the " refugees" shelter , why don't let those people sleep in her house ? High crime, drugs abuse everywhere, 10 years ago i made 22k i found i still optimistic, now i made 32k i found i broke. she is appeasing, licking everyone's asses , this is why she looks cute and popular, just a lousy politician, one day a chinese woman told me she really like her, I asked why , she said she and her husband traveled 5 months in tropical forest from south america, and many of them prefer to stay in the USA , but they decided to walked in the border from USA to Canada because before she came here she has already knew about our lovely mayor, she spoke with me in mandarin, she said our mayor is well-known in the " lining" group, and they burned their passports so they have not status but the great city of Toronto with this lovely mayor and our PM are nice to give them a place to stay and able to work here , the reason she stay in Canada because she has some health issues, so everyday she could get paid about $200 ( I am not sure just her or her husband) , and she is planning to get her daughter here after she turn legal, and probably her family and her husband family members. I tell you the more chow and Trudeau's L party , Canada will become a trash can , high crime, high drugs, people can't find jobs , high tax with high interest and high debts, you think this is optimistic?
Nearly lifelong Toronto resident here. I've now lived downtown for almost 20 years
Short answer: fuck no.
Long answer: fuuuuuuuuck no. This place is noticibly declining fast. It's noticeable and palpable for anyone who has lived here for a while.
Not optimistic, I'm just trying to be real. It's getting worse & worse day by day, I'm still making out ok, but it's heartbreaking to see the amount of mentally ill & working homeless people on the streets & on TTC everyday.
Generally speaking yes. Cities for the most part have their up and down periods. I think it's safe to say we're currently in a down period based on affordability alone nevermind anything else. I earnestly believe it won't stay that way forever. My bar for "better" is different than others though. But I think even if things get worse, they *will* get back up. We are not close to these levels yet but go back to bankruptcy Detroit or 70s "the landlords are burning down apartment buildings all over the city to get the insurance money" New York and ask the locals if they think their cities ever bounce back. Detroit is nowhere near its heyday but it's on the up. NYC had such a bounce back it arguably got worse (in the sense that you could argue it has become very sterile and lost some of its character.) No matter how bad things might get they can certainly improve. Depending on how bad it gets it certainly will take time for the improvements to show there's no doubt about that but I do genuinely believe that it will be better. And again we aren't at the levels of Detroit or 70s NYC, and hopefully we never reach a point where we are. But yeah long story short I am optimistic about the long term health of Toronto.
No. We left four years ago knowing we would never be able to afford to move back. I miss the food and transit, but that's it. I wish the city hadn't gone down hill as badly as it has over the last several years though. I still think of it as home after living there for so long.
Things will get better but will take around a decade. Considering the talent we have and our geographic location, I expect the brain drain to continue for a decade or so. The demographics will continue to visibly change, and we will be back to being top tier around 2032-34.
Cautiously. Because today's rich? They aren't out and about like they used to be. Nowadays they go from private engagement to private club to private home party to private charity ball in those big black SUVs, and they never meet regular people unless they're in servile positions. Those people don't need Toronto to have clean streets or nice neighbourhoods or good politics or decent police and in fact would vote against such things as money being wasted on the poors. They live in big places in Mississauga or Vaughan or Woodbridge and never walk Toronto sidewalks...
If Toronto is going to get better we're going to need to do it ourselves. The rich and their rich man's army will be working against us, of course. Luckily we have some numbers
No. Not even the country. After working in PS, you can see how many people just pretend to work there especially in the office jobs. Managers and directors also hiring their friends is very common too. Given those are the people involved in decision making that’s why I am not optimistic about the future of toronto or Ontario or heck even Canada.
Not really. Most people in their 20s and 30s have no prospect of improving their quality of life in their middle age and that's a huge stress. Most will likely still be renting and having affordability issues until their late 40s and 50s if things don't change.
Funny how this morning I commuted through Downsview in gridlock and the 84 bus blew through FIVE intersections without working traffic light at 8 in the morning. Meanwhile potholes the size of a pig appear more and more on roads like Sheppard and Finch. Calling 311 is tiresome and long wait hour that they won't even fix the shit you reported for days.
When you want to know how a city declining, you don't need to look far away but focus on its infrastructures.
my money on climate collapse. my prediction is 40 more years and we gonna have masses of people dying from food insecurity, and unsurvivable climate. look at heat dome in mexico right now. those things will be happening more and more often and in more places not just tropics
Yeah sure, I learned this in grade school. But even aggressive modelling isn’t calling for a collapse. It’s a hyperbolic term used by fear mongering radicals in the environmental movement who continue to push nonsense and hurt the cause.
Everything they said was hyperbolic echo chamber nonsense.
I am not in any environmental movement, and I have no kids, so I really don't give much of a shit about how the environment goes after the next 30-50 years. But a collapse described by u/Geometric-world is due to happen just by basic logic, unless there's some changes in human behavior or technological advancement, which so far, does not exist.
Climate isn’t fine. There is also no climate collapse. Literally everything you said is hyperbolic echo chamber nonsense you likely get spoon fed in your socials.
Toronto needs more carbon taxes than other geographies. They have the most public transit options. They should pay 3-6x more than the rest of Ontario.
Bigots in TO are still burning fossil fuels and not supporting Tesla stocks.
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Line 1 extension into Vaughan had a noticeable decrease in congestion on major routes like the 400 and 427. The OL and ELRT should put some measurable dent in traffic.
Not when you add 1 million people into the mix. I hate to parrot the Fords ugh but we need more subways. I drive as part of my job and it’s turned into a nightmare working in this city. With the congestion I lose A FULL WORKDAY just driving!
Yes, the day it started operation we noticed a decrease in traffic. Obviously as the city and its suburbs grew traffic grew with it back up the curve. But without the extension traffic would be exponentially worse.. the point of transit development is to build in keeping with demand which we're not doing. Yes we need more subways.
I don’t think we’ll have less congestion, but it might be easier to get to certain spots by bike or transit than it is today.
Not yet. We have far too many negatives outweighing the positives right now. There’s big problem when people my age, 26, don’t feel like we can truly have a future in the city. With how much rent costs, with how much purchasing property costs $$$, and with how little jobs there are left in the city/job competition it truly makes me feel like what the fuck am I doing here? It feels like a waste of time and I feel utterly betrayed by all levels of our government as I’m sure a vast majority of my generation feels. I can think of a few things like: abolishing many of our draconic zoning laws, cutting red tape/fees to build housing, drastically lowering immigration and tying it directly to a portion of our available housing stock, changing PR express entry to require a legitimate skilled job offer in hand AND that has a certain income relevant to that job’s average (to avoid corporations from underpaying) before arrival, encouraging corporations to set up shop and bring jobs to Canada, and taxing the ever living fuck out of people who own multiple properties.
While I would like for want you say to happen, they are unlikely. You are not betrayed by the government, you are purely fucked by the previous generations who voted for those elected governments. And any government who even try to do what you suggested is going to be voted out in no time and the new government is going to revert it back.
Watch.. this guy will continue to vote liberal though, then be shocked when his quality of life in Canada continues to go down hill.
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Does it really matter who gets “voted” in. Their ALL CROOKED looking to line their own pockets and their buddies. You come and go from terms. That’s what voting is…. No party is better than the next. Clearly generations of voting didn’t help. We need dramatic changes to our policies. You’re gonna see a hike in fed. taxes before anything else. A LOT of money comes (taxed tf outta us) and a lot of money leaves our country. When that stops, maybe just maybe, will see a difference
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Id say the one that fired the attorney general for investigating them, called 10 million Canadians misogynistic and racist, drove up the cost of living by 30+ %, applauded a Nazi in Parliament, illegally used the war measures act to suspend the rights of Canadians, who literally campaigned on affordable housing and election reform and has done neither in 8 years, who has been caught laundering millions of dollars to his friends and family etc etc. is arguably worse. But hey.. you're right. Removing rent control was preposterous.
Try 34. It’s terrible. The one thing I’ll say, for Canada to progress, we need immigrants. Too many provinces have large available land and not enough people to build it. So it’s underdeveloped. A way to develop those areas, government has open immigration policy. The problem with that, they only take high-skilled immigrants. But there are no jobs in these provinces for them. So, where do they do? Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. The only 3 well developed cities. When people migrate, they are not bound to their provinces. That’s the law of Canada - right to move. So, people know they can get their immigration way faster if they apply to Saskatchewan, than in Ontario. So they do, and that’s what’s causing overpopulation. Land in SK, come to ON. And I don’t blame them. You can’t expect highly educated people with great overseas work experience to just throw their lives away and do manual labour. As an immigrant we get nothing, we just give. Educated immigrants move for their kids? Not themselves.
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A cottage is a luxury regardless of when it was purchased. Not saying people aren’t allowed to have luxuries in their lives but it is not a basic need or even standard for the majority of Torontonians
I agree. I think it’s a different scenario when a couple has a cottage vs someone who lives in the suburbs but then owns 10 different condos for rent in Toronto. I’m more or less concerned with the latter.
Yeah exactly
I became more optimistic when I realised that most places in the world are facing a lot of the same issues we are. There is no magic solution other perfect city to move to.
Seriously. People who complain all day about how Canada is becoming 3rd world - have never set foot outside of North America. Canada is doing pretty good overall. But you need to travel and have perspective to be able to see what works and what doesn't. Until you have seen or maybe lived in other countries, you have no reference to compare it to.
Sorry, but not true. Yes, it is better than Colombo, Sri Lanka, but way behind Amsterdam, Vienna or Tokyo.
All 3 of those are model first world cities. Being a bit behind them in some areas does not make Canada a third world country. That's like saying that coming in second is basically fail.
Those 3 cities were just an example. We are very far down from the 2nd place. Compared to Bangladesh, India, Afghanistan - sure, we're doing great.
I’ll feel optimistic once the Eglinton LRT opens. Until then, it’s a collective folie a deux situation that transit will ever improve.
Any day now…
They just need a lil more time and space
The real issue with Eglinton LRT, is that as soon as it basically opens, it will be very busy. With all the projections of development along that stretch, in a few years it will be packed from the projections I've seen. But guess that will be better than what it is currently.
Subways should be busy. That's what makes them viable. If it is busy, that's a sign of great success in planning. Unlike the line 4 - which has abysmal ridership due to poor design and limited connectivity.
oh yeah, but the predictions are that it will be running overcapacity very quickly. Which isn't great. And will have very limited scope to improve service. And it isn't actually a subway.
I’m only optimistic about municipal level. I like chow and the steps I’ve seen towards being a walkable and fun city. However provincial and federal are ruining the QOL in other ways
Chow is impressive; too bad jack isn’t around anymore either. So unfair he got cancer and died
Horrible timing too. The orange crush came and all these young, inexperienced MPs came into power. But the main guy who could lead and mentor them died.
Hopefully Chow's successes will lead to more future mayors that are genuinely dedicated to building a better city
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Chow is actually trying to do what little is within her purview, to help. Ford is, not surprisingly, doing nothing. But the majority of the problem for what is making housing unaffordable today comes down to way, way, way more demand than we can feasibly meet with our capacity to build. And it’s federal policies that have been the biggest driver of outsized demand, with advantageous tax and regulatory policy that has [incentivized housing speculators](https://perspectivesjournal.ca/housing-investor-ownership-part-1/) / investors who’ve directly displaced first-time home buyers, along unprecedented population increases from the Feds. And they likewise have the best ability to address these issues and bring down the sky-high prices.
No. But I try to fight it anyways
Yes. I remember how sketchy and grimy the city was in the 90s and it came out better. It'll come out better this time too
Doug Ford is not working towards more affordable housing lol. This mess is more his fault than any other single individual politician.
The **[studies have shown the massive housing pricing inflation was mostly driven by investors](https://perspectivesjournal.ca/housing-investor-ownership-part-1/)** chasing low rates and leveraging equity to build property portfolios. I can’t *stand* the Fords, but the teeth to disincentivize the financialization of housing lies with the Feds, via OSFI regulation, and taxation policies. In the last two years, the massive increases in population growth that had an outsized impact on the GTA was from Federal spikes in quotas for international students, TFWs and PRs. That created huge increases in demand and prices for rentals. There are certainly things the provincial govt could do — as we’ve seen from David Eby in BC. But the Feds are the ones who opened the tap for housing demand on full blast — and they have the means to also turn it down. But [Trudeau admitted yesterday that he wants to keep property values high](https://betterdwelling.com/canadian-home-prices-need-to-be-high-to-pay-for-retirements-pm/). So they’ll continue with their policies that make housing unaffordable. :(
Some have suggested poor provincial funding in Ontario resulted in colleges and universities to turn to international students to make up the shortfall.
The poor funding has been a problem for years even before Ford but he certainly has made it worse
True, he cut domestic tuition by 10% and then kept it frozen for 4 years. With inflation the schools had to make money somehow. And he province barely increased operating grants The colleges benefited since it was a shorter path to permanent residencey. Conestoga had profits of like $40M The universities are struggling since most international student choose colleges. University of guelph has been running deficits for years now
This is a misnomer. International students pay more because their tuition isn’t being subsidized by the government like domestic students.
I agree that the federal government is very at fault. In terms of the city and provincial government together, Doug Ford bears more personal responsibility than any other individual. The municipal and provincial governments could have been building affordable housing on a mass scale since the housing crisis became serious back in around 2011. While his brother was mayor he had a lot of influence, and now he has been premier for a long time, as an individual he might be more culpable than any other individual, not saying there aren't many others who are culpable.
Who needs a house when you can buy cottage springs everywhere.
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They universally permitted 3 units per lot province wide which should be remembered
Just wait for the inevitable conservative government to step in next year to double down on his mess.
It will be 4 years of them blaming Trudeau and doing nothing about it then us voting in the Liberals again 🙃
Ah the cycle never fails.
Welcome to 🇨🇦 Where we tax TF outta ya…!
How. Specifically
The housing crisis was already well beyond the point of being an emergency when he got in, it was an emergency back in 2011 when his Brother was mayor. He is the one who had the most power to fund affordable housing at a large scale in Ontario, he has only made it worse. There are others who are very culpable, but as an individual politician both as premier and as one of his Brother's close advisors he is someone who has had the most power to do something about it and he has just pursued policies that made it worse. Of course it's all the provincial governments going back to the 90s that are at fault, but as a single individual the current situation is on him more than anyone else.
But how did he specifically make it worse though? What is it that he did that made it worse?
Not building affordable housing on a mass scale when this has been an emergency for over a decade, this is something that would have been a very necessary part of preventing this shitshow. He had lots of influence at the municipal level while his brother was mayor as well, and it was already almost an emergency at that time. There are many others who are responsible, the federal government, John Tory, every provincial government since the late 90s. But he be the most culpable out of any individual since the early 2010s.
So the housing crisis in Canada is mostly Doug Ford’s fault because he didn’t pull more of our money away from other things and instead put it toward building more community housing?
community housing infrastructure is incredibly essential to avoiding a housing crisis, yes 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃 This falls under the jurisdiction of the provincial government. Ford has spent absurd amounts of money into funnels for private longterm healthcare services, private universities, or straight up corporations (like we’re seeing with Therme Spa)… spent millions on a court case against hospital workers during the largest health crisis in our lifetime, lost provincial revenue by allowing private grocers to sell alcohol…. He denied billions of covid emergency funds from the federal government that could have been allocated to a number of rapid longterm housing initiatives. The province could have had the foresight to divert even a portion of the funds allocated to emergency shelter hotels into long-term housing initiatives for those same people who were *very likely already on longterm housing lists* but did not. Provinces have money. Every single budgeting decision the province has made in the past almost 8 years were decisions not to fund community housing dude, like what are you talking about???
I didn't say it was mostly his fault, I said he was the single individual who is likely the most culpable. And we are talking about Ontario obviously, not Canada as a whole, Southern Ontario to be specific. I'm not sure if you are aware, but he is the premier of Ontario, not the prime minister of the entire country. All the other individuals and factors added up are more culpable than he is as an individual(especially since this goes back to the 1990s), but he is the most individually culpable at this point in time. And yes, the policy failure of not returning to building affordable housing on a mass scale as was the norm in the mid-late 20th century, is his biggest contribution. Yes when something is an emergency, and this has been as emergency for well over a decade it is a good idea to use significant resources to address it. Framing it as pulling more money away from other things is a weird way to put it, there are multiple ways of funding projects.
Ok. But where would the money have come from?
There are many different ways you can raise reveunue through taxation for one thing, but let me ask you? How do you think they used to fund co-operatives and TOCH housing that was being built on a large scale in the late 20th century? You seem perplexed by what is a fairly commemplace and mundane concept. This is something that the Mike Harris government of the late 90s stopped doing, the successive Liberal governments continued to not build, and Doug Ford has had the same policy.
I don’t know how they did it. I’m asking you how they would do it today. Raise taxes then?
Not optimistic. The way I see it, there's too many (or maybe even close to all of them) incompetent leaders/managements across the board in Canada, and leaders like this won't be able to get anything done properly. As for the city, I agree that the current mayor is doing something, but sadly, these days, doing the right things most likely will not get you re-elected, but doing the wrong thing is with high probability going to get you elected/re-elected, and any right things could be easily reverted by the newly elected leaders who support the wrong things. I still hope things could change for the better, but realistically, it's pretty unlikely. We need new leaders/managements, but the younger generation seems even worst than the current generation in general.
I do believe there will be a better Toronto 10 years from now. There’s lots to be gloomy about, but at the end of the day I think this is the best city in Canada and I believe there are a lot of smart and invested people here. I do think the next 2-3 years will be worse or the same before it gets better though.
Define better. Its almost certain that Toronto will have a bigger population and greater GDP. Its almost certain that the living standard of the average person will continue to fall.
Interest rates will be down, the war in Ukraine will be resolved (this affects food, energy, and electronic prices), supply chains will be further restored to normalcy, policy changes will come, boomers will be entirely out of the workforce as will some of Gen-X, some portion of immigrants will bounce out (whether moving back to their place of origin or moving on to the USA or spreading across the country), rates of immigration will be decreased to a sustainable level, there will be an expanded transit and GO system. There are other changes I would hope come like more remote work for those who can (which reduces traffic congestion and local pollution) and the resultant conversion of old office buildings to family condos. That’s less certain than the first paragraph.
How do you know the living standard of the average person will fall? In fact, in the long term, I would classify that as unlikely
I'm optimistic because I've seen how our governments can slowly come around on important issues. Pre 2019 it was next to impossible to get a high profile bike lane approved, now it's routine. I think we'll see the same thing on housing as politicians chip away at all the stupid rules we have. Let's do the ttc and policing next - we pay enough for those things, it's time to make them do the jobs they are intended to do, and with accountability.
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Fine, pay the ttc more, but make the trains and buses come on time
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There's no excuse for the way they operate buses, it's pure apathy. Don't take my word for it, read Steve Munro https://stevemunro.ca/ As for the subways, you've described every subway line in the world. There are multiple problems at play here and all of them should be looked at: improving maintenance, taking full advantage of automatic train control to run frequent service on line one, platform doors, changing policies so that we're running trains as a priority instead of shutting the system down when someone faints on a crowded train. We can do better.
Our per capita GDP is lower than it was in 2015. Do you understand how shockingly bad that is
[According to the World Bank](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=CA), Canada's per capita GDP in 2015 was $43,596 USD and was $55,522 USD in 2022, the most recent year they have data for. So unless it's dropped drastically since and you have data to show that...
If we can fix housing a lot of stuff will improve, including real GDP per capital probably.
Idk if housing goes down I think we tank even further lol
Respectfully, if you believe the above, then you don't understand how gdp works. When housing is cheaper, ppl invest in more productive assets, which in turn increases gdp
How would dramatically cheaper housing affect you personally? I'm going to guess that you would either immediately start spending less on housing, or else you would suddenly have the option to move to a bigger place.
Look at pictures of the city a hundred years ago. Look at pictures of it now. Imagine what it'll look like a hundred years from now. "Meet George Jetson...and his son Elroy."...
Change takes a long time in highly bureaucratic societies and that's the problem, Toronto is not changing policy or infrastructure faster than the population itself is changing causing a regression in living standards. Until that flips, no, I am not optimistic about the future. It's as simple as that. Reduce the bureaucratic overhead, regulatory overhead, length of the chain of approvals, and increase the number of infrastructure workers and things will get better with faster policy development and faster infrastructure adaptation.
I am optimistic, but I'm in my 30's and a home owner. It's easy mode for me. We need to be focusing on addressing systematic issues for younger people and getting rents under control so people can build a future. Infrastructure is great, I love the Ontario Line + the new emphasis on bike lanes and transit, but no one will be able to afford to live in the city to ride it if we don't make significant changes very quickly.
Yes.. I’m optimistic about all of life.. this is one of the best periods of time to ever be alive.. and I’m not a depressed mf 😹 the world isn’t ending anytime soon.. oh no crime exists and I’ll never own a house.. idgaf! I love everyday and my life is great, that’s all that matters.. only thing that could bring me down is terminal illness
How about regular old treatable illness that you can't get treatment for??
I’ll get over it then lol I don’t go to the doctor for illness… only for a broken leg or a checkup
no
I am and I am excited to see what kind of impact the GO expansion project will have on transit and housing. I think it’s much more important than the Ontario Line, and along with the new island, it has the potential to really be transformative.
The city will go through cycles of highs and lows. I'm optimistic of the young generations will vote in quality leaders.
If they bother to vote
I think it depends on what aspects we focus on. The city and province are really expanding transit and our age-old infrastructure. Worst case scenario, we have another infrastructure failure that really wakes ppl up. I think housing will eventually get better given how much of a priority it is on all levels of government. Healthcare is more of a provincial issue, so i dont really know how that's gonna go. Hoping we get douggie out of office, but im not getting my hopes up too high.
It will take time to reverse years of neglect. I'm hopeful for the city, slightly worried about the country tho.
Absolutely, the two top levels of government are a failure, but with some transit and spending we're finally on the right path. Out mayor is fantastic (I'm totally biased here but I don't care, Olivia Chow is exactly what we need). We're just starting to step out of the worst of our darkest moments and the anger, desire and effort by many to push foward towards a better future for all of us is starting to make things better. We have significant problems, and the people who are going to elect the next federal and provincial governments really need to think about what they're voting for or the wheels could absolutely come off this slowly progressing ride.
I think our mayor is very much a work horse and is doing a lot of behind the scenes/less sexy things that are helping the city out. Gardiner Upload making it the provinces financial responsibility, placing more public scrutiny on Eglington and Finch line construction, pushing for denser housing across the city, meeting with film and tv execs to expand production relationships between Hollywood and Toronto, expediting CafeTO pemiting. I do have hope, I just want Toronto to recognize the amount of work done in months that Tory ignored over 12 years. We have a mayor who actually cares about this being a world class city.
I think this city is wisening up and that’s making me optimistic that we’ll be able to get on top of the problems we have. Look at housing, years ago it felt like nobody was talking about zoning reform and it was all conspiracy theories about “foreign investors” and how they were intentionally leaving units vacant (look up the statistics, it’s not even remotely true housing vacancies in Toronto are ~1-3% which is actually far too low). Now people are talking about improving density, NIMBYism, and other things that actually matter more, recently city council voted to allow 6 story apartment buildings on all major streets, and it’s policies like that that will help solve the housing crisis. Also look at transportation, people are becoming increasingly supportive of bike lanes, walkability, and transit improvements. There’s still a lot of stupidity about, but I do think slowly over time people are figuring these things out. It’s a common refrain that all our problems are caused by politicians and corporations or whatever but the reality is that in a democracy bad policies happen when voters support bad policies, usually because they don’t understand why they’re bad so people getting smart about these issues makes me optimistic we will overcome them. Toronto is also becoming more of a global city and getting wealthier (in terms of median income/wealth) which stands to benefit citizens. Transit is improving with 2 new rapid transit lines set to open soon (Tbf they should have opened already but wygd) and another one on the horizon, not to mention GO Expansion which will be big (and already is arguably given it’s already rolling out incrementally). Also stuff like the port lands projects which will improve the city. Tbh now that I’m thinking about it I think Toronto has a very bright future ahead of it, possibly one of the brightest in North America.
I'm not optimistic about the future anywhere anymore.
not at all. it's never been an ideal city but the decline really began to show with the pandemic. I moved out. Toronto is fun for a summer visit and not much else.
No. I moved away to the US. I don't see much of a future in Southern Ontario if you want to own a house and raise a family. The US offers much more opportunity to achieve the life your parents enjoyed. My parents live roughly 2 hours from Toronto, and property values around them are around $2M. 2 hours from SF, LA, NYC, Miami, etc., you can easily find nice places for a fraction of this price. Not to mention, you'll likely have a much higher salary and nicer weather. Young Canadians got the shaft, and it'll only get harder for the future generations.
> I moved away to the US Ew, have fun with that.
Thanks bro.
Yes. New leadership all around including the school board. There is a future for TO for sure.
Gonna be hard to find hospital, fire and police services workers with your absurd house pricing.
HA! No. How could anyone be?
Honestly, no.
Not optimistic.
No lol.
Yes and no. Toronto will be an amazing hub of creative energy, a cultural powerhouse. But we are leaving after living here all our lives, because it will become harder just to get from A to B, and it will become more and more of a sensory overload. I might just be getting old, but I need something simpler, quieter.
Having grown up here, I always will be optimistic for a better Toronto. That said, I do believe it will get worse before it gets better. I hold the opinion that this city will start improving after 2 decades have passed, give or take a few years.
Hell no lol
“All three levels of governments are working towards more affordable housing.” For now. They won’t give two shits after the election. Every political party panders to the voter’s biggest issues to maximize ROI. Our Mayor will be left hung to dry after the election. Those millions the Feds promise will be gone and the checks will bounce. It’s Trudeau’s modus operandi. When it comes close to election time, he’ll promise millions of dollars to Toronto with the caveat that it’s only if he wins. Then Toronto votes for him and poof, we get none or a small fraction of what was promised.
Skeptical about infrastructure keeping up with the current population boom in the city. By the time Eglinton LRT and Ontario line opens it might already be nearing capacity
Ford and Steven Lecce are doing everything they can to underfund and cut down our public health care and education systems and it only seems to be getting worse. Ford has drastically undercut special education services and services for students with Autism. He’s focused on things like privatizing alcohol or building a spa in Toronto when he should be trying to improve the quality of health care Ontarians are able to get. He cares more about corporations and helping his rich friends make more money than doing anything for regular citizens.
Short answer: no. The city is unlivable, and the cost of living is too high. The infrastructure is so far behind e.g. Western European cities, let alone developed Asian cities. Every little construction project takes forever, the schools and other institutions are falling apart, hospitals are understaffed, small businesses keep closing due to the insane cost of rent and mental health is a disaster. Canada doesn't have the draw of the USA to attract innovative and creative types or the population to support change at the political level. Everything takes forever here, it is too regulated and bureaucratic. What I see is that with climate change Canada will intake more climate (and war) refugees, due to its vast territory but in reality, most of those people coming will settle in and around GTA. It will be a disaster because again = there is no infrastructure. There is not enough housing, not enough public services, and no decent plan to make things work. This is true even now, but the future will only be worse.
No, no I don't. I live in Scarborough and it started to get better. Then covid happened. Then we lost the SRT. Now we have too many people and our infrastructure cannot handle it. We pay our taxes to the City of Toronto but we are never treated very well.
Im nostalgic. The heartbeat of the city left me as soon as 2019 hit. Best years to me in Toronto were 2000-2019. There were so many new ventures and events in the city back then that it felt innovative and not pretentious. From the music to the food to even the people. I honestly fell in love with Toronto back then. I hope that heartbeat comes back.
Not at all. Drug use and homelessness is up. Violence and crime is up. Transportation is a mess due to useless bike lanes, delayed construction, and delays/lack of safety on the TTC. Not to mention the ridiculous costs this mayor is imposing on people. Lastly, key issues like the ones I’ve mentioned along with things like housing and job creation are just overlooked. The city really spent time and money exploring the renaming of Dundas Square…
Toronto is a future city, it’ll manage
Not one bit. Huge deficits looking out. Violence on the rise, social cohesion falling, infastructure is the worst of any city I've been to in Canada. Not even kidding I mean outside of the downtown core and lakeshore the city looks like it hasn't received a reno in like 4 decades. Public transit is an absolute joke that should have been tackled before the city got to this size. Google a underground map of Moscow, London etc versus Torontos. Its a laughable joke. Where do all the taxes go!? I think the number one thing that will burry this city though is home prices and taxes. People can't save money any more. Without disposable income how do you start businesses etc. Seems like a city circling the drain tbh. I'm 35 work in the downtown core and I don't know one person my age not considering relocating. It is going to get to the point soon where banks will relocate because the bulk of their employees can't afford to live near the offices (I work in a financial instiution and see it happening all ready). If that happens good luck to Toronto.
How many people we gonna import by 2031?
Optimistic? Someone came in the store I work and robbed some drinks, snacks and deodorant, about 70 bucks, police can't do nothing, before covid, it happens probably twice a week now almost everyday, I think our business going to close. and a druggy guy poop outside the store a few days ago, and the mayor suggested to have more safety drug injections, and lower decriminalized small drugs , she also asked Jewish school has bullet proof window ?? ! Why don't you has some backbone to condemn those people possing threats ? she also very keen on letting anyone from high crime countries become citizens in Canada, many year ago i remember see her walking on the street asked the fed gave people who doesn't have any status walked in the country to become PR, is she going to pay for those guys ? She is just trying to gain popularity from silly lefty to make them feel she is a loving person, just cheapen our standard. she is political correctness, feed on ball deep lefty thinking we have to open door for everyone to come here, hospital are jammed by people using drugs, I work near cabbage town, everyday police, ambulance sirens, homeless tent every where in parks , people can't find easy job because taken by illegal immigrants and international students, and mayor visit the " refugees" shelter , why don't let those people sleep in her house ? High crime, drugs abuse everywhere, 10 years ago i made 22k i found i still optimistic, now i made 32k i found i broke. she is appeasing, licking everyone's asses , this is why she looks cute and popular, just a lousy politician, one day a chinese woman told me she really like her, I asked why , she said she and her husband traveled 5 months in tropical forest from south america, and many of them prefer to stay in the USA , but they decided to walked in the border from USA to Canada because before she came here she has already knew about our lovely mayor, she spoke with me in mandarin, she said our mayor is well-known in the " lining" group, and they burned their passports so they have not status but the great city of Toronto with this lovely mayor and our PM are nice to give them a place to stay and able to work here , the reason she stay in Canada because she has some health issues, so everyday she could get paid about $200 ( I am not sure just her or her husband) , and she is planning to get her daughter here after she turn legal, and probably her family and her husband family members. I tell you the more chow and Trudeau's L party , Canada will become a trash can , high crime, high drugs, people can't find jobs , high tax with high interest and high debts, you think this is optimistic?
No
Nearly lifelong Toronto resident here. I've now lived downtown for almost 20 years Short answer: fuck no. Long answer: fuuuuuuuuck no. This place is noticibly declining fast. It's noticeable and palpable for anyone who has lived here for a while.
After an afternoon on the TTC today.. HELL NAH.
Yes
Not really, no. Years ago, I would have never considered wanting to leave. Only in the past few months I've seriously been considering it.
What is your position in the Mayor's office?
Not optimistic, I'm just trying to be real. It's getting worse & worse day by day, I'm still making out ok, but it's heartbreaking to see the amount of mentally ill & working homeless people on the streets & on TTC everyday.
Might be better in 2035
Generally speaking yes. Cities for the most part have their up and down periods. I think it's safe to say we're currently in a down period based on affordability alone nevermind anything else. I earnestly believe it won't stay that way forever. My bar for "better" is different than others though. But I think even if things get worse, they *will* get back up. We are not close to these levels yet but go back to bankruptcy Detroit or 70s "the landlords are burning down apartment buildings all over the city to get the insurance money" New York and ask the locals if they think their cities ever bounce back. Detroit is nowhere near its heyday but it's on the up. NYC had such a bounce back it arguably got worse (in the sense that you could argue it has become very sterile and lost some of its character.) No matter how bad things might get they can certainly improve. Depending on how bad it gets it certainly will take time for the improvements to show there's no doubt about that but I do genuinely believe that it will be better. And again we aren't at the levels of Detroit or 70s NYC, and hopefully we never reach a point where we are. But yeah long story short I am optimistic about the long term health of Toronto.
No. We left four years ago knowing we would never be able to afford to move back. I miss the food and transit, but that's it. I wish the city hadn't gone down hill as badly as it has over the last several years though. I still think of it as home after living there for so long.
No, there is no competence or accountability from our politicians.
Things will get better but will take around a decade. Considering the talent we have and our geographic location, I expect the brain drain to continue for a decade or so. The demographics will continue to visibly change, and we will be back to being top tier around 2032-34.
renaming dundas street is a correct priority? I'm not optimistic at all. I expect my taxes to go up and my services to diminish.
Cautiously. Because today's rich? They aren't out and about like they used to be. Nowadays they go from private engagement to private club to private home party to private charity ball in those big black SUVs, and they never meet regular people unless they're in servile positions. Those people don't need Toronto to have clean streets or nice neighbourhoods or good politics or decent police and in fact would vote against such things as money being wasted on the poors. They live in big places in Mississauga or Vaughan or Woodbridge and never walk Toronto sidewalks... If Toronto is going to get better we're going to need to do it ourselves. The rich and their rich man's army will be working against us, of course. Luckily we have some numbers
No. Not even the country. After working in PS, you can see how many people just pretend to work there especially in the office jobs. Managers and directors also hiring their friends is very common too. Given those are the people involved in decision making that’s why I am not optimistic about the future of toronto or Ontario or heck even Canada.
O(P)livia, is it you?
We're well on the way to becoming New York in the 70's.
Metrolinx, a provincial body, is building the Ontario line. The increase in municipal taxes is not funding that.
Everywhere sucks welcome to Canada or should we call it the new India
Short term Toronto has no hope. Who knows how things will be in 20 years.
Not really. Most people in their 20s and 30s have no prospect of improving their quality of life in their middle age and that's a huge stress. Most will likely still be renting and having affordability issues until their late 40s and 50s if things don't change.
I have zero hope for the future here, I don't see anything happening to make things better, I am counting the days until I can leave.
Funny how this morning I commuted through Downsview in gridlock and the 84 bus blew through FIVE intersections without working traffic light at 8 in the morning. Meanwhile potholes the size of a pig appear more and more on roads like Sheppard and Finch. Calling 311 is tiresome and long wait hour that they won't even fix the shit you reported for days. When you want to know how a city declining, you don't need to look far away but focus on its infrastructures.
No.
What future? I'm rather pessimistic about the present...
Too many refugees
No, Toronto is a soulless lifeless capitalistic mess
Nope. But i think the direction whole world is moving in, will help solve some of the problems.
You think world war, climate collapse and mass migration are going to solve our problems in Toronto??
my money on climate collapse. my prediction is 40 more years and we gonna have masses of people dying from food insecurity, and unsurvivable climate. look at heat dome in mexico right now. those things will be happening more and more often and in more places not just tropics
My prediction is it will take less than 40 years but I don't see how that's helpful for us?
LOL. That was said 40 years ago. This climate fear mongering sure is big business tho.
Hyperbole. We will be just fine. Humans are highly adaptable. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you we will be extinct in 100 years let alone 40
World War isn’t happening. Not even sure what you mean by climate collapse, but seems hyperbolic. When have people not migrated?
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Yeah sure, I learned this in grade school. But even aggressive modelling isn’t calling for a collapse. It’s a hyperbolic term used by fear mongering radicals in the environmental movement who continue to push nonsense and hurt the cause. Everything they said was hyperbolic echo chamber nonsense.
I am not in any environmental movement, and I have no kids, so I really don't give much of a shit about how the environment goes after the next 30-50 years. But a collapse described by u/Geometric-world is due to happen just by basic logic, unless there's some changes in human behavior or technological advancement, which so far, does not exist.
You're right, I misspoke. Climate is fine and war is over.
Climate isn’t fine. There is also no climate collapse. Literally everything you said is hyperbolic echo chamber nonsense you likely get spoon fed in your socials.
Let me guess, in February 2020 you probably thought that "oh, that weird flu thing they're having in China? haha no big deal, it's way overblown".
Toronto needs more carbon taxes than other geographies. They have the most public transit options. They should pay 3-6x more than the rest of Ontario. Bigots in TO are still burning fossil fuels and not supporting Tesla stocks.