Pavedover #1: Toronto starts going onanistic

Nine months of this site have coincided with the flourishing of conversations about Toronto – although urban planning fantasies, enthusiasm for an upper-middlebrow cultural renaissance and self-laudatory tales of tolerance, diversity and pluralism don’t make the city seem any less mundane in the present tense. Mercifully, the current micro-realities of life in the GTA are increasingly being examined in various places, encouraged by the broadening reach of online media. Yet, the next municipal election may just turn out to be a dry run of how campaigns can be ignited by virtual debate in the future – David Miller seems unscathed by Jane Pitfield’s braying about decay, although Adam Vaughan and now John Sewell are bidding for council seats on the basis that misguided construction projects have cursed central Toronto with its own doomsday clock. Shouldn’t the number of cranes in the air reflect decades of prosperity ahead, though? The argument that corporate interests are destined to swallow the soul of every genuine neighbourhood may not wash when Yonge and Dundas and Queen and Dufferin are being transformed into less antagonistic intersections, if not more aesthetically rewarding ones. More recently, written off as unappealing to consumers have been the Starbucks-free environs of Chinatown, along with retail tumbleweeds at the three-year-old Distillery District. Now that Lord of the Rings doesn’t look to be saving the tourism industry, the mass marketing of Toronto could only benefit from turning inward. Photoblogs and thematic sets on Flickr can’t help but inspire greater attention to local architecture and design; 21st century publishing methods allow for a website obsessing over Leslieville, blogs about the Don River Valley and North Roncesvalles, and a zine about the 54 East bus route; topics like a smokestack demolition in Mississauga or expropriation of land for an airport in Pickering are closer to home for 416 snobs when the surrounding details are easily searched. Public transit and bike riding issues have been similarly elevated online. Walking seems to be the latest local media trend, though – surely influenced by the Toronto Psychogeography Society – with extreme pedestrianism celebrated in the broadsheets. So, where is the weblog about driving in this town?