Toronto Centre Island: Threats of Urban
Sprawling
Introduction
Toronto Centre
Island is a favorite tourist destination because of its beaches and favorable
characteristics versus the negative effects of urbanization in the Toronto
Area. This part of the province had experienced a boom in population and
unbalanced urbanization characterized by social polarization and urban sprawl.
Despite the island’s efforts to maintain the cleanliness and good environmental
condition to improve conservation, it is not immune to the destructive urban
planning that had been happening in Toronto. In this report, we look into the
history of urbanization in Toronto and the threats of urban sprawling and
pollution as urban issues for Toronto Centre Island.
Urban
Planning
Urban
planning is often a complicated undertaking that many fail to realize the scale
of its effects on the present and future generations. To some it is a purely
intellectual and straightforward practice. However, there are those that say
otherwise, especially in the case of Toronto’s planning practices (Crawford
2011). One of the views espoused is that planning systems are essentially
political and ideological creations that demonstrate the current trend among
western economies that try to balance competitiveness on one hand, and
sustainable development on the other. And yet they fail to realize that urban
planning is more than an academic or economic undertaking. Urban planning
should also take into consideration the impact upon the environment as well as
the people who will actually live these masterfully designed urban spaces
(Crawford 2011). Another problem is that there is a tendency for government to
come up with “narrow-mandate” agencies with specific goals that are based on
fragmented planning visions and poor public engagement, which results in
suboptimal results.
This
only emphasizes the need for planners to be transparent about the dynamics of
power relations. Planners should also drive for community engagement because
doing so would come up with better results (Crawford 2011). This is in relation
to a research conducted that refers to concept of the level of reward that
individuals get from their social networks. The notion is that in order to
garner support for local development initiatives government should enhance the
social networks that locals have in the communities because if an individual
gets more satisfaction from social networks outside the community then they
would not support local initiatives. In essence, an individual would only care
about initiatives in their community only they can get satisfaction from the
social networks within the community.
Jacobs
and Appleyard (1987) note that it has been over 50 years since Le Corbusier and
the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM) came up with its
manifesto, and yet it is still a strong influence. It has come under attack
from many concerned sectors such as sociologists, planners and even architects
themselves. In hindsight, it grew out as a response to the growing number of
ill-planned cities that emerged in the 1930s. The manifesto laid down physical
requirements for establishing humane, healthy, and beautiful urban environments
for people (Jacobs and Appleyard 1987).
Jacobs and Appleyard (1987) noted various problems that modern urban
designers must face, such as poor living environments, giantism and loss of
control, the loss of public life and large-scale privatization, centrifugal
fragmentation, destruction of valued places, placelessness, injustice, and
rootless professionalism. Indeed, when one looks into the problems presented by
the authors, it would not be hard to see that these problems are increasingly
becoming evident in Toronto.
History
of Urbanization in Toronto
In about two centuries, Toronto was
able to grow from being a British colony into an urban region composed of 5 million
people (Young
& Keil, 2005; Solomon, 2011; Cullingworth, 1987) . One of the most
distinguishing features of Toronto is that it is located near a body of water.
As such, its waterfront has been an integral part of its history. Prior to
European settlement, Toronto was home to Aboriginal Peoples who utilized the
area as the start of a shortcut from the lower to upper great lakes (Waterfront
Toronto 2013). Although early French settlers knew of the Toronto passage, it
was not until the 1720s that they set up permanent residence in Toronto. It was
in 1720 when the French set up a small trading post in the Humber River. By
1750, Fort Rouille was built on the Lake Ontario shoreline just east of Humber.
At the end of the American Revolution, Toronto gained prominence as a site to
exploit the fur trade and to settle.
The
British saw Toronto’s potential as a naval base because its defensible harbors
would allow General John James Simcoe to Lake Ontario (Waterfront Toronto 2013).
The Toronto passage would also allow the passage of supplies and troops if the
Americans had captured Lake Erie. It was the construction of Fort York that is
considered the birth of urban Toronto in 1793. By the 1800s it was quite evident
that since much of trade was by boat, building manufacturing sites close to the
waterfront was the wise thing to do. Building factories along the shore allowed
for the easy delivery of supplies and for finished products to be effectively
transported. In the 1830s and 1840s as manufacturing grew, it became apparent
that the land along the waterfront was limited (Waterfront Toronto 2013).
Shipping, railway, and industrial infrastructure could not grow under such
circumstances. As such, massive lake filling was undertaken to reclaim the
land. For the next hundred years, it became a practice to gradually fill the
land southward in order to accommodate the expansion of the city.
The
original shoreline of Toronto now can be found north of today’s rail corridor.
Front Street was built along the edge of the shoreline. The filling and
reclaiming of land would continue until the 1950s when present shoreline was
achieved. As the waterfront became known as an industrial area, the city’s
relationship with the shoreline changed. By the end of World War II, much of
the city’s wealthier residents fled to the suburbs (Waterfront Toronto 2013).
The core of the city had gained a reputation as an undesirable place to live.
As people began to live in the suburbs and outlying areas, access to the
downtown core was needed. Despite living in the suburbs, many people still
worked downtown. It was common practice at that time to build highways in rings
around cities. For most cities located beside water, it was common practice to build
on or near the waterfront. In Toronto, it was very much the same, Gardiner
Expressway was built, which resulted in cutting off people from the lake. A new
trend in the 1970s appeared, and that is the fact that cities were now
revisiting their waterfronts as well as outlying locations in the city. The
newly developed waterfronts around the world began to attract more residents,
more employers, and more visitors. Sadly, Toronto would only follow suit much
later. There have been sporadic attempts to redevelop the waterfront but none
were successful enough to spark a major change in the waterfront.
As
previously mentioned, General Simcoe envisioned the place to become an arsenal
for Lake Ontario because it was a much more defensible place as either Kingston
or Niagara. By the early 19th Century, Toronto was already the
gathering place for shipmasters, shipwrights, and mariners, whose schooners
took wheat, flour, potash, lumber, and farm produce to ports that included
Kingsburg, Cobourg, Rochester, and Oswego (Moir 2011). As they returned to the
city, they brought along with them manufactured goods for the hinterlands. This
continued on for years until as mentioned there was a need to expand the place
to accommodate the rapid expansion. There were plans that were made and one of
them was to redirect the Don River into the marsh. The original mouth of the
Don was joined by another channel to the north that was most likely created as
a defensive measure during the American invasion of 1813 (Moir 2011). Surveys
from 1834 showed that the openings were roughly the same size. Early on, the
commissioners saw the river as nothing more than a vehicle for transporting
alluvium to the bed of the harbor.
Another
plan was to construct a breakwater from the tip of the peninsula west across
the top of the shoal to prevent the aforementioned silt from reaching the
harbor’s entrance. However, there were also those against the said plans that
painted the river as destructive to the harbor. For example, Richard
Bonnycastle of the 1st Royal Engineers noted that the river had
little effect on the condition of the harbor (Moir 2011). Nevertheless, he also
advocated redirecting the river so its silt would fill up the marsh. However,
action on the Don would not commence until years later. Despite the constricted
entrance of the harbor, activity still increased in the mid 1800s. It was
during this time that several new piers were built on the east end of the north
shore. It was quite evident then that the private expansion had precipitated
the uncoordinated expansion of the port. Private interests would also be the
reason for the expansion of the city south into the lake. By the 1880s large
scale reconfiguration of the waterfront began to take form. Nevertheless, the
piecemeal evolution of the harbor continued.
In
1900 the edge of the waterfront had already moved south by three hundred meters
(Moir 2011). This had resulted in the 180 hectares of the bay being reclaimed. By 1911, Toronto’s
population would grow with majority of the population working in manufacturing.
Space was also becoming a prime concern because railways had tied up most of the
available properties. The city itself was also expanding towards outlying
communities. As such, the expansive wetlands of Ashbridge’s Bay became the
focus of reclamation schemes and the creation of a deepwater port. In a
referendum conducted in January 1911 effectively placed the reclamation of
Ashbridges Bay in the hands of a harbor commission (Moir 2011). In 19 May 1911,
the Toronto Harbour Commission was created by an act of Parliament. The
development of the waterfront is directly related to the Toronto Islands
because of their proximity to each other. Whatever is done on one side directly
relates to the other. However, it can be said that despite the unending
development, Centre Island and the adjoining islands took an a more relaxed and
recreational nature as opposed to the industrial nature of the waterfront.
In the last thirty years, the greater Toronto area has
experienced explosive population growth. Extensive suburban expansion is manifested
in the current state of the city, as there are scattered subdivisions and large
shopping malls that do not have enough parking spaces. This problem is
identified as urban sprawling, a major urban issue in the 21st
century.Urban sprawling is defined as a “pattern of urban and metropolitan growth
reflecting low-density, automobile-dependent, exclusionary new development on
the fringe of settled areas often surrounding a deteriorating city (Squires,
2002, p. 49) .”However,
contrary to the experience of Toronto, Toronto’s Centre Island has a different
view. The island itself is not a residential location, as such it is somewhat
shielded from the ill effects of the urban sprawl. But it would be too
simplistic to think that since there are no residents in the area, it is not
affected by the problems brought on by the constant march of urban expansion. Even
if the residents of Toronto do not live in the Centre Islands, this does not
mean that they do not use motor vehicles to access the launch point for the
location. It would be ridiculous to think that in order to go to the
environment-friendly location, people would not use vehicles that cause
pollution in their wake.
Centre Island welcomes hundreds of visitors every
week, but has no residents. In the 1960s, the city began to evict the residents
who had been living in that section of the islands. For 20 years, residents of Ward’s
island struggled against government efforts to remove the community (Rawlings-Way
& Karneef, 2013; Relph, 2014) . Today, the Centre
Island is a park where children, families, and other visitor enjoy biking,
walking, and eating picnics. It is also one of the very few urban communities
in Northern America to call itself car-free. This somewhat mitigates the
effects of air pollution in the area. It is an attraction composed of parks and
playgrounds designed to welcome hundreds of visitors every week. One side of
the Island is composed of traditional playgrounds with puppet shows, miniature
ponies, and tram rides. On the other side, there are lagoons, bike rides, and viewing
points to see the stunning view of the city point (Dunn, 2013) .
However, just 15 minutes away from downtown Toronto Area, Centre Island is not
immune to environmental problems. The threats of urban sprawling have important
implications to the island’s effort to maintain this tourist destination. As
the development of Centre Island into a recreational destination intensifies,
more people will want to go the place and as such, the traffic caused by it can
cause severe problems in transportation and making it more accessible. However,
this should not be a major problem if the planners envision and implement
environment-friendly ways to make the area accessible.
Threats
of Pollution
The problem on urban sprawling in Toronto has been
going on for 50 years. The local government initiated the creation of the
Greenbelt, a massive development-protected swath of land in the area. The
project involves enforcing no-build zones around the country’s largest urban
center. However, this project resulted in the recent boom of high-rise housing
in Toronto (Landau, 2013) . One issue involving urban sprawl is
poor living environment. While living conditions in advanced countries have
improved in terms of light, air, space, and surroundings, some neighborhoods
remain dangerous, polluted, noisy, and an urban wasteland. Traveling around
cities characterized by urban sprawling becomes more stressful (Jacobs & Appleyard, 1987) . Hence, with these
problems in the provincial capital, tourists tend to visit Toronto Centre Island.
It is recorded that about 1.25 million people visit the island every year (Dunn, 2013) . Thus, the city is
taking extra precautions to protect its natural and recreational resources. According
to the Blue Flag Program, Toronto has some of the best beaches in the world.
The City of Toronto takes daily water samples from the supervised beaches(Young & Keil, 2005) .
The environmental problems of Toronto are
intensified whenever there is a major storm because it flushes the sewage from
the Toronto’s old-fashioned combined sewers into the Lake Ontario. The road
salt and motor oil flows from the drains into creeks and rivers. Likewise, the
levels of ground-level ozone that form smog over the river area have increased
five percent in just ten years (Gonzales 2005). Scientists have expressed
concerns about the resurgence of phosphorous in parts of the Great Lakes. In
fact, the safety of consuming fish from the lake has been constantly questioned
and tested. Thus, the problem resulting from urban sprawl has also resulted in not
only water pollution, but also air pollution (Wee, 2013; Gonzales, 2005) . Moreover, we also
know that tourism itself poses important threats of pollution, as various
ferries go back and forth the island; water pollution can also be a problem.
Hence, the city is also watching transportation and mobility because these are
related to larger issues of water pollution (Martin, 2007) . This is a problem that is a
consequence of the large urban sprawl that Toronto has become. Motor vehicles
have become a mainstay of transportation and as such, it is the only means of
moving to and from residential locations to places of work or recreation. This
then is a problem created by the urban sprawl, because as cities like Toronto
began to claim outlying areas, the distance from one location to the other
necessitated the creation of roads that carved up communities in their wake in
order to facilitate the transportation needs of its residents.
Conclusion
One reason for
studying urban planning history is to avoid repeating the mistakes done in the
past, especially those which concerns failures in urban planning. Indeed, the
great urban parks are sanctuaries to millions of residents. Architects, social
reformers, environmental activists, and other stakeholders of modern urban
planning needs to consider the factors that govern these past mistakes so that
the future generations can be guided (Legates & Stout, 1998) . This should be
evident in the case of Toronto Centre Island because despite the efforts for
preservation and conservation of the island, it is not completely isolated from
environmental problems created by urban sprawling in the Toronto area. The
failing sewage system causes water pollution and air pollution as well to
affect the Centre Island. It would be naïve to think that a pristine and well-kept
location would be immune to the effects of an ill-planned urban sprawl. The
Centre Island lies in the wake of pollution caused by problems in urban
planning caused in the mainland. Likewise, transportation to and from the island
can also have contribute to pollution in the lake. It should also be noted that
aside from contributing to pollution in the lake, transportation also causes
air pollution that also affects Centre Island. Thus, the municipal government
of the island, along with all urban planning professionals, should act on these
issues in order to protect its beaches and other attractions that allow its
visitors escape from the stressful environment to the main island. Many of these problems have been caused by
poor urban planning in the past. But this does not mean that urban planning
cannot mitigate the effects of bad urban planning done in the past.
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