Consider me grateful for my 23-day total immersion in Scarborough-Guildwood during my recent by-election run. The experience has clarified the ways in which this area has been left out of the city’s general prosperity – and why remedies have to be super-quick in coming.
Each day of the campaign, as I moved through the riding, I heard locals express the sense that they were being treated differently because they live outside the core, and were missing many of the socially provided comforts downtowners assume as the norm. Aren’t we all living in the same city?
Leaving aside the shocking transit shortfall for a moment, the area has fewer community centres, pools and libraries per capita than the rest of Toronto, and far more neighbourhoods below the poverty line. Moreover, it has some of the highest concentrations of Toronto Community Housing projects, including buildings in such terrible shape that many would have trouble believing they actually exist here.
At the same time, communities like Kingston Galloway and Orton Park have incredible social capital. The strong bonds in these areas generate their own alternative programming and knit people together in a way you don’t find in new downtown condo ‘hoods.
I spent a lot of time with TCH tenants, which gave me a chance to see many developments and apartments in great detail. My informal survey confirmed everything I’ve already heard about the backlog of repairs. And the critical fact is that while residents are unhappy with the state of affairs, they love their community and seem resigned to the idea that nothing will ever get better.
This is a major motif in the area and explains why Rob Ford was able to win 60 per cent of the vote in most sections of the riding in the last municipal election: people generally feel the political system is ignoring them and perceived the mayor as an anti-establishment force ready to shake things up on their behalf, even if this has proved not to be the case.
This general disaffection accounts for the low voter turnout of low-income households, though a summer election and the fact that it fell during Ramadan didn’t help either. It also explains why transit was such a hot-button issue at the door.
Certainly, it’s shocking that the city has deprived many residents of the travel ease available elsewhere in our metropolis. Residents of Scarborough-Guildwood and other parts of Scarborough often spend two and a half to three hours a day getting to and from work or doing shopping. Even short visiting trips mean more than one bus and much walking because of the sprawling nature of the community and the fact that plazas and apartment towers are set back from the road.
Residents are being punished, it seems, for the terrible mistakes of 60s and 70s planning.
But having said that, it’s interesting that the lack of services, poverty wages and unemployment didn’t emerge as themes at the door.
It’s almost as if the subway promise pushed by Ford and the Liberals has become the key metaphor for addressing the equality gap, drowning out discussion of all other remedies. But it really isn’t an equity project at all. I tried to make the point that the subway option, with its mere three stops, would leave most Scarborough residents still taking long rides bus to rapid transit. But while the redo of the SRT would have been more directly accessible to more people, the powerful symbolism of the subway as a social equalizer trumped all.
This widespread skepticism about anything changing is fuelling my emphasis on an immediate increase in bus service, regardless of what long-term rapid transit project is selected. My worry is that if a subway sucks up an extra billion dollars, it will put the kibosh on bus service increases in the present and GO and light rail projects in the future, and delay any major reform by a decade.
What I’ve learned is that the enemy in Scarborough is cynicism. Those with access to power have a responsibility for the sake of the health of the whole city to work at solutions with supreme haste.
news@nowtoronto.com | @adam_giambrone
