Comment 45739

By Michelle Martin (registered) - website | Posted August 15, 2010 at 13:01:48

The well-off contribute to this dismaying bizzardom more so than the poor and unstable, IMO. Look at all of the bought up, derelict property downtown, which is just sitting there boarded up and has done so for months (some even years). If these buildings are allowed to sit vacant and decaying for this long, what do they think this will do to the surrounding properties? Of course it brings property values down.

Absolutely.

It is important to be really careful about putting things in terms of desireable vs. undesireable types of people. No, of course we don't want people to be engaging in criminal activity downtown, but aside from that, where's the line? I'd actually be interested in what any given person's profile of the ideal frequenter of the downtown should look like, and how closely it resembles him- or herself.

None of us is necessarily immune to some kind of breakdown, or at least from eventually becoming old, arthritic, much poorer and maybe even cranky. And no social class or income category has a corner on crankiness or rude behaviour. Sure, there are scooter drivers who are inconsiderate, but I remember taking the subway in Toronto with two small children and being plowed past on the platform, on more than one occasion, by some businessman wielding an umbrella in one swinging arm and and a large briefcase in the other, like a couple of weapons. A bit of "car culture" in pedestrian form.

Comment edited by Michelle Martin on 2010-08-15 12:04:14

“Conviction without experience makes for harshness. ” Flannery O'Connor

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