Comment 78822

By Sanatorium (anonymous) | Posted June 22, 2012 at 12:39:20 in reply to Comment 78812

What it takes to lure a sympathetic resident from, say, Garth & the Linc to Bay & Herkimer is ineffable. It could be that some people simply like their suburban sedatives more than they realize.

Downtown is already quite senior-friendly, from the engineering of sidewalks to the profusion of clinics and amenities in the city's most dense and walkable environment. But seniors tend to be fixed-income and daytime-intensive, and those are already demographics amply represented in the existing mix.

Over all, if the retail/residential market is moribund, I don't know how you restore it without piling in loads of cash.

Considering the noise and nuisance complaints around Hess Village and the anathemic relationship between nightlife and condos/hotels in Toronto's Entertainment DIstrict, it's far from a quick-win. And what is the saturation point? Hint: Ask Tailgate's/Slainte/London Tap/Seventy-Seven/Embassy/Fev... uh, scratch that last one. Ask the cool kids in the back of the bus who loudly complain about how lame Absinthe is since it moved into its new digs at King WIlliam and Hughson. How do you engineer an urban experience that is patently unnatural and not compromise the essential qualities that make the city appealing as an authentic urban ecosystem? The costs of the experiment might be higher than what appears in the spreadsheets.

Downtown square-footage is already ridiculously cheap in many quadrants, certainly when it comes to independent business. People will shop around, but as to strategically strip-mining the city's functional neighbourhoods, as much fun as that would doubtless be I sense that it is another problematic gesture.

Permalink | Context

Events Calendar

There are no upcoming events right now.
Why not post one?

Recent Articles

Article Archives

Blog Archives

Site Tools

Feeds