Instead of aspiring to be a “world-class” city, Toronto could aspire to be a good city. It is a good city, no longer just "the Good" city it was.

Toronto could be different from other cities. It is different from other cities. If only it could be happy with the ways it is different (like we are), it could stop playing the silly game of imitating its supposed betters. Toronto could be a “getting better all the time” city, instead of a wanna be. It could be...our city. All of ours.

I have hope. Toronto can become more than Canada's head office. It doesn't have to be a haven for lowest common denominator thinking. It can be a place that thinks more and does more of what it thinks. It could be a place that acts instead of reacts. It could have a mind instead of just having reflexes. It could have purpose, it could have design.

Design could help save this city from becoming a completely commercialized theme park.

Toronto should be designed to be a business “calming” zone: a place that fosters innovation in how business is done, not just in what it sells; a place that no only does business, but that thinks about the design of business; a place where design & business were a boon to the life of this city and not just its bottom line. This might be happing already.


Toronto could be the well designed city. It isn't.


Yet.