When the evening “meeting” breaks up, Rosa goes inside, Theresa walks a block and a half home, Lucia goes to her house three doors down and Maria limps around the corner to her place.

These women live a good life in our downtown neighbourhood. None of them drive, but there are three drug stores, three butchers, myriad greengrocers, a shoemaker, a half-dozen hairdressers, dentists, lawyers, a doctor’s office, a church, a post office, a hardware store and a subway stop within a few short blocks of home.

Statistics Canada predicts there will soon be a lot more seniors like Rosa and her friends. The number of people 65 and older is expected to nearly double to between 9.9 million and 10.9 million by 2036, up from 4.7 million in 2009.

With 60 per cent of seniors living in communities of more than 100,000, the aging population poses a significant challenge for cities. Simply getting around, for instance, will be a growing problem for the surburban elderly who can no longer drive.

Research suggests that inadequate transit, the lack of nearby amenities and an environment hostile to pedestrians means seniors living in sprawling developments take fewer trips each week than those living in denser, downtown neighbourhoods. They are less likely to leave their homes on any given day. What’s more, traffic lights that change too quickly and streets that are too wide make walking a dangerous endeavour: In 2001, there were 3.7 pedestrian fatalities per 1,000 population among those 65 and older — the highest rate for any age group in Canada.

Cities are hostile places for the elderly in other ways. They lack public toilets. There are too few places to sit and rest. Rough sidewalks make it easy to trip.

Having said all that, there is hope. The first of the baby boomers turns 65 next year and by 2031, they will all be 65 or older. This is a demographic that gets what it wants and if boomers demand better transit, safer intersections, more public toilets and more places to sit — well it just might happen. And that means better cities for people of all ages.

– April Lindgren teaches at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, where she specializes in local news and urban affairs reporting; april.lindgren@arts.ryerson.ca.

The real reason, however, is that I haven’t mustered the courage to venture onto the streets and pathetically inadequate bike lanes for another season.

In between fretting, I have been pondering mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi’s proposal to confine bike lanes to secondary routes rather than installing them on arterials such as Bloor Street.

Rossi envisions bike lanes along routes such as Sherbourne, Beverley and St. George streets in the downtown, and Mortimer and Lumsden avenues, parallel to the Danforth.

“It’s a question of trying to come up with a solution that takes into account that the vast majority of people who are getting to work and are taking their kids to hockey (and other activities) are using cars versus bikes,” he says. “To say in the city that cars are bad and therefore I’m going to make it exceptionally difficult for people to go about their everyday lives, I don’t agree with that ... All I’m suggesting is we need a balance.”

Let’s take a look at Rossi’s notion of balance. First, his plan does not envision lanes that physically separate cyclists from cars and pedestrians.   

“If we’re using the safer secondary streets, I don’t see as big a case (for protected bike lanes),” he said in an interview. Maybe it’s just my chicken-hearted nature, but I don’t feel particularly safe on secondary streets.

Livable cities advocate Gil Penalosa challenges other aspects of Rossi’s scheme. Cyclists, like pedestrians, want to travel the shortest distance and that’s usually via arterials, he observes, noting that similar initiatives failed in Portland and Copenhagen. What’s more, he adds, people on $30 bikes should have access to the same thoroughfares as the drivers of big, noisy, polluting vehicles worth $30,000.

The biggest problem, however, is that Rossi’s proposal is an argument for the status quo. His plan for financing the construction of new subway infrastructure to lure motorists out of their cars has more holes in it than a kitchen colander and will lead to major delays in transit expansion. Under a Rossi administration, bike lanes will still consist of pathetically inadequate painted lines on still-busy streets. And the automobile will still reign unchecked and supreme.

There may be reasons to vote for Rossi. His bike plan isn’t one of them.

– April Lindgren teaches at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, where she specializes in local news and urban affairs reporting; april.lindgren@arts.ryerson.ca.

The city engaged in frenzy of self-recrimination over the recent mugging of a 79-year-old on the Bloor-Danforth subway line and the apparent failure of other passengers to come to his aid.

For the record, police officials in the days after the incident described the attack on Yusuf Hizel as a “blitz” and a “split-second” robbery executed in the seconds before the subway doors opened. Other passengers, they say, had little time to respond. And one of those passengers insists he did press the yellow alarm strip, though nothing happened.

None of this, however, stopped critics from weighing in on the uncaring, apathetic, chicken-hearted nature of Torontonians. On newspaper websites and talk radio, urban dwellers were condemned as complacent, self-centred and mean-spirited. One resident described Toronto as a city defined by “NDP, Birkenstock-wearing tree huggers, cycling people who simply do not care about others.” A commentator on the Toronto Star website insisted “this would NEVER be allowed to happen in any town north of Hwy. 7.”

There’s a long tradition of believing the worst about cities and their inhabitants. European social theorists in the late 19th and early 20th century saw cities as places where the togetherness and kinship bonds of villages collapsed, leading to social isolation, murder, juvenile delinquency and a preoccupation with wealth and individual advantage rather than collective good.

We’ve clung to these perceptions despite subsequent research by sociologists who found that, in fact, cities are characterized by a thick web of relationships between people based on neighbourhoods, common interests ranging from poetry to lawn bowling, and even secondary relationships with everyone from the local butcher to the owner of the nearby corner store.

Yes, bad things happen. And yes, people can behave rudely, callously and even viciously. But that’s the exception. Civility is more the norm.

Strangers stopped to help my mother when, during a visit to Toronto, she tripped and fell on Bloor Street. A homeless man returned my purse after it was stolen from the back of my chair in a bagel shop near the University of Toronto campus. I recently helped an elderly woman carry a heavy box of oranges across the street to her car when I saw her struggling with the carton outside a fruit and vegetable vendor in Koreatown.

This is the city I know, naysayers be damned.

– April Lindgren teaches at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, where she specializes in local news and urban affairs reporting; april.lindgren@arts.ryerson.ca.

“They (teenagers) are pretty appalled when they hear about the different ways people have tried to drive young people out of public spaces,” Dyer says. “It’s just so wrong and they understand that immediately.”

The book, illustrated by Marc Ngui and published by Kids Can Press, explains that shopping malls are not public spaces. It explores the privacy-versus-security issues associated with the use of surveillance cameras in the streets. And it highlights how the suburbs and parents’ preoccupation with “stranger danger” limit freedom of movement for young people.

Coming as it does in the midst of a municipal election campaign, Dyer’s book also serves as a reminder of the voices that aren’t being heard in the current race.

Do teenagers feel safe using bike lanes that consist of lines painted on streets? A summer pilot project that would see the installation of bike lanes protected by barriers along University Avenue will be great for Bay Street workers and couriers, but is it of much use to teenagers? A more meaningful pilot project would involve asking young people who live downtown and in the suburbs to identify the streets they use most and then testing dedicated bike lanes on those routes.

This election campaign is an opportunity for teenagers to demand a greater say on everything from waterfront development to makeovers of public space like Nathan Phillips Square. They could press for more skateboard parks, basketball courts, free wireless Internet zones and family-sized condos in the downtown.

The city of Rome’s master plan requires that all new developments take the things that children value into account — play spaces, meeting places and pedestrian routes — along with environmental, heritage and other factors.

Cities that are great for kids are great in general, so why shouldn’t young people in Toronto receive the same consideration?

Dyer says when she discusses public space with teenagers, they mention “being shushed a lot.” An election campaign is an opportunity for young people to make noise that candidates for city council will heed.

– April Lindgren teaches at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, where she specializes in local news and urban affairs reporting; april.lindgren@arts.ryerson.ca.

Why, then, does the whole thing smell like two-week-old fish?

A lot of the griping comes from those who accuse Miller of using the occasion to strike a blow at his critics. The city’s improved financial circumstances, the mayor suggested, mean that any mayoral candidate who argues for the sale of city assets or the outsourcing of city services is driven by ideology rather than by necessity. Take that George Smitherman, Rocco Rossi, Giorgio Mammoliti and Sarah Thomson.

All four mayoral contenders embrace privatization models to varying degrees. The only candidate for the city’s top job who opposes the idea is deputy mayor Joe Pantalone — and he stood beside Miller for the $100-million good news announcement.

It was pure political gamesmanship — the kind that breeds corrosive public cynicism.

At issue is what this whole affair says about management of the city’s finances. Toronto is supposed to be wallowing in financial crisis. Just recently, for instance, voters were told money was so tight it would be necessary for each city department to slash spending this year by five per cent. Then, all of a sudden, the situation wasn’t quite so dire. The 2009 surplus was initially pegged at $250 million. It grew to $350 million this week.

Do organizations in financial crisis accumulate $350-million surpluses? Is it really possible that officials working for the country’s sixth-largest government came up with $100 million extra dollars at the last minute? Why should voters believe politicians next year when they say the city faces financial doom once again? And what’s with the current mayor touting the future financial health of the city when even he admits much of next year’s good news depends on whether his successor can convince the financially strapped province to fork over millions of extra dollars?

Miller was trying to score political points against critics of his record, but what he really did was further erode confidence in the way the city is run. How’s that for a legacy?

– April Lindgren teaches at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, where she specializes in local news and urban affairs reporting; april.lindgren@arts.ryerson.ca.

It’s only a few units here and there, but each one has the potential to transform the life of a low-income family or individual. What’s more, the smattering of projects to date illustrates what can be done citywide.

Vaughan’s strategy is to broker deals with developers using a section of the city’s official plan that requires builders to pay for community benefits in return for permission to construct taller towers. Councillors usually use Section 37 to secure parks or other neighbourhood improvements, but Vaughan negotiated a floor of affordable rental housing units in a 41-storey hotel and condo project. The developer received permission to build higher than the zoning laws allow. People working in the building will rent the units at affordable rates.

Vaughan’s record also includes a deal that netted the non-profit housing group Kehilla four condo units for clients who need affordable, supportive housing. In another case, the developer will provide unfinished units to Habitat for Humanity.

“What we see in the old parts of downtown are integrated, balanced communities where the person who runs your green grocer or who teaches your children in school … all can afford to live in the neighbourhood,” Vaughan says. “It’s that complete neighbourhood concept that we’re now trying to replicate in the tall buildings.

“Most of these buildings hire a concierge to mind the door and that’s not a high-paying job,” he continues, noting that creating a vertical neighbourhood in a highrise isn’t easy. “If that person could live in the building, imagine the different relationship and quality of care you would get from the person who is at the door.”

Vaughan says provincial politicians who see the examples in his ward should find it easier to change the planning act so that cities can adopt zoning bylaws requiring a percentage of affordable housing in all new developments. A private member’s bill to this effect, introduced by NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo, is currently being mulled over by politicians at Queen’s Park.
Vaughan has done his bit. Over to you, Premier McGuinty.

– April Lindgren teaches at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, where she specializes in local news and urban affairs reporting; april.lindgren@arts.ryerson.ca.

Those few seconds defined the next years of my friend’s life. A crushed knee. Breaks in both legs and her collarbone. Nerve damage in each arm. Two years on crutches and canes.  A mild brain injury. Lost income.

An avid competitive sailor, she hasn’t sailed since. She doesn’t run anymore. She’s only now trying to golf again.

And she was lucky. She survived.

The epidemic of pedestrian deaths during the last month has sparked calls for driver and pedestrian education programs and prompted Toronto police to get tough on downtown jaywalkers. This will help. American studies show that folks who walk and talk on their cellphones, for instance, are less aware of their surroundings and more likely to engage in dangerous behaviour at intersections.

Recent work by University of Guelph researchers found that while parents believe kids need to be taught about road safety, few actually provide any instruction when crossing streets with their children.

Education and tougher enforcement are attractive because they are relatively cheap. They are, however, insufficient. Real improvements in pedestrian safety require money for road improvements and the political will to reignite the war-on-cars debate.

It takes money, for instance, to build median islands — halfway refuges for pedestrians who don’t have time to make it across wide, multi-lane intersections.

It will take political will to delay drivers’ green light signals at intersections, giving pedestrians a head start on crossing so they are more visible once traffic finally starts to move. Delays of this sort won’t be popular with motorists. And they won’t like speed reduction measures either.

The fact is though, a pedestrian hit by a vehicle driven at 60 kilometres per hour has an 85 per cent chance of being killed. That drops to 20 per cent if the vehicle is going 30 km/h.

Drivers will find all of this difficult to stomach. But the pedestrian carnage is also difficult to stomach. A chat with the “lucky” ones like my friend puts it all in perspective.

April Lindgren teaches at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, where she specializes in local news and urban affairs reporting; april.lindgren@arts.ryerson.ca.

George Smitherman wants to be mayor of Toronto so much he resigned from the provincial legislature, walking away from Ontario’s deputy premiership. This week, Ontario Municipal Affairs Minister Jim Watson announced he will quit his post and give up his seat. He wants to return to his old job as mayor of Ottawa.

What’s going on? For one thing, provincial politics are going to be about as much fun in the next few years as a prolonged case of swine flu. Look at the numbers -- the McGuinty Liberals moaned, wailed and delayed implementing some election promises when they assumed office in 2003 to find a $5.6-billion deficit. A booming economy that generated oodles of tax revenue solved that problem.

But times have changed. This year’s deficit is going to be at least $24.7 billion, employment prospects are uncertain and there’s no indication we can grow our way out of red ink in time for the 2011 Ontario election. Add to that voters’ propensity to punish the government in office during tough times and an obvious question arises: If you were an MPP, would you want to stick around?

There are, of course, other factors at play. Gary Carr, the amiable chair of Halton Region, says party discipline on the federal and provincial scene is disheartening because it turns bright, independent-minded elected members into “voting machines” who follow orders.

Carr, who served as a Conservative MPP at Queen’s Park and then as a Liberal MP before being seduced by municipal politics, says cabinet ministers chafe at carrying out orders from above instead of making their own decisions. And then at election time, a blunder by the party leader can cost even the most competent incumbents their political lives.

“Everything is based on what the leader does,” Carr said in an interview. “So you can lose your job based on how somebody else performs. But when you are mayor, you are actually in charge. You have to work with other people but, whether or not you get elected again all comes down to what you’ve done.”

Now there’s a concept: Direct accountability. And accomplished candidates are lining up for the jobs. It gives one hope.

April Lindgren teaches at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, where she specializes in local news and urban affairs reporting; april.lindgren@arts.ryerson.ca.

Will Mayor David Miller’s decision not to run again lead to the election of the best — or worst — city leader in a generation? Will the economy roar back? Will the new Regent Park be a better place for low-income residents than the old Regent Park?

We will have to wait until 2010 to find out. In the meantime, if you draw up lists of winners and losers for 2009, it’s immediately apparent the list of losers is the longer of the two.

It includes laid-off workers who are running out of unemployment insurance and turning to welfare — bad news for them and for the city’s wilting finances. The list also includes the many people who are now priced out of the Toronto housing market; the mayor, whose handling of the municipal workers’ strike cost him his political career; TTC riders, whose loyalty is being punished by a fare hike; and cyclists, who are still waiting for long-promised  bike lanes. Wasps invaded our backyards and fruit flies took over our kitchens during the 2009 summer that wasn’t.

The winners’ list includes people who sold their Toronto homes; current city workers who will be paid upon retirement for unused sick days; and Toronto voters. In recent months they have been treated to a growing roster of quality candidates for Miller’s job and election reforms that ban corporate and union contributions to municipal election campaigns. The failure of other GTA councils to introduce a similar ban means developers’ interests will continue to dominate their local election financing and that’s bad news for voters in those communities.

But enough of bad news. This year-end review ends on a happy note. Remember how I fretted in my last column about the fate of a starving young cat I rescued earlier this year and then left at the Toronto Humane Society? A reader named Lizzie read the column and sent me a photo of the cat she adopted from the society in May. It was HIM. His new name is Arvo, and Lizzie says he’s still friendly and affectionate. “I just wanted to let you know how happy I am with Arvo and that he’s in a loving home.”

Arvo — add him to the winner’s list. Put Lizzie’s name on there, too.

April Lindgren teaches at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, where she specializes in local news and urban affairs reporting; april.lindgren@arts.ryerson.ca.

I fell for him the moment we met in the yard of my cottage. He was six months old at most and handsome, with eyes the colour of light amber, curly, white whiskers and a purr that sounded like my car the time the muffler fell off. He was also starving.

I resisted feeding him for two days, hoping he had a home and would go back there. My place is pretty isolated, however, and he was all bones and fur, suggesting he’d been on his own for some time. I named him Nevison after the nearby lane and explained to him he couldn’t stay because I already have Oskar, a big, orange tabby who doesn’t like to share.

Trying to find a safe haven for the little fellow was frustrating work. An area farmer said he already had six cats, most of them dumped in the countryside by irresponsible owners. The animal shelter 100 kilometres down the road was full. The local veterinarian couldn’t help. A woman one township over who sometimes rescues animals had no space left. In desperation I called the Toronto Humane Society.

“Bring him in,” said the woman who answered. So I did. I left Nevison and a donation at the River Street facility last April. I’ve thought about that cat many times since, hoping he was adopted into a good home.

These days, however, I’m hoping he isn’t among the allegedly dehydrated, neglected, sick animals discovered during last week’s raid on the agency’s premises by the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. OSPCA investigators say they found a female cat with front claws so overgrown they curled around into the pads of her paws. Media reports cite leaked documents that suggest the charity has spent $418,609 on lawyers so far this year, compared with $276,248 on emergency animal care. The provincial agency that investigates the financial management of charities earlier this summer demanded audited financial statements and other documents.

Humane society officials deny anything is amiss and to date nothing has been proven in court. I’m pleading guilty, however, to the crime of misplaced trust.

April Lindgren teaches at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, where she specializes in local news and urban affairs reporting; april.lindgren@arts.ryerson.ca.

University of Toronto sociologist Scott Schieman has speculated that uncontrollable anxiety triggers a will to survive that in some individuals obscures other considerations. “When people panic, they feel the rules don’t apply to them,” he said recently to a reporter.

No doubt some of these panicky types slithered into the public lineups with pregnant women, babies, toddlers and individuals with underlying health conditions and lied their way to an early vaccination. 

At the same time, there’s been a steady stream of allegations about hospital board members, senior police personnel, private-school students and professional athletes getting their flu shots ahead of at-risk groups. These queue-jumping controversies uncork deep — and often justified — suspicions about privilege begetting privilege.

History is full of examples. A study published last year that examined who survived the sinking of the Titanic found that while women and children were more likely to get a spot in the few available lifeboats, social class was also a key factor. First- and second-class passengers, the Australian and Swiss researchers found, had a higher probability of surviving compared to third-class passengers. The investigators suggested this was because upper-crust travellers likely had better access to senior crew members with important information on how dire things really were that dark night. It was also a huge advantage that their cabins were closer to the boat deck. Privilege begat privilege.

Critics who suggest that journalists are making too much of suspected instances of queue jumping just don’t get it. The stories are about power, influence, connections and privileges that beget privileges. They need to be told, if only to force the alleged offenders to explain their actions.

What’s so disheartening about the H1N1 rollout over the past few weeks is not just the realization that some people, when presented with an opportunity to put themselves first, will seize the moment. It’s that this is happening during a flu outbreak that to date, at least, isn’t living up to its billing. Hospitals aren’t overwhelmed by the deathly ill. Public gatherings haven’t been banned. People aren’t dying in the streets. What if this actually was the “big” one?

I’d like to think there wouldn’t be a stampede to the front of the line by the morally challenged. But I’m not optimistic.

April Lindgren teaches at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, where she specializes in local news and urban affairs reporting; april.lindgren@arts.ryerson.ca.

Yvonne Bambrick of the Toronto Cyclists Union has lots of ideas about how this could be achieved. Her organization is gearing up to lobby the provincial government for a rewrite of the Ontario Driver’s Handbook — one that would expand upon the rules of the road pertaining to cyclists and motorists.

“It’s a chance to educate people who might want to cycle and a chance to better educate drivers,” she notes.

Municipally, Bambrick points out that Toronto’s decade-long $70-million bike plan virtually ignores road-sharing education. “I’m particularly fond of bus shelter ads,” she says, observing they are visible to pedestrians, cyclists and motorists.

“And how about some public service announcements and commercials? It’s not rocket science. We know how to advertise things, we know how to affect public opinion. Yet none of that has been applied to road sharing.”

Critics will argue that such campaigns are costly. But patching up the 1,000 or so cyclists who are injured each year is expensive in terms of both dollars and cents and human suffering.

Under the circumstances, surely even a little education would be a good thing.

Smitherman is a high-profile cabinet minister in the Liberal government.

Tory, a well-connected businessman and former provincial Conservative party leader, lost to Miller by a slim margin in the 2003 mayoral race. Either one would present a serious challenge for Miller, whose anemic political fortunes are due in large part to blunders of his own making.

Miller gambled and lost when the federal government rejected the city’s request to use its share of the infrastructure stimulus money for new streetcars.  This resulted in a summer scramble to compile a new list of capital projects that comply with Ottawa’s demand for a March 31, 2011, completion date.

If the head of Canada’s sixth largest government didn’t know in advance that the streetcar proposal was doomed, he is guilty of not doing his homework. If he knew the request was doomed and made it anyway, he is guilty of playing politics and delaying much-needed construction work in a city with an unemployment rate of 10.1 per cent.

The mayor’s handling of the municipal strike was also, to put it mildly, bad for his future employment prospects. Miller’s mistake wasn’t that he agreed in the end to gradually phase out a controversial provision that allows workers to accumulate sick leave days and then collect up to six months of full salary upon retirement. His mistake was to create unreasonable expectations by pledging to eliminate the provision altogether and then failing to deliver.

Polls reveal the cumulative effect of such miscalculations. Just 21 per cent of respondents in a recent survey said they would vote for Miller; 79 per cent said they wanted to see a change in city leadership.

At least as important as how Torontonians will vote, of course, is whether they will vote. Only 38.4 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot for mayor in 2006 when Miller was elected to a second term.  Maybe a tough mayoral race will draw more people to the polls. I recently met a woman, for instance, who is vowing to vote municipally for the first time ever so she can “get rid” of Miller for failing to end the sick leave benefit.

That’s good news for democracy, but chilling stuff for the incumbent.

The three other unenclosed beaches in the Sunnyside area were too polluted for use on six days. West of Sunnyside, it’s even more evident why the waterfront is an urban treasure. Dozens of different languages can be heard as families stroll along the boardwalk. Dog owners — they really do resemble their pets — struggle to keep the animals from chasing the geese.

The elegant white bridge that spans the Humber River is the prettiest in the city. And then there’s the Humber Bay Butterfly Habitat. A few years ago, it looked a bit scraggly as native plants struggled to assert their presence. These days, wildflowers, stunning in  their understated delicacy, combine to create small explosions of colour.

There’s a pond crisscrossed by bridges on the far side of the butterfly habitat. The loveliness belies its practicality — the pond is really a series of settling ponds used to naturally treat the polluted water that runs into the lake from Mimico Creek.

From there you can walk out onto the treed peninsula that is Humber Bay Park East. Stop a moment at the Air India memorial. The wall with the victims’ names is a haunting testimony to loss. But gazing out at the lake from the peninsula’s point somehow cleanses the soul and offers reassurance — reassurance that in the midst of all that is wrong, the city still contains refuges that are utterly, transcendently right. 

She had to win a taste test that involved five local chefs. And she was required to prove her financial wherewithal to get a street-food cart up and running. The cart that all Toronto a la Cart vendors must use costs $32,000. The trailer to haul the thing around costs $8,000. Bonivento pays $15,000 a year in rent for the Nathan Phillips Square location.

Her pita-wrapped souvlaki cost $5 each. She has to sell 11,000 of them just to cover her basic start up costs, never mind earn a living.

But in addition to winning the equivalent of a bureaucratic triathlon, the ethnic food vendors have also become symbols for a whole bunch of this city’s sacred cows. The competitive process catapulted Bonivento and the other lucky seven into the ranks of the nutritionally virtuous, sent forth to rescue us from hot dogs and sausages (bad) and fries (really bad).  They and their state-of-the-art carts are symbols of our obsession with food safety. They represent the multicultural nature of this diverse city.

They will make tourists happy.

That’s a lot of responsibility for Toronto’s newest street vendors. A quick chat with Bonivento, however, suggests she’s bearing up well and has it all in perspective:  “We’re just hoping everyone is going to love our food.”