At times our walk was guided by a senior resident from nearby, a former senior planner in Scarborough, a former, still very tall long-time public servant, as well as a very practiced gardener who's narrowed his scope to the plots around his townhouse.

We started at McCowan Station and walked north, stopping in the recently sold field to discuss future possibilities. Some imagine a farmer's market springing up in the middle of the property. Their real wish is the market be elevated, placed at the same height as the platform they advocate for. Their vision is for a park/plaza above McCowan Road that would a) facilitate movement between the Town Centre and McCowan zones or precints and b) would be a very celebrated public space drawing people and attention from around the Scarborough and the region. The vision of a year-around marketplace in the heart of Scarborough reflective of the ethnic groups now residing in Scarborough is a powerful one. I suggested we get things going by helping organize some messy, in-the-field, outdoor markets. These type of things build momentum and help create a foundation story for later brick-and-mortar movements.

We crossed McCowan via Busby, walked up the hill passed the YMCA and came to the Civic Centre. The ah-ha moment! We paused on the "base condition" lawn of a soon-to-be park that sits on the eastern edge of the Civic Centre plaza space. We did some imagining. What about Bryant Park in New York City. They have a very well-attended outdoor movie festival. Isn't this nascent park the perfect place?

We continued around the western side of the Civic Centre onto Borough Drive. Standing across from the Civic Centre looking northward, we heard about the plans to construct a library to its side. This will be an amazing addition. Apparently there is also ambition to cut away some of the berms on the south lawn between Ellesmere and Borough Drive, enabling walkers and drivers to gain a picturesque view of the civic centrepiece as they passby. Or they might stroll towards it through a new sort of meadow-public square. I think the design of this square has a strong chance of being something entirely unique in the region. A meadow-square. That spanks of Scarborough kinda sorta.

We walked further along Ellesmere to Brimley and enetered Brimmel Court. This post-war townhouse development bursts with character. It's part of that family of developments with cars parked on the outside. But unlike many of its Toronto-area coursins, the common areas (the small people streets) don't resemble their American cousins at all. They have gardens down the middle and small changes in elevation. It's essentially British in style and this commitment to some locatable tradition (rather than to the unlocatable Modernism) is what makes it an interesting place to grow up in. We concluded our walk by meeting up with a 40 year resident of Brimmel. We caught him gardening. He told us how he used to look after the whole property. Now he's on in age a bit and he's decided it makes the most sense to look after the land near to his front door, and to look after it extremely well. He helps the rose bush sing. He even showed me the elderberry tree that he's helped bring to life. He just went ahead and planted on the side of the general property. I guess co-ops give a different sense of common ownership to residents. He didn't call what he did geurilla gardening. If I remember correctly, he just called it gardening. We got closer and showed me how he planted the elderberry bush directly beside, almost inside an old stump. I don't know how much precedence there is in gardening for that strategy. Maybe it's more commonplace than I know. Regardless, I like that idea very much. Where something has been cut down or flattened or left unanimated, plant something pretty. And if it produces fruit, bonus.

In the topographical image above you can see the field that we passed through. It's not the green spot, it's a bit above and to the right of that. The site was sold recently by the city to a developer. The purchasers are likely flexible in site design and layout. Their site is the site of a potential farmer's market. What seeds could we plant there in the middle of the still open field, to help ensure something great grows? 

For more about this area, read a great blog post by Toronto Neighbourhood Walks Project.

I believe the idea is a useful one. If we made an open catalogue where infographics and diagrams could be deposited, we could help each other and newcomers to the creative economy / cultural planning discourse get up to speed and borrow concepts between towns, making for rapid progress.

This presentation was an experiment. The hypothesis was: creative economies require descriptive catalogues, which break down complex concepts into simpler ideas, digestible by administrators and residents.

Publications by leading municipalities and organizations in the field of Ontario cultural planning were closely consulted when drafting this catalogue.

It's an exciting time ahead for cultural planning in Ontario. I'm looking forward to the launch of Mississauga's cultural mapping tool this May. Mainly because I've never been to their central library and surrounding district. Mississauga continues to point the way forward. But Ottawa is making moves of its own.

This renewed action plan for culture builds on Ottawa’s strengths, and sets out a path aimed at reaping the major economic impacts, social benefits and positive environmental effects that lie seeded within Ottawa’s current cultural scene. Ottawa is ripe with enormous cultural potential and opportunities, if the right partnered steps can be taken.

Read the Renewed Action Plan for Arts, Heritage and Culture in Ottawa (2013-2018)

 

MISSISSAUGA

http://www.mississauga.ca/portal/discover/culturalmapping

What's possible at closed down Rose Cafe & Donuts? What about a co-working space of some sort?

He also examined the street network to discover all letters of the alphabet. He produced a book showing all these letters/road patterns. I look forward to picking one up when it goes on sale.

One other work was to the side and soft spoken. It showed the street car tracks around Toronto along with loops. It was made from etching into plaster.

The main question Flavio left us with:

How much can you peel away from the city's representation and still tell a story? Pick your single layer wisely!

Here is my rejected 'comment' (read: over the word limit) on the Chicagoist article titled "How do we keep from becoming Detroit?" (http://goo.gl/S9nry):

Hi. Great article. Questions about land use are prominent everywhere. I'm writing from Toronto. Like many cities, we have land sitting unused or underused all around the periphery, including spots spread across historic neighbourhoods. We know something needs to be done with these properties but do we really possess the tools to a) figure out what that locationally-specific something is and b) transfer hit upon solutions into political and economic settings, like neighbourhood and stakeholder meetings?

We've been wrestling with these questions for awhile now. Questions about land use require relevant information. Toronto has not been alone in making City data "open" for residents, organizations, and "civic hackers" to use in creative ways. Overall, this "#opendata" movement is about improving everyday decision making around the city. Data Driven Detroit is a great example of "data for decisions". City of Toronto recently released data about building permits. We seized this oppourtunity and began designing an application that allows anyone to select an active permit and pose a series of questions to a network of individuals. Then it dawned on us: we were creating something more than just a  "Permit/Proposal" land use application. After all, a permit is only one possible issue related to a piece of land. What we were really imagining was a tool for identifying a parcel/polygon of land, naming relevant issues, and posing questions to networks.

But effective actions takes place offline. So then we asked: how can people take the fruits of online collaboration offline to wider audiences? This led to a new goal: help the person who poses a series of questions sort through responses, organize what they find, and when finished press print, giving them of course several options, such as pamphlet, report, small poster, and large poster. Printing creates the paper spaces where annotation builds community plans.

We have developed these ideas in isolation from other initiatives in Ontario, Michigan, and Illinois. But like many out there, we've been immersed in this culture of renewal, and placemaking, and problem solving for a long time. And we're alive to the collaboration already taking place across borders. Windsor's Broken City Lab is perhaps the best example of this. In a recent article on Broken City Lab's blog they interviewed Caroline Woolard about sharing, organizing, and creating together (http://goo.gl/V0bhV). Caroline made several points, the first being:
 Create online tools for collaboration and exchange! 

We are focused on creating tools for land use engagement. We believe many tools, yet unimagined, will be needed in the near future. In Toronto, we've been calling this initiative LandTracker Project. But irregardless of some particular name, what is possible if we begin working together as activists, coordinators, community leaders, and technologists?

The Challenge:

"How can we work together to create the needed tools for change? What sustainable framework is needed in order to prototype and test out tools that facilitate engagement with the historic land use issues besetting our communities? Does land-related change need an engine? How can Detroit help build this engine to spec?"

-- The included images are playful mockups illustrating the overall idea for a basic land use engagement tool.