Toronto Waterfront Redevelopment

[Subdude]

Covering the whole waterfront

Mar 30th 2006 | TORONTO

From The Economist print edition

At last, three governments wield the sledgehammer in unison

DRIVE into the centre of Toronto from the airport, and the sight that greets you is a mess. What ought to be an attractive asset for Canada's largest city, its 29-mile (46km) waterfront along Lake Ontario, is blocked off by a tangle of 19th-century railway lines, an ugly elevated motorway dating from the 1950s, and a line of tower blocks. Arguments have raged for decades over how to redevelop the lakefront. The one insurmountable obstacle has been the rivalry between city, provincial and federal governments.

Toronto has seen pockets of successful redevelopment, such as the Distillery district, with trendy shops, art galleries and cobbled lanes, or a former cold store at Queen's Quay Terminal, which houses offices, flats, and restaurants. But they fall far short of the wholesale revamping of harbour areas in cities as varied as Barcelona, Vancouver, London and Chicago.

So it looked like progress when on March 27th representatives from all three governments donned hard hats and picked up sledgehammers to launch the West Don Lands project, the first step in a plan to reclaim the 800-hectare (2,000 acres) waterfront for the city over the next 30 years.

[BayouCityGirl]

ooh I just want to soo go back (or live there!) I never got a chance to visit the island off Toronto!! (down at their other airport)