In Toronto, Urban Amenities Lag Behind Condo Boom

"In the last decade, the condo boom in Toronto has stacked the skyline with towers. Now, the approximately 250,000 to 275,000 people who live in them say that, in the race to build, city planners and councillors failed to adequately consider how to create neighbourhoods," reports Dave McGinn. "But the city is finally starting to listen."

“'I don’t think we anticipated, say, five years ago, or even before that, that this boom was going to continue,' says Peter Moore, project manager for the City of Toronto. Last month, the city launched the first of its kind series of public consultations to improve conditions for condo dwellers. The initiative is an acknowledgment that Toronto’s condo culture is here to stay." From poor condo construction to inadequate green space, participants' concerns extended from inside their units to the larger neighborhood.

“We need to be thinking much more extensively about … condos not as buildings but as part of a neighbourhood,” says Jennifer Keesmaat, the city’s chief planner. “We’re seeing a significant transition in the landscape and the form of the city at this moment that really is the impetus for us beginning to think in new ways about how neighbourhoods are defined in the city.”