Why Toronto needs to talk about the inner suburbs
The seven-year-old girl above, Amal Syed, came to Canada three years ago from Abu Dhabi. Her father is a computer analyst who left everything behind to give his daughter a first-rate Ontario education. Like many new immigrants, they settled in the inner suburbs, and he enrolled his daughter at the local public school. He was bitterly disappointed to discover what long-time residents of Toronto have known for years—that many of the buildings where we send our kids to learn are old, overcrowded and in desperate need of repair. Amal’s school is an extreme case. Her Grade 2 class is held in a portable—one of 14 at her school that were meant to be temporary but have been there for two decades and are falling apart. Parents complained to the school administration and the TDSB, but to no avail.
Toronto is failing Amal and her classmates, just as it’s failing so many people, mostly new immigrants, in the inner suburbs. “For all the talk of priority neighbourhoods,” Amal’s father, Nayamath, says in his memoir (which you can read here), “we’re obviously not a priority.”
And who could argue with him? The story of Toronto over the last decade is one of rapid growth, gleaming condo towers, bidding wars and the regular appearance of the city on international “best of” lists—for style, quality of life and other creative-class prerequisites. But it’s all happening downtown, away from the inner suburbs whose residents are physically and spiritually cut off from the city’s good fortune.
During the October municipal election, Doug Ford, whose big promise to the electorate was to fight “downtown elites,” garnered 34 per cent of the vote. John Tory, to his credit, refused to take the bait and pledged to unite the city as One Toronto—a laudable goal. But can he pull it off? No matter how much you might like the new mayor, or approve of his vision, he is undeniably a member of the downtown elite. Tory has close ties to some of the wealthiest and most influential Toronto families—including the Thomsons and the Rogerses. He and his late father helped build some of the city’s most prominent institutions. You don’t need a PhD in Marxist theory to understand why he provoked a city-wide conversation about white privilege.
Downtowners’ perception of the inner suburbs is often informed either by headline-grabbing events—like the Dixon tower raids—or by sugar-coated immigrant success stories designed to counterbalance the news. In this cover package, we wanted to avoid both familiar narratives and instead give readers something fresher and more revealing. We invited residents of Thorncliffe Park, Jane and Finch, Malvern, and six other neighbourhoods to give us unvarnished accounts of what life is like for them. Together, their stories, which we’ll publish online over the course of the next two weeks, help explain the resentment that is bubbling up around the city’s edges.
We are also inviting readers to participate in the storytelling by sharing their own perspectives on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook with the hashtag #TorontoIsFailingMe.
Why does all this matter? Mohamed Farah, who lives in one of the Dixon towers and whose story will appear later this month, put it this way: “If the issues of neighbourhoods like Dixon aren’t addressed now, they could escalate into a situation like the Ferguson riots.” No one will give you a better reason to work toward One Toronto than that.
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://torontolife.com/city/toronto-is-failing-me-why-toronto-needs-to-talk-about-the-inner-suburbs/&title=Why Toronto needs to talk about the inner suburbs&picture=https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/TLifeLOGOAmal.jpg&description=[caption id="attachment_304246" align="aligncenter" width="656"] (Image: Derek Shapton)[/caption]
The seven-year-old girl above, Amal Syed, came to Canada three years ago from Abu Dhabi. Her father is a computer analyst who left everything behind to give his daughter a first-rate Ontario education. Like many new immigrants, they settled in the inner suburbs, and he enrolled his daughter at the local public school. He was bitterly disappointed to discover what long-time residents of Toronto have known for years—that many of the buildings where we send our kids to learn are old, overcrowded and in desperate need of repair. Amal’s school is an extreme case. Her Grade 2 class is held in a portable—one of 14 at her school that were meant to be temporary but have been there for two decades and are falling apart. Parents complained to the school administration and the TDSB, but to no avail.
Toronto is failing Amal and her classmates, just as it’s failing so many people, mostly new immigrants, in the inner suburbs. “For all the talk of priority neighbourhoods,” Amal’s father, Nayamath, says in his memoir (which you can read here), “we’re obviously not a priority.”
And who could argue with him? The story of Toronto over the last decade is one of rapid growth, gleaming condo towers, bidding wars and the regular appearance of the city on international “best of” lists—for style, quality of life and other creative-class prerequisites. But it’s all happening downtown, away from the inner suburbs whose residents are physically and spiritually cut off from the city’s good fortune.
During the October municipal election, Doug Ford, whose big promise to the electorate was to fight “downtown elites,” garnered 34 per cent of the vote. John Tory, to his credit, refused to take the bait and pledged to unite the city as One Toronto—a laudable goal. But can he pull it off? No matter how much you might like the new mayor, or approve of his vision, he is undeniably a member of the downtown elite. Tory has close ties to some of the wealthiest and most influential Toronto families—including the Thomsons and the Rogerses. He and his late father helped build some of the city’s most prominent institutions. You don’t need a PhD in Marxist theory to understand why he provoked a city-wide conversation about white privilege.
Downtowners’ perception of the inner suburbs is often informed either by headline-grabbing events—like the Dixon tower raids—or by sugar-coated immigrant success stories designed to counterbalance the news. In this cover package, we wanted to avoid both familiar narratives and instead give readers something fresher and more revealing. We invited residents of Thorncliffe Park, Jane and Finch, Malvern, and six other neighbourhoods to give us unvarnished accounts of what life is like for them. Together, their stories, which we'll publish online over the course of the next two weeks, help explain the resentment that is bubbling up around the city’s edges.
We are also inviting readers to participate in the storytelling by sharing their own perspectives on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook with the hashtag #TorontoIsFailingMe.
Why does all this matter? Mohamed Farah, who lives in one of the Dixon towers and whose story will appear later this month, put it this way: “If the issues of neighbourhoods like Dixon aren’t addressed now, they could escalate into a situation like the Ferguson riots.” No one will give you a better reason to work toward One Toronto than that.){kind=link}
“No matter how much you might like the new mayor, or approve of his vision, he is undeniably a member of the downtown elite”
And Doug and Rob Ford, millionaire sons of an MPP, “best buds” with Jim Flaherty, a former Provincial and Federal Finance Minister, who have had the Prime Minister over to their mother’s house for a backyard family bbq, and who counts much of the City’s business community as colleagues AREN’T elite? Because they live in Etobicoke? Seriously?
Give me a break Toronto Life. Perpetuating the myth of the Fords being regular guys while Tory is some nose in the air elite is just lazy “journalism”.
Actually ,every one is “member of something” .It’s inevitable
Sarah, call Tory a downtown elite if you like, but at least recognize he’s done more for the less privileged in toronto as a private citizen before he was mayor than most politicians will ever do. But I get it… You didn’t want facts to get in the way of your narrative.
Ah, so after years of dismissing Toronto’s suburbs, (largely) ignoring its residents, cultural establishments, eateries, and businesses – we’re now the hot topic! Awful neglect, Toronto Life. You’ve missed so many interesting people and places. Now trying to catch up. Very bad. I do hope your coverage is decent and truthful, positive and negative. We have both. As does all areas of Toronto. Let’s make the good better. My comment on this feature bears repeating:
Anecdotes are great, but please give a factual overview as well (still a large middle class, people of colour included, in the ‘burbs. Don’t go to extremes to avoid the stereotyping you’ve engaged in the past. Tell the story of dropping crime in Scarborough, for example, and of the majority owning their homes.). Kudos for spreading your coverage to Toronto outside of the downtown core, though! I live in North Scarborough (Ward 41, Scarborough Rouge-River) – a safe and very culturally diverse neighbourhood. Both of my daughters are attending school here (one at a TDSB high school, the other at TCDSB elementary school) – they LOVE their schools & their teachers. Excellent student-teacher ratios here, wonderful staff, gorgeous spacious school grounds. I’m NOT on board with your negative and damaging hashtag, Toronto Life. The suburbs are a mixed bag of experiences. Send some real reporters to ALL suburban wards and tell the full story. Many are content here.
You are grossly naive if you think the Fords are anywhere near the same level as the Tory’s. Yes, the Ford’s are “millionaires” but in a city where the average house price is nearly a million dollars, there are a lot of “millionaires”. Tory’s family founded Tory’s LLP, one of the biggest and most prestigious law firms in Canada along with allegedly Sun Life (according to wikipedia) so for you to compare him to a family that runs a successful sign business or whatever is absurd.
I voted for John Tory, because I think he has reasonable ideas and because I don’t care that he’s one of arguably Canada’s elite and since when did “elite” become such a bad word? The Ford’s are financially well-off sons of an Ontario MPP, while Tory is in the same circles as some of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the country. It’s like a pro hockey player and a guy who played one year of junior C when he was younger. It’s not even the same league.
Gee, thanks for giving me a rundown of John Tory’s CV. I’m well aware of it thank you, as I am of his family’s founding of Torys LLP (I’m a lawyer, by the way). I didn’t (and do not) dispute that Tory is connected. Of course he is, it’s a matter of public record.
I was merely pointing out that Tory’s “elitism” has consistently been used as a contrast against the so-called “everyman” persona of the Fords. My post merely highlights that the Fords are very much the “elite” they claim to stand against. Deco is the largest producer of stickers, cards and labels in North America and count several Fortune 500 companies as clients – the Fords own 100% of that company – its been reported that its annual revenues are in the tens of millions, and clearly it generates enough income and dividends to take good care of the entire Ford family since they’re all supported by that company. Doug in particular seems to enjoy the financial perks of being the company’s CEO. The Fords are personal friends with senior members of the Federal government, including the Prime Minister. How is that NOT elite?
Again, not suggesting that Tory (who I also voted for) ISN’T part of the elite (he clearly is, though I don’t understand why that in an of itself is viewed as a character flaw), just making the point that so are the Fords, despite their claims to the contrary. I was taking issue with the characterization of Tory as some “out of touch” elite when his actual record suggests exactly the opposite, especially when contrasted with the Fords, who merely talk about being “regular” when they’re nothing of the sort – unless you define “not elite” by the fact that they’re rude, uncouth and use bad grammar. That a little more clear?
And by the way, living in a house valued at a million dollars doesn’t make you a millionaire – there’s this little thing called a mortgage that tends to impact your net worth. I guarantee you that many of those Torontonians living in “million dollar houses” aren’t millionaires. Guess you’re not a homeowner?
This is rapidly becoming a failed city…when workplaces start to embrace virtual offices and we can work anywhere, from anywhere, I’m gone…and I know many who think the way I do. Toronto simply extracts too much from the average citizen and gives back too little. Housing is just the tip of the iceberg.
What has happened to working together to make needed changes? Have we allowed that obese, self-important ‘Mayor Macheese (remember him?) to castrate us as a city? Don’t let that tub of lard win. Anything.
“Toronto simply extracts too much from the average citizen and gives back too little.”….if anything the taxes are too low e.g. $500,000 home pays only $3,000 per year…should be closer to $9,000.
I agree bob….and if they rise to proper rates, the city will really collapse. An incredible number of overpriced homes are financed by families living paycheque to paycheque….and with no transit solution on the horizon, the real answer is to get out and find a job elsewhere. It’s a shame. Toronto could have been a great city…
As a former Torontonian now living in the US, I’d like to know why new immigrants expect to be given special treatment. When my husband was transferred to the US, not only did we have to have our fingerprints sent to the RCMP, FBI and Interpol, but both had to undergo a physical examination, TB and HIV testing. We also had to sign a contract stating that we would NEVER apply for social assistance at the state or federal level. Canada rolls out the welcome mat for new immigrants, heck didn’t the overburdened taxpayers even pay for the housing and welfare expenses of a Somali Warlord’s daughter at one point? Yet Canadians like my husband, who have been on their own since they were in their late teens, somehow managed to graduate from high school, go on to great universities while working to pay for tuition, pay off their student loans and, while working 14-hr days for 20 years, become “an overnight success”!
Canada and Toronto should welcome any new individual who has the education and work ethic to contribute to this great city. But too many take advantage of the social safety nets, when they were meant for the helpless and not the clueless or lazy. Teenage girls have no business having babies and yet the Ontario government rewards them for having child after child. Shouldn’t bringing a child into this world knowing that you are lessening its chances of success be considered a form of child abuse?
Do any of you really think that those who are successful in this city got there by NOT working hard? It’s amazing what happens when you have a plan and make responsible life decisions and it’s always those who can least afford to have more than one or two children who reproduce like rabbits, expecting the rest of us to dig deeper to pay to educate their children when we can barely manage to pay for a university education for our own. How dare you.
As for school buildings in disrepair – shame on the Toronto School Board. Toronto taxpayers are paying top property tax dollars to educate the city’s children as are Ontario taxpayers and there is no excuse for a classroom’s roof to be caving in! Those property tax rates are high enough, given how Canadians are taxed every time they turn around to pay for those who are too busy working the system to contribute and always the first to complain!
There are plenty of opportunities to succeed in Canada if you value education and work hard at your career. It’s not rocket science, it’s just the way it’s always been…