Sarah Thomson solidifies position as leading daydreamer of the mayoral race
Sarah Thomson may not be leading in the polls, but when it comes to Toronto’s mayoral race, she’s clearly leading the pack in awesome ideas that will never happen. She jumped to an early lead on that front when she was the first candidate to propose subways and road tolls—and, at least on subways, the men have followed where she dared to tread. Her latest idea is just as pie-in-the-sky, but it’s really delicious pie. The Toronto Star reports that Thomson wants to fast-track real estate deals if the developers make the buildings pretty.
“I’m so sick of boring, glass, concrete blocks. I want to encourage developers to build buildings that will (aesthetically) last for centuries,” she said. “I think when long-term thinking is applied, beauty and savings can be had.”
A Thomson-led city hall would build tree-lined boulevards, demand innovative architectural design and restore forgotten heritage sites. The Women’s Post publisher would give a heritage designation to every city-owned building that predates 1920.
“Beauty and savings can be had”? Sign us up. Of course, it might, just might, be the case that somebody like Sarah Thomson has a different aesthetic than someone like George Smitherman or Rob Ford. Unless the criteria for “pretty” are limited to “avoid glass, avoid concrete, avoid boring,” things might be a little more complicated than Thomson suggests. Even then, most of the people in City Place would be living in vertical lawbreakers.
Of course, we said the same thing about her subway pitch, so if that’s any indication, we’ll soon see Rocco Rossi and Ford follow Thomson with their own plans for an aesthetics czar.
• Mayoral candidate proposes fast-tracking good building designs [Toronto Star]
