When the big issue at city council is whether sidewalks belong in Toronto, you know something has gone seriously wrong. Yet as appalling as that may be, what’s worse is that it’s not surprising. Put politely, Toronto is a city in transition.

So who would argue with sidewalks? Last week, a motion went to a council vote that would allow councillors to object to new local sidewalk proposals — it passed 16 to 10. It was led by two Etobicoke councillors, Stephen Holyday and Mark Grimes, who despite being elected post-amalgamation are still stuck in an imagined past from the last century. As they and other like-minded residents remind us with depressing regularity, Toronto is a city in name only.

In reality, it falls somewhere between a city and suburb, not fully one or the other, but an unhappy mix of both.

Two decades after then-premier Mike Harris presided over the shotgun marriage of Toronto, North York, East York, York, Scarborough and Etobicoke, we’re still trying to make a go of what was then called the Megacity. As it turns out, the chasm between these reluctant partners was much larger than anyone wanted to admit. Even now, the urban/suburban divide defines local politics. If anything, the clash of cultures grows more entrenched than ever. And Premier Doug Ford’s brutish council intervention could make it worse.

The current battleground may be sidewalks, streets, parking, speed limits and the like, but the causes run deeper. Cities are focused on community, suburbs on the individual. The differences between the two approaches reveal much about our expectations of civic culture, the built environment, infrastructure, how we connect to the places we live, the nature of the public realm and who has access to it.

Toronto’s ambivalence about bicycle lanes is a good example. On one level, the issue is about the logistics of dividing the limited space of a roadway. At the same time, however, the question of who gets what reveals whose priorities take precedence. Though the city offers many ways of getting around, everything from transit and taxis to walking, cycling and even scootering and skate boarding; the suburbs are for the most part restricted to just one — the car.

In suburbia, especially throughout its newer sprawl communities, primitive planning regimes have left residents little choice but to drive. From the start, the suburbs have been designed, planned and conceived on the basis of one person, one car. Low densities and huge distances made public transit unfeasible. And so major arterials became wide, high-speed, multi-lane thoroughfares specifically intended to accommodate, even encourage, heavy traffic.

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But as condos and subdivisions brought thousands of new residents to these areas and increased congestion, roads have become more dangerous with each passing year. That’s why almost half of all pedestrians killed by drivers in Toronto were on the streets of Scarborough.

The REimagining Yonge plan deferred by council last year was an attempt to rehabilitate Yonge St. between Sheppard and Finch Aves. long ago turned into a six-lane urban highway. Similar conditions exist on numerous city streets including Don Mills Rd., where last week a pedestrian was killed while council debated a proposal to lower speed limits on that very street.

In other words, Toronto is a deeply conflicted city. As its suburbs grow and change and take on unforeseen density, they are transforming into something their original inhabitants never anticipated. Indeed, many chose these communities not just because they were inexpensive and spacious but to escape the intensity of downtown. Today, the conditions they sought to avoid have caught up with them. They worry the onslaught will leave them with the worst of both worlds — separated by suburban distances while stuck on roads that are slower, less negotiable and more urban than ever.

Their consternation is understandable. And we shouldn’t forget that despite the often repeated statistic that 80 per cent of Canadians live in cities and towns, most of us are suburbanites. Whether that can be sustained at a time of climate crisis is ever more doubtful. In the meantime, sprawl continues unabated. Clearly, though, new forms of suburbanism are badly needed, ones that lend themselves to increased densities, transit, enhanced public spaces and greater variety of uses.

Of course, the more we talk about how to fix the suburbs, the more they start to sound like a city. But that could spell the end of the neatness and tidiness of suburbia, its predictability and clarity lost in a mess of urban closeness and chaos.

After all, a place that belongs to everyone belongs to no one.

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