Spacing Toronto on “Kingwell versus Florida?” That’s Mark Kingwell, my distinguished University of Toronto philosophy colleague and author of among many other things Concrete Reveries. I’ve not met him, but I like what Kingwell has to say and find myself more in broad agreement with the issues he cares about – social justice among them. I’ve long been fascinated by political philosophy. I took a good dose of it as an undergraduate, and I like to think social contract theory, Hegel and Marx and a little bit of critical theory inform my own work, though my last “foray” in the field was a paper I wrote on Habermas at Rutgers in 1979 which won a small undergraduate paper award. We’re lucky to have a philosopher of Kingwell’s stature weighing in on cities and urban issues. Kudos to Spacing Toronto – one of the best urban sites out there, the writing and coverage are first rate; and the comments consistently as good or better than any around the blog-sphere- for providing some nice context on our different approaches and perspectives. I think they got it about right. It’s healthy when a university and a community are home to different points of view, different analytical approaches, and different emphases. For me it represents the flourishing of a distinctive “Toronto school of urbanism” – descending from Jane Jacobs but evolving from the very real material conditions, issues and challenges facing Toronto in the world economy. For someone who worked in isolation for too long, it’s a real privilege to be part of a city where so many people care – and think deeply and carefully – about urban questions.
December 10th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
As I see it, Kingwell is saying that being creative is not enough initself. If so Toronto would not be what it is today. What you you seem to offer is a list of ingredients to make something special. While I do see merit in that, there are other factors that are going to determine if those ingredients are going to amount to something. For example, with its current tax climate, Toronto (proper) will continue to have difficulty in creating and supporting job growth. As witnessed by the growth of the surrounding regions, the tax climate itself is a driving force in supporting sprawl and poverty.
December 11th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Rich is so tolerant — a model for the creative class.
Kingwell joined the growing chorus calling Rich a huckster — and Rich says thank you.
December 12th, 2008 at 2:43 am
Glen: On a practical level, Toronto could cut taxes a bit if it contracted out more and played tough against the unions. But the notion that it could cut taxes drastically is out of touch with reality.
The surrounding suburbs you speak of are keeping taxes low via windfall residential development charges, just like the inner suburbs (now part of the City of Toronto) used to. In time, they’ll hit a financial wall and have to make some tough decisions on tax policy. Mississauga is going through it right now. Classic regional political economy.
December 12th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Fin,
I did not suggest that Toronto should cut taxes. What it should do is quickly (ignore the current glacial ETBC program) re-balance the ratios between classes to make job supporting commercial development viable.
The surrounding municipalities are not keeping there taxes low at all. The indisputable truth is that Mississauga/Peel, Vaughan/York, et al. have much higher residential taxes. At the same time they spend considerably less than Toronto. Using 2006 data from the Municipal Performance Measurement Program it shows that Toronto spent $8,422 per household in 2006. On the other hand Mississauga and the region of Peel combined, spent $3,848.29 per household. Yet the average residential property tax is $2,300 in Toronto vs. $2,800 in Mississauga (all pre LTT).
Toronto has among the lowest residential property tax in the Province and the highest commercial taxes. The commercial taxes have been labeled by the Mayor’s own chair of Toronto’s Independent Fiscal Review Panel as the highest in the world.
This is why Toronto has been bleeding jobs for the last twenty years. I can name few other cities, especially one that aim to be ‘world class’, that had less jobs in Dec. 2007 than in Dec 1987.
More data available here;
http://www.fcpp.org/images/publications/52.%20LGPI_08_ONTARIO.pdf