Toronto Star critic Christopher Hume, in a column on Melbourne’s urban designer Rob Adams:
His approach, radical though it might have seemed,
was to focus on small stuff, everything from trees and benches to sidewalks and street vendors. Enshrining urban design concepts such as “active frontage” and shared streets, Adams transformed the city building by building, block by block, bylaw by bylaw.
Rejecting the post-war planning orthodoxies of single-use zoning and vehicular paramountcy, he insisted the streets be shared with pedestrians and cyclists. Despite the backlash, it worked. Last year, The Economist magazine named Melbourne, and Toronto, among the five most livable cities on Earth.
Then the compulsory dig at TO’s new mayor:
If Rob Adams is right, Rob Ford must be wrong….
Melbourne’s success has reached the point where even the current car-friendly mayor has become an advocate for pedestrians, cyclists and streetcars. By contrast, Toronto’s new chief magistrate wants them removed from the roads as soon as possible …
What intrigues me is the story of Melbourne’s mayor, Robert Doyle, 
who in his campaign for office called for returning cars to Swanston Street – Melbourne’s main drag. But once in office, he had a ”road to Damascus” experience.
In a complete turnaround from his election campaign, Cr Doyle today said “we don’t want to encourage people to drive to the city”.
On January 27, 2010, it was announced that the entire length of Swanston Street would become car free. The $25.6 million proposal includes plans for several city squares along the street and several large tram stops. Aside from trams, the only motorised vehicular access will be small-scale freight at certain times, and emergency vehicles.
So before we get too much in the habit of demonizing Rob Ford, we might want to see whether he takes stroll down a certain road to Damascus.
[Ray Spaxman passes along Christopher Hume’s dystopian view of Toronto’s (and our) future in about 2035.]
