SIX RUNNERS

Guest Feature: URBAN SPRAWL: ENCROACHING INTO SUBURBIA

Friday July 17th 2020

It’s no secret that Toronto’s real estate market has been existing in a state that might generously be dubbed inflated, and cynically a housing bubble on the verge of popping. When it collapses, it’ll go down hard. 

Airbnb's eat up most of the empty apartments, condos devoid of light in the city skyline as their rich owners snore away in suburbia, where the air is cleaner, and sweeter, and rains brings petrichor instead of an odorous fog of piss and grime like Eaton’s Square. 

With skyrocketing prices to rent and to own, citizens within the city limits have been setting their sights elsewhere, loading themselves into their shiny new cars to crawl down the Don Valley Parkway that threads into the heart of the financial district like lemmings hurtling towards a cliff edge. 

Neighbouring cities and towns in the GTA have seen their numbers swell, and the price of living adjusting itself accordingly. There’s bitterness over this. Perhaps rightfully so. You can pick apart a Torontonian from any suburbanite, the clipped, hurried tones like sound bites pulled from a business conference, the swing in their stride like there’s never quite enough time in the day to make ends meet. 

Whether or not they integrate themselves into the communities that they’ve come to call home, or simply stagger up their front porch steps paid for by high powered executive positions or draining internships that leave them crammed in like sardines with others in similar shoes, drumming their fingertips along the edges of their steering wheels and contemplating the lost hours of their life in the smoggy haze of commuting, is in the end, up to them. Still, you can pick them out of a crowd. The city has a way of indelibly marking you as one of its own.

What raises an interesting point is when members integral to the wellbeing of their communities can’t quite call themselves as involved as they should be. Increasingly, those with the power to make life changing decisions for those in neighbouring housing units are out of touch with the realities of living in places like Regent or Moss Park. With the ever growing exodus from these asphalt streets, it’s easy to see why people stuck living in the rat race would grow worried about their future. It’s easy to see why they would want to leave. The puppeteers are the blind leading the blind, obfuscated behind piles of paperwork and empty city council meetings, Skyping in to berate your local representative and getting your mic muted, having letters written in that are tossed into the trash without a second glance. Emails sent straight to the spam folder. The cogs churn ever onwards, and people find themselves with their fingers caught in the spokes, unable to pull back. Some might amputate at the wrist just to cut themselves free.

Toronto is a diverse city. It celebrates a cultural mosaic, and the streets come alive with festivities and parades, bright colours and sounds crackling out of speakers and boomboxes held up on broad shoulders. It has always been anachronistic, a blending of copper-green roofs from the earlier half of the century snuggled up close against power washed skyscrapers that gleam bright sunlight directly into your eyes, blinding in their pride. Buildings of worship- cathedrals with beautiful stained glass and temples with hallways full of slide on slippers and the quiet hum of chanting thrumming through the building like a living heartbeat, sit side by side in a peaceful co-existence. Psychic shops are perched beside veterinary clinics, who look morosely out at a mural eating up acid rain blemished brickwork from when the skies hailed down sulfuric fury. 

Toronto always has what you are looking for, even if you don’t know what it is just yet. It is as unpredictable as it is chaotic- and you’re never bored, especially when the collar of your jacket is folded up against your jawline, eyes sullenly keeping watch over your fellow man on the TTC. 

It’s alive. It’s a city that demands your attention, and participation.

And with this diversity, and ever growing population, of people coming from far flung places with starry eyed dreams and a longing for something invigorating, refreshing- comes a cascade of different superpowers and abilities. Some are subtle. Most are well managed. 

In terms of academia, several students find accommodations that allow them to function almost incognito, asides from writing examinations in different rooms or having to don a pair of sunglasses. Those working in science labs find it easier to sprint from station to station, to monitor the temperature that petri dishes are incubating at. Art students find that playing with the viscosity of paint and blending into the background make for wonderful prop makers and stagehands. Business students find that they’re able to turn a knack for body language into smooth charm greasing palms and setting up appointments to knock out one by one like dominoes.

In the workplace, it can be that competitive edge that makes one stand out from others vying for the same position: being able to telekinetically lift large objects and saving on the expenses of operating a forklift, or always making sure that the coffee delivered to your boss’ desk is at the perfect temperature for drinking. No cool down time needed. Firework technicians at the CNE, for example, are almost always among the count of citizens who are born just a little different- many have the ability to influence heat, and sound, or fire in ways that most can’t even begin to fathom. 

There are, as ever, benefits, to having a wide array of talents and skills, strengths and weaknesses that are balanced out when the situation is examined as a cohesive whole. Diversity is one of Toronto’s greatest strengths.

And yet, perhaps because Toronto differs so wildly from these suburban regions- the great migration of city workers in collared white button ups or cement dust stained black t-shirts, has come at a price more than an increased cost of living, or cut eye geared at those who stand in a way that the city has taught them to- back ramrod straight, shoulders squared, fists clenched at their sides as they push and shove their way onto overcrowded TTC streetcars as rain drizzles down from above.

With a large population, and a higher than average percentage of those with superpowers, Toronto draws those who want to eke out a living by using unique skills at their disposal. When they wander out of the city limits, and find themselves entrenched in white washed townhouses, conjoined at the hip with sleepy lawns and homeowner associations breathing down the back of their neck, there’s friction. People don’t like different. People don’t like change. People don’t know what to make of someone who can summon snakes to writhe on their lawns, or levitate a little off of the ground as they tiredly browse through brightly illuminated aisles in stores run by the same family for generations. Toronto may be used to this- but other cities aren’t. 

So whose responsibility is it, in the end? To assimilate, or to differentiate? Should suburban communities put into place similar programs as those piloted by the Toronto Police Precinct- described by a Detective Cavello as “aiming to integrate those affected into the community and foster connections with peer mentors and making professional and personal matches with those in similar situations” or should tradition, ever the king in these remote, isolated regions, where change is slow and circumstances are steady, overrule? 

To what end do these smaller towns and villages, even, when we crawl further up North, owe the city slickers intruding on their pastel frosted towns? What can and should be done to ensure that those with powers are able to best flourish and take advantage of the benefits their unique skills bring to the table? 

Guest Feature: THE ABSOLUTE STATE OF THE TTC

Thursday July 16th 2020

Joshua Cavello has tired eyes, over his morning coffee. The sun is still creeping up from the horizon, red bleeding across the sky: bathing the downtown streets in a gentle, rosy glow. Cars are already congesting the roads, TTC buses rumbling down their silver grids. It’s been a long night. He mouths the edge of his silver fountain pen, as he considers how to answer the posed question: ‘what is the Toronto Police Precinct doing to protect citizens after the rash of TTC related incidents?’ On the table in front of us is a thick folder of printed out articles detailing the particulars of an onslaught of destruction of public property, aggravated assault, and armed robbery cases emerging from our public transportation system recently. He flicks through them with a calloused thumb. 

“We’ve increased our constable presence on the shuttle buses and street cars themselves,” he says. “As well as assigned officers to bus stops and the stretches of streets in between them.” The fountain pen swirls over his Rhodia pad, leaving glittering trails of blue-green ink over its surface, the glitter dispersing unevenly and shimmering. It’s a nervous tic, an anxious gesture- as he taps his other hand on the leg of his pants, a drumming beat that’s slightly off key.

“Special constables haven’t done anything to mitigate the financial hemorrhaging the TTC is experiencing due to unpaid fares,” I point out. “What makes you think that they’ll be more effective in keeping our city safe?” He closes his eyes for a moment, eyelashes casting delicate shadows over his cheekbones. He looks impossibly frail in the rising light, cheeks hollowed out and the sharp edge of his jaw rasped over with the beginnings of five o’ clock shadowing. 

“The transfer to an electronic system has been difficult. The entry fee- 6$ for a Presto card, has admittedly, posed some issues. Still, I’d hope that our citizens would understand the importance of contributing to the local services that are provided to our city through funding from tax-payers. We all benefit when we all pitch in,” he says. The words sound hollow, trite. He doesn’t address the question, not really. This is typical for representatives from the police force: skirting around issues that they can hand off to legislators and budget balancers, blank faced accountants in suits and pencil skirts. From the tone of his voice, it’s clear that he doesn’t want to continue this conversation.

GUEST FEATURE: HAWTHORN’S RAT PARK

Wednesday July 15th 2020

Hawthorn School’s students have spent the last term carefully putting together their mock thesis projects. The grand hall is a flurry of glitter, sequins, cardstock, and scrawled out bubble letters in poster paint and washable markers. It’s a cacophony of presentation, students standing with primly perfect posture and pontificating on the subject matter that they’ve dived deeply into with minimal guidance. It’s in accordance with the school’s emphasis on self direction and independence, and even the youngest in their cohort talks animatedly with bright eyes and sweeping hand gestures. 

Alma Kilbride stands in front of a recreation of the infamous psychological experiment, Rat Park. In her small hands is a large rat, with a pink bow stuck charmingly onto it’s head like a bonnet. Her tone of voice is serious, hushed, as if letting the listener in on a secret. She has matching hair ribbons with the rat, who is introduced to me as Remington, “though our friends call him Remy.” She has a slight speech impediment, —fwens— and looks anxiously over at her friend Tobias Winsome, who is grim faced and holding onto a tiny monkey wrench as he explains the intricacies of his Lego robot to his peers. 

“All of the rats in Toronto are [my] friends,” Alma says. “It’s important to be nice to them, because if you aren’t, I’ll know.” It’s an oddly ominous statement from a slip of a girl, dressed head to toe in pink and purple with a copious dousing of lace and frills. On the day of these presentations, the girls at Hawthorn School are allowed to deviate from their usual checkered, dark uniforms. She holds Remington out towards me, asking if I’d like “to hold him, he likes making friends. He’s the friendliest rat.” Remington is soft, certainly friendly, and plump enough that he looks like a lump of play dough with beady little black eyes snatched from a teddybear. I can’t quite say that I know that he’s the friendliest rat, though. I hand him back hastily, and Alma beams at me, showing off a gap in between her front two teeth. 

When asked for a parting statement, Alma tilted her head to the side slightly, pigtails a little messy from running around after Tobias’ rogue science project. It’d escaped it’s cube of baby gates repurposed for containment, to much chaos earlier in the day. “Be nicer to the rats. If they [have] a bow, then they’ll tell on you to me if you’re mean. And I’ll tell on you to daddy. They just want snacks, and they’re smart.” She cuddled Remington a little closer, fixing his askew head bow, and wandering off to talk to the next terrified, yet intrigued parent about her project. 

Thierry Kilbride is not an unknown name in the streets of Toronto. That his daughter attends Hawthorn School was a surprisingly controversial and divisive topic within the private schooling community. Something tells me that it’s more than just the rats that was the source of the issue. Still, Alma seems to be fitting in quite well with her peers. She’s even befriended some of the children from the other private Catholic schools within the vicinity, and has no shortage of sweet anecdotes about her and her best friend Tobias. Charlie Winsome is after all, one of Kilbride’s work associates.