What Makes a Community

What Makes that special Community in West Toronto

Its a beautiful start to the Summer in Bloor West Village I'm with Michael Krisa and I'd like want to talk about what makes a community worthwhile to live in. Give us your thoughts..

This is a perfect example. You're basically in the corridor of High Park, which is a lovely area in Toronto. Pardon the back ground noise. Its kind of contradictory, but they are doing construction. Look at the ambiance. You've got these trees that are hundreds of years old.

Century Type Homes and this is something that you cannot replicate. You cannot reproduce this.

Then when you ask what makes community, I look at something like this as opposed to a cookie cutter made in a formulae type community that we see happening all across the United States and Canada today.

In the small subdivisions you have great prices for the house and the white picket fence, but here you have the coffee shop on the corner with wifi, you have the pastry shop and the bakery right down the street. You have that infill of business and restaurants and The flavour and character of evenings.

That's a perfect example; The flavour and character because when you live in the burbs, You need a car...

You cannot move

The Big demand is Oh.. lets be green. Let's eliminate the car

How can you eliminate a car when whole subdivions are built around the fact that you have to

get in to the car to drive 10 miles and pick up your mail, or get anywhere and that's in the city Versus when you look at something like this the infrastructure is set up in such a way that that you don't need a car.

Exactly

Stroll to the bus stop, stroll to the bakery Its almost akin to what happens in England,

you have your local pub, you've got little local grocery store, keep in mind the refridgerators are this big. Every has to be within walking distance because the whole day is based around community and getting your meal... versus here where you drive forever but that's what we've grown up with.

It's changing as we become more attuned to aging and demographics, mobility. That People will want services that are inherently in the city I think its going to bring people back in to be closer.

I think you are seeing it now... that there is a big influx of the younger crowd, that did grow up in the burbs, are now coming back into the inner city And you see this whole rejuvenation, Lets call it, the Urban slum what used to be is now being Modernized and turned into Loft apartments and cool areas are being reborn and thats really exciting to see happening in the city. They don't need a car. They are relying on local transportation. Getting Back to your thing.. What makes community?

The people, The people. You need that glue and the glue is the local services the local shops and merchants That's what Makes it.

Thanks for coming down to Bloor west Village in Toronto