BUILDING A CITY
How stakeholders use the report
Patricia Fleming
Patricia J. Fleming Fund
Why is the Vital Signs Report important to your work?
When you get to a point where you have a certain amount of money to donate, you want to be strategic about it. The Vital Signs Report is broad. You’re seeing a good diagnosis of the entire city, different groups and what are the areas of particular concern.
Why does Toronto need a long-term planning horizon?
If something is addressed as a long-term need, it’s something that’s going to be top of mind for people. Otherwise, you’re just putting out fires as opposed to looking at what are things that can be done that will have long-term benefits.
Rick Goldsmith
Partner, national risk management, advisory services at KPMG
Why is the Vital Signs Report important to your work?
My company’s strategy includes involving all its members in community leadership activities according to their passions. The Vital Signs Report helps direct and validate our company’s strategic community activities.
Why does Toronto need a long-term planning horizon?
Issues such as the TCHC developed over a long time, and the answer involves more than doing just the same.
Why is research and data a crucial part of that?
Data speaks objectively and impacts fully. Otherwise, you are dealing with anecdotal and personal perceptions.
Shauna Brail
Senior lecturer in the urban studies program at the University of Toronto
Why is the Vital Signs Report important to your work?
It’s probably the best summative document we have for Toronto that highlights data and stats from a huge variety of sources on essentially all the important urban issues we face — all in one location. This year, I’ve designed an assignment around it for our intro to urban studies class.
Why is research and data a crucial part of that?
Many times over the past year, we’ve heard policymakers and other leaders talk about the importance of making decisions based on evidence and research. If we don’t take the time to collect, analyze and understand what we have and where we’re going, then we risk making decisions that have negative long-term implications for the future of our city.
Roger Keil
Professor, chair in global sub/urban studies at York University
Why is the Vital Signs Report important to your work?
I use it as a point of reference many times throughout the year. It is mostly important to me as a teaching tool. I distribute the report in my class and have used it in assignments and as background for the students in their research project.
What are the most pressing issues raised in this year’s report? There continues to be the growing socio-economic divide in the city that also has a spatial profile with particular neighbourhoods. In particular, the inner suburbs continue to suffer from an accumulation of social stresses — from housing to lack of jobs to poor transit connections and disinvestment from schools and other educational institutions.
Robert Luke
Vice-president of research and innovation at George Brown College
Why is the Vital Signs Report important to your work?
As an institution, the college looks to the Vital Signs Report to inform our overall strategic planning. It coincides nicely with the work we do every year on the situational context for post-secondary education and our programs, and the social contexts in which our learners and partners live and work.
Why does Toronto need a long-term planning horizon?
We live in a world with many competing demands — for our tax dollars, our attention, and our social and economic capacity. If we do not consider ourselves as stewards of future generations, then we risk squandering resources now, only to impoverish those who will inherit what we have built.