The problem with Toronto tourism
The fallout of failure is bad enough, but as cities everywhere are now discovering, the problems of success can be worse.
From Toronto to New York, London to Lisbon, rising real estate costs, housing shortages, maxed-out transit, crumbling civic infrastructure and even mass tourism are threatening cities at the very moment when they were closer than ever to realizing their potential.
Except for the rich, the urban dream is more elusive than ever. For the most part, anyone under the age of 40 who can’t count on their family for the entry fee into the urban middle class — a down payment on a house — is out of luck. And few expect low rents to stop the exodus; they’re higher than ever.
That’s largely why the sons and daughters of baby boomers will inherit their parents’ stuff, but not their quality of life. That great run of prosperity — shared prosperity — appears to have come to an inglorious end in an explosion of right-wing populism. Fuelled by fear and resentment, precarious employment and low wages, even mild-mannered Ontarians have opted for the comfort of yet another tax-hating dinosaur who will sell them down the river and cost them dearly.
But for those who got in while the going was good, life in Toronto has never been better. Although the political class remains stuck in the amber of the last century, Torontonians themselves have forced the city into the modern age and made it a model of tolerance and diversity that’s admired around the world. Little wonder people are pouring into Toronto, whether permanently or temporarily. They recognize success when they see it and want a piece of it. But as the population increases, so does the pressure on housing and mobility, as well as on civic and social services. In addition to skyrocketing property prices, the most obvious sign of Toronto’s success is the condo boom that has changed the face of the city and continues unabated. Although the new density has brought countless thousands to the city and benefited Toronto enormously, it has also strained the aging infrastructure of sewers, power grids, roads and traffic. Planners failed to anticipate growth or control it. Much development is poorly constructed and intended more for investors than residents.
Meanwhile, transit has also become a victim of its own success. The TTC allows Torontonians to get out their cars, but lack of funding means it can’t keep up with demand. That in turn has led to overcrowding and declining ser- vice. Last January, a series of mishaps left the Bloor station so dangerously crammed that TTC officials came close to closing it at the height of the morning rush. As the executive director of TTCriders, a nonprofit transit advocacy group, told the Star, “Transit riders need better service across the city and reduced overcrowding, funded as soon as possible.” It’s no surprise that ridership has remained stagnant since 2014.
In European cities such as Barcelona, Venice, Lisbon and Rome, these problems are exacerbated by industrial scale tourism that has left them drowning in visitors.
Their transit systems are overwhelmed, housing stock reduced by short-term rentals, and their sidewalks and streets badly congested. Barcelona, for example, with a population of 1.6 million, had 32 million visitors last year, 8 million of whom stayed overnight. The city’s most famous boulevard, La Rambla, is so crowded at times that it’s almost impossible to negotiate. Although visitors spent a staggering $45 billion in Barcelona last year, locals in their thousands have taken to the streets shouting anti-tourist slogans.
Even in Toronto, tourism has significant social and economic impacts. Most controversial is the advent of “ghost hotels,” condo towers where so many units are rented on Airbnb that they become de facto hotels. Naturally, residents aren’t thrilled, but so far the city has failed to deal with the issue effectively.
And still tourism is on the rise. In 2017, says Tourism Toronto, “for the first time, overnight visits in Toronto ... surpassed the 15 million mark (15.5 million), joined by 28.2 million same-day travellers.” These figures seem suspiciously high, but it’s clear that tourism is big business almost everywhere. Indeed, tourism now ranks as the planet’s biggest industry, estimated to be worth $8 trillion annually and employing almost 10 per cent of the global workforce.
Toronto isn’t Barcelona, of course. But the Catalan capital’s experience reminds us that the line between success and failure is thinner than we think.