THE SIXTIES AND THE SUBURBS
Population increase and the lure of open space drive expansion
The Building Industry and Land Development Association’s (BILD) predecessor association, the Toronto Home Builders’ Association, was founded in 1921. To mark its 100th anniversary, BILD has partnered with the Toronto Star to put together a special feature tracing, decade-by-decade, the history of residential and commercial development in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
The 1960s were a period of tremendous growth and development for the region. The City of Toronto saw the opening of the Bloor-Danforth subway, a new City Hall and impressive developments downtown and, in 1968, the registration of its first condominium. The decade also marked an important shift in the pattern of development in the region, one that was mirrored across the continent—the meteoric rise of the suburbs.
Suburban development was fueled by population increases due to the baby boom and immigration, an expanding network of roads and highways, and in 1967, the opening of the Government of Ontario (GO) Transit commuter rail service. Thanks to insurance-backed mortgage loans and new ways of building homes and communities, the Canadian dream of home ownership came to be within reach for virtually everyone.
As Toronto expanded east, west and north, residential and commercial builders and developers literally built the region as we know it. Much of what they built, including schools, hospitals, infrastructure, workplaces, shops and entertainment facilities, is still in use today.
A home in the suburbs became the dominant housing choice not only for GTA residents, but for many Canadians. Today, more than six in 10 Canadians call the suburbs, in one form or another, home.
For local home builders’ associations, the 1960s hold another important milestone. Recognizing the growing importance of the provincial government in planning and development, the Toronto Home Builders’ Association joined a group of other home builders’ associations in 1963 to establish the Ontario Home Builders’ Association (OHBA). Its role was, and remains, to focus on provincial legislation, regulations and policies that impact the residential construction industry and its customers, new home buyers across the province. BILD remains the largest member of the OHBA, our member companies responsible for more than half of the homes built in Ontario in any given year.
As long as cities have existed, so have suburbs. The one depends on the other. But it wasn’t until the post-war period that the suburbs took over from cities as the place most Canadians wanted to live. And what began as a trickle in the 1950s had grown into a torrent by the 1960s, the decade Canada went full-on suburb.
The flight from the city was less pronounced in Toronto than in many big American cities, but the lure of a house and yard of one’s own at a more affordable price was irresistible. Despite the potential, at the time, for fewer amenities and car dependency, Canadians abandoned downtown in droves for the wide-open spaces of suburbia. The creation of GO Transit in the 1960s, which connected Oakville to Pickering, added a layer of accessibility that further enhanced the appeal of the suburbs.
The exponential growth of Etobicoke was typical; in the 20 years after the Second World War, its population exploded from 40,000 to more than 200,000. Thousands of houses were built, along with hundreds of office buildings, schools, stores and gas stations, lots of gas stations. Single-use planning meant one place to live, another to work and yet another to shop, all connected by a network of multi-lane streets. Living in Etobicoke meant living with the car. But with parking available at every turn, that wasn’t a problem.
If anything, the evolution of North York in the ‘60s was even more dramatic. Roads were quickly remade into multi-lane streets and residential subdivisions. The T-intersection of Lawrence Ave. E. and Bayview, a major obstacle to development, was solved
when a new underpass was constructed in 1962. It travelled beneath Lawrence to the Bayview Bridge, constructed originally in 1929 but rebuilt in the early ‘60s.
At the west end of North York, the intersection of Jane and Finch was a featureless landscape bisected by wide roads largely empty of traffic. That would soon change; by the end of the decade, the population of North York was a busy mix of residential neighbourhoods, factories, commercial buildings and shopping malls. Speaking of shopping malls, when Yorkdale Shopping Centre opened in February, 1964, it was the largest enclosed mall on the planet. For the first time, Eaton’s and Simpsons were both along for the ride, as were 100 smaller retail outlets. And let’s not forget the parking lot, which had space for 6,500 cars. That sounds like a lot, but on opening day, it was overwhelmed by the crowd of 100,000 that showed up for the occasion.
Then there’s Scarborough. For all its success, it has been dogged by the myth of “Scarberia.” As Robert Fulford writes in his book, Accidental City, The Transformation of Toronto, “That word appeared in the 1960s…at the point when Toronto was becoming self-conscious about urbanism. It was, ironically, the moment when Scarborough was beginning to shed many of the characteristics of a standard suburb.” Indeed, the urbanizing forces that have changed the city have also remade Scarborough; development has grown ever denser and niche projects are filling in the gaps that remained after the first wave of post-war building.
It’s important to remember that the suburbs of the ‘60s were conceived and constructed as quickly as possible. Builders were hard-pressed to keep up with a fast-growing population that wanted a fresh start in new housing that looked and felt modern.
“During the Sixties,” Peter Newman enthused in Maclean’s magazine in 1960, “Ontario’s population will grow to nearly eight million, at the net rate of twenty new arrivals (by birth or immigration) every hour. That’s enough to support an extra grocery store every two days, or enough every fortnight for a new supermarket. To maintain no more than current living standards, Ontario residents will need, every hundred days during the Sixties, eighteen new dentists, thirty-two new lawyers, fifty new doctors, one-hundred and thirty new nurses and seven hundred new teachers.”
The endless expansion that underlined the spread of the suburbs was based on a spirit of optimism that has given way to greater recognition of the need to plan for growth. The suburbs of the ‘60s were a well-intentioned landscape where democratic domesticity and equality of opportunity were given built form. If a man’s home was once his castle, in suburbia it became his split-level bungalow with a front yard and a garage on the side.
Unlike planned communities such as Don Mills, the more ad hoc development that occurred around Toronto had the flexibility needed to remain relevant as times changed. Though transit continues to be a challenge, mobility comes in forms other than the car. The TTC’s proposal for priority bus lanes on its busiest corridors – Finch E., Eglinton E., Jane, Steeles and Dufferin – is just the latest example.
Ontario’s population will grow to nearly eight million, at the net rate of twenty new arrivals (by birth or immigration) every hour. That’s enough to support an extra grocery store every two days...