North York – North Yuck!
Alternate Title: Suburbs; the Worst of Both Worlds
Almost one year into working in the blanched concrete monotony that is North York, I can truly say that suburbs are my own personal vision of hell. Depressing Stalinist apartment blocks huddled together against the vast anonymous spaces of wasteland. Strip malls and car lanes. Hulking fortresses of big box stores defended by moats of endless parking lots. Isolated people buffered from real human contact by six lanes of traffic and cracked, decaying sidewalks.
I can’t think of a single positive thing to say about suburbs; sprawl destroys farmland and greenspace, makes public transit impossible and forces an even greater dependence on the almighty Mammon of the car. Really, people who live in suburbs are eco-terrorists with their huge carbon footprint, greenhouse-gas cars and pesticide lawns. If were up to me, we’d blow them all up and start all over. (Or conversely, we could build a wall around the suburbs, blow them all up, and then start a specialty channel where we watch the survivors build a new society out of the rubble of Pickering or Thornhill).
In honour of MMC and my Battleship Adventure* to the furthest reaches of North York, the Fairview Mall and to the very end of the pointless Sheppard line, I present to you my North Yuck Photo Essay.
Almost one year into working in the blanched concrete monotony that is North York, I can truly say that suburbs are my own personal vision of hell. Depressing Stalinist apartment blocks huddled together against the vast anonymous spaces of wasteland. Strip malls and car lanes. Hulking fortresses of big box stores defended by moats of endless parking lots. Isolated people buffered from real human contact by six lanes of traffic and cracked, decaying sidewalks.
I can’t think of a single positive thing to say about suburbs; sprawl destroys farmland and greenspace, makes public transit impossible and forces an even greater dependence on the almighty Mammon of the car. Really, people who live in suburbs are eco-terrorists with their huge carbon footprint, greenhouse-gas cars and pesticide lawns. If were up to me, we’d blow them all up and start all over. (Or conversely, we could build a wall around the suburbs, blow them all up, and then start a specialty channel where we watch the survivors build a new society out of the rubble of Pickering or Thornhill).
In honour of MMC and my Battleship Adventure* to the furthest reaches of North York, the Fairview Mall and to the very end of the pointless Sheppard line, I present to you my North Yuck Photo Essay.
4 comments:
Battleship Adventure is a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Take a map. Call out two coordinates à la 'You Sunk My Battleship' (in our case D-26). Go to that square and explore the many sights and delights of an area that you would have probably never visited in your life if it hadn’t been for Battleship Adventure.
Revolting. If it hadn't been for the cute shots of you and Michael, I'd have vomited. Suburbs are crime against humanity.
North Yuck, loves it!
NOTE: IN the picture where I look lost, we truly were lost. There were TTC subway entrance signs all over the place, and no entrance at any of these locations. It wasn't until we left that vicinity and crossed the street that we were able to actually enter the glorious transit system. It was SO SCARY!!!!!
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