Dundas Connects project at the City of Mississauga: Register today, and let’s build a better Dundas in Mississauga!
Dundas Connects is a City of Mississauga website inciting input from Mississauga residents in planning for the next steps for Dundas Street.
A tweet from the City of Mississauga @citymississauga reads:
Come out to our next #DundasConnects public meeting & tell us what you think about options for Dundas’ future! http://www.dundasconnects.ca
The Dundas Connects website notes:
“Our online engagement platform has been designed to give you a voice on the Dundas Connects project. Your participation will help us to make informed decisions that reflect your community needs. Share your ideas, opinions and local knowledge. Register today, and let’s build a better Dundas!”
Screenshot
Below is a screenshot of the image included with the above-noted tweet. Please note: The links at the screenshot (below) are not active links; please click on one of the links at the top of the page you are now reading; that is where the active links are located.
Comment
As a City of Toronto resident, I am highly impressed with the quality of communications associated with all City of Mississauga planning initiatives – including among others Inspiration Lakeview, the Lakeview Waterfront Connection Project, the Small Arms Project, and the Hanlan Water Project – that I have encountered over several years of blogging.
The coherence, focus, and appealing tone of the communications are a source of inspiration for me.
I am equally impressed with the fact that citizen engagement and citizen input is highly valued at the City of Mississauga – both by way of rhetoric (which is the easy part) and by way of reality (which is the hard part, and the part that matters the most to everyday, tax-paying citizens everywhere).
The City of Mississauga works well, based on the available evidence including the quality of citizen engagement in urban planning and in the development of the Strategic Plan for the Mississauga. One exception is the Peel Police Service; much evidence is available from recent news reports indicating that is one aspect of life in Peel Region that does not work well.
The City of Toronto, based on the available evidence that I have encountered in the past 20 years, does not work quite as well. By way of example, citizen engagement does not proceed as it does in Mississauga. The rhetoric in many cases, does not consistently match the reality, from my anecdotal observations over the years.
The divide between Toronto officials and citizens tends to be of a greater magnitude in Toronto than is the case in Mississauga.
What accounts for this difference? The differential histories of the two cities plays a role. Personalities play a role as well.
What also may account for the difference – in particular with regard to quality of communications and quality and extent of citizen input – may have to do with size. The City of Mississauga is large, yet not enormously so. The City of Toronto, as a result of the amalgamation of the former boroughs of Metropolitan Toronto, is enormously large.
Such largeness means, based at least on my anecdotal observation, that an inevitable level of dysfunction is built into the City of Toronto.
These generalizations aside, the part of Toronto where I live – South Etobicoke – has seen some notable success stories. One of them is the story of how – with the help of the OMB (indeed, the OMB was very helpful) – the Lakeshore Hospital Grounds came to be put to its current use, which foregrounds the presence, on the former grounds, of public institutions such as Humber College.
I am working with Paul Terry of Long Branch on the staging of several Jane’s Walks in South Etobicoke in the first weekend of May 2017. The walks will among other things celebrate the story of how citizen input and collaboration with several levels of government enabled a good-news story to emerge with regard to the Lakeshore Hospital Grounds. The story includes a case study of a situation in which the OMB came through on behalf of the local community, rather than working on behalf of strictly other interests.