THE TALE OF A CITY
THE TALE OF A CITY
R E - ENGINEERING THE U RBAN E NVIRONMENT
B Y T ONY OD ONOHUE , P.E NG .
Copyright Tony ODonohue, 2005
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Copy-Editor: Cy Jamison
Design: Andrew Roberts
Printer: Webcom
Library and National Archives of Canada Cataloguing in Publication
ODonohue, Tony, 1933-
The tale of a city : re-engineering the urban environment / Tony ODonohue.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-10: 1-55002-556-2
ISBN-13: 978-1-55002-556-9
1. Urban ecology. 2. Urbanization--Environmental aspects. I. Title.
HT241.D65 2005 307.76 C2005-901798-8
1 2 3 4 5 09 08 07 06 05
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credit in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Printed and bound in Canada.
Printed on recycled paper.
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THE TALE OF A CITY
DEDICATION
To planners, engineers, politicians and community leaders: that they may be able to overcome their addiction to squandering the planets non-renewable resources.
To all those addicts of the not in my backyard or NIMBY syndrome: that they will see the bigger picture and that the big pipe will take all their wastes and the wastes of others to the treatment plant.
To politicians everywhere: that they may speak with clarity, act wisely and do what has to be done to care for our small blue planet.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am thankful for the assistance and advice given by many people engineers, planners, journalists, community activists, monitors of the urban scene and politicians in the preparation of The Tale of a City.
This book would not be possible without the help of Toronto historian Mike Filey, the Toronto Archives, the Municipal Reference Library and clippings from the Toronto daily papers over the years the Globe and Mail, the Sun, the National Post and the Star. I owe a special thanks to the reporters and columnists from these papers. Their articles helped fill in the gaps of memory and added to the fullness of the book.
When I needed to confirm or add to the technical details of the many subjects, I had a very helpful group of professionals engineers and planners who were anxious to make sure that these details were correct.
I am particularly thankful to Garry Reid for his knowledge on the Port of Toronto and the waterfront; Doug Floyd and David Kaufman for their help on transit and transportation issues; Don Roughley for his advice on sewers and wastewater management; Patrick Nowland for setting me straight on Torontos water supply; Brian Howieson for adding to my knowledge of environmental assessment and regulations; Angelos Bacopoulos for providing waste management and recycling information; Earl Burke for helping with the details of electricity; Arnold McMillan for filling in the gaps in waste heat recovery; Danny Harvey for his advice on global warming; Jack Gibbons for comments on fossil fuels and Phil Jessup and Richard Morris for their work on energy efficiency and energy conservation.
I enjoyed the inspirational writings of Thomas Moores The Re-enchantment of Every Day Life.
I used many books on environmental issues, which were of great help to me in my work, including Rachel Carsons The Sea Around Us; Morris Cohns Sewers for Growing America; Merrill Denisons The Peoples Power; Joel Herlgersons Nuclear Accidents; Konrad Krauskopfs Radioactive Waste Disposal and Geology; Nigel Henbests The Exploding Universe; Margaret Cheney and Robert Uths Tesla; Gerald Foleys The Energy Question; Michael Guillens Five Equations; Canadian Public Works Associations Building Canada.
My thanks, also, to the many municipal and provincial engineers and planners for all their advice and assistance. The many technical papers of engineers and scientists on energy and environment issues helped reinforce my understanding and commitment.
My thanks to Cy Jamison for editing and technical advice in the world of print. Also thanks to Mark Mandel for the cover design.
And of course, my wife Aldona and family friends, who helped me along when I needed a little push. Without their encouragement this book would not be possible.
FOREWORD
by Frank Stronach
The world is full of critics, but there are very few individuals who will take the time and effort to come up with constructive solutions, and then submit those solutions to public scrutiny.
Tony ODonohue, whom I have known for nearly three decades now, is one of those rare individuals. In The Tale of a City, he tackles some of the central problems facing cities today, with a particular focus on the City of Toronto. Chapter by chapter, Tony puts forth clear-cut, practical solutions to a number of the critical issues confronting urban centres not only here in Canada but around the world and he shows how we can make our cities work better for all citizens.
The Tale of a City is ultimately about re-engineering the urban environment, and few people understand the mechanics and workings of municipal infrastructure better than Tony ODonohue. He has served as an elected councillor in Toronto for more than a quarter of a century and, as a civil engineer, he has hands-on experience in the construction and delivery of municipal services everything from energy and transit to water supplies and waste disposal. As a result, Tony is able to call upon a wealth of experience in analyzing problems and then suggesting workable solutions in simple language that any citizen can understand.
Like Tony, who has devoted many years of service to the people of Toronto, I have a particular affection and concern for this great city. It is here in Toronto that I settled after immigrating to Canada in 1954 as a 21-year-old tool and die maker. And it is here that I got my start in business after opening a one-man tool shop in a rented garage at the corner of Dufferin and Dupont streets. It was a time when Toronto was growing and modernizing and beginning to finally come of age as a truly world class city. And it was a time when the signing of the North American Auto Pact would help turn Toronto into one of the worlds major automotive centres. Today, the Greater Toronto Area produces more vehicles than even Detroit, and the automotive industry generates about one in every seven jobs in Canada.
