Standing up for public parks

I wrote the article below for my local community paper, the Bloor West Villager. It ran August 14th, 2009.

Parks deserve more respect

Public parks are of intrinsic value to cities.

They are more than just places to play, rest, exercise and explore. Parks contribute to the overall social, economic and environmental health of communities. They are meeting places for families, artists and neighbourhood groups. Beautiful parks will enhance a city's attractiveness to tourists, and close proximity to parks will increase residential property values.

Most modern metropolises find commonality in their abundance of concrete. But it is through shared green spaces that we distinguish cities as our own, and define our cities to the outside world.

Think of Central Park in New York or Parc Mont Royal in Montreal. Here at home, we are fortunate to have - and in our very own community - High Park. But it is the totality of our park system - "a city within a park", as the City's slogan goes - that makes Toronto unique. In a city where more than half of all households are in apartment buildings or condo developments, our parks play an additional role; that of public backyard. It is in these backyards that a child will first learn to ride a bike and a couple will enjoy a first date. Protecting Toronto's parks then - even when it is not convenient to do so -should be of the utmost priority for our civic government and a responsibility all residents share. Most of the time, it is. But Toronto's recent labour dispute with its unionized workers, resulting in the disruption of regular garbage pick up in most of the city, has weakened this resolve. As residential trash began to accumulate soon after the disruption in service, safe and quick garbage disposal became a pressing issue. In response, the City made the regrettable decision to open up, almost immediately, 11 parks as temporary garbage disposal sites, with more parks later designated. There were other options. The City could have, for example, increased its public education campaign on waste reduction, recycling, proper storage and composting while keeping the main transfer stations open as disposal sites. Or it could have designated only non-park, city-owned property such as brownfields sites or parking lots. Or it could have entered into short term leases for private lands to use as disposal sites.

Each of these choices would have come with a small financial cost or inconvenience, but our parks would have been preserved for summer enjoyment.

The immediate problems with allowing garbage dumping in our local parks have been well documented: reduced access to the parks because of the space needed for the disposal sites, reduced enjoyment of park facilities due to the visible blight and smell, ongoing concerns over the health and environmental risks to the parkland and nearby bodies of water, risks that were amplified by the decision to spray garbage piles with pesticides.

The long-term ramifications of having garbage in our parks are less obvious but possibly of even greater consequence. For if we were not able to keep our parks clean from garbage during the labour dispute, how can we expect to keep our parks clean from everyday litter now that the situation is resolved?

And if we cannot keep our parks safe from garbage dumps, how can we keep our parks safe from potential development? If any good can come from all this garbage, perhaps it will be through increased public discussion of how we value our parks. So hopefully, the next time a decision has to be made on whether to protect Toronto's parks, the choice is abundantly clear.

Christopher Holcroft