The Cost of Density

"We have reached the point now where we are prepared to destroy the city in order to save it.

The proper role of city council and the Sony Centre brain trust is to protect the venue from schemes such as this.

And the damage doesn't stop here; another sign has gone up announcing that a modest but charming 19th-century Italianate building on the southeast corner of King St. E. and Sherbourne St. will become an 18-storey condo.

Again, the façade will be saved, if it makes any difference.

Heritage, what heritage? Preservation, what preservation? Planning, what planning?

In its desperation and shortsightedness, Toronto is fast becoming its own worst enemy. It's now leading the charge to eliminate its own history.

This civic self-cannibalization may make developers happy, but it doesn't bode well for Toronto in the years ahead. We still have some heritage to worry about, but what about the generations to come? At the rate we're going, their main concern will be how to rehabilitate the countless condos in whose name we are destroying the past."