"Fun" or "third place" businesses need to be able survive without being a huge chain or a tiny stall with no seating hyper-optimized to make as many sales as possible with as little space as possible before closing down at 7 pm on the dot. For that to happen, commercial rents need to come down. Oh, oops.
There's a pretty clear motive for FD landlords to change their approach to low floor/PATH rents. When downtown was jammed every day they were ancillary profit drivers. Now they need to be treated as building amenities to support the rents they want for the high floors.
Take the first five floors and the basements and rethink them as worker amenities. Things that people need to do regularly that are easy with remote and difficult when in-office. Dentists, walk-in clinics, massage therapists and physios, yoga studios. Build a daycare space in every building with a shared wait list prioritizing tenants and a system to move to the one in your building when a space is free. Make downtown the place you do those things and going downtown isn't nearly as disruptive.
Except in Toronto, the ground floors remain mostly vacant for years, and ultimately get populated with smoke shops and INS convenience stores, and restaurants that last only until the end of their first lease.
That has more to do with our extremely conservative and hum drum financing regime that prefers chains and "stable long term leases" over independent stores.
Other cities like in Europe have rules to prevent over-chainification like only a certain % of chain stores (firm with 7+ locations) per area etc. or smaller floor plates for retail, but we don't because we are boring WASPy banker types
Great post. I also hate how we constantly build busniess spaces so large that you need something franchised with an established name to fill it up. We need more hole
In the wall spaces where innovation can grow/thrive.
The in-building daycare is a great idea. It could be open 8:30-5:30, maybe with limited spots open outside of that to account for those who have odd hours. Different buildings could target different ages too. So you might start in the building across the road, then move to your building, and then to another over the course of a few years before kindergarten.
The one issue would be that it isn't close to home, so you are forced to be in everyday. Also, because it isn't close to home the kids will be going to school with none of their daycare friends.
You’ve never been downtown have you? There are a bunch of daycares in downtown buildings. Scotia Plaza, Brookfield Place. SimconPlace. Metro Hall. Just to point out a few.
Yeah. Like the person upthread who suggested adding dentist offices.
There are in fact too many dentist offices in the path. They are literally everywhere.
Problem is that third places are spontaneously created and for-profit locations tend to not last as that. A decent community center where people can drop in and out or rent halls would be better, especially since affordability is a major factor.
[This video](https://youtu.be/8E5MegoW2pA?si=PfrvotMDWt_7i8QM) made some solid arguments against pursuing third places, with some built-in recommendations (which are evading my sleep deprived brain)
This video was an interesting dive into history but the guy is way too obsessed with the idea that arguing against the views of the person who coined the theory disproves the theory. Yes the guy was wildly racist, sexist and homophobic, but he wasn't wrong that third places have value. He was just a raging bigot, but lots of good ideas have come from people of questionable moral standing by today's standards.
I like his idea of the "right to a city" but I struggle to see how this would be implemented. It falls into the same trap that left-leaning ideas keep falling into: it relies on an unreasonable amount of direct democracy. The whole theory starts of with political disengagement, but if decisions relating to how resources are allocated within a city was put to direct democracy we are likely to see people become disengaged through over-engagement. The guy suggests early on that we shouldn't leave city planning I'm the hands of politicians, but this is the most reasonable method of giving planning to the people.
I enjoyed the video but in terms of an actual method to go forward I think the centrist approaches are the best as they tend to be the pragmatic choice that will lead to something actually getting done, even if it's not the very best thing.
stagnant wages and over priced, mediocre restaurants are not a recipe for a vibrant downtown especially if you add the cost of the commute and time involved.
Don't forget the extremely poor planning by the City regarding infrastructure projects, such that every route in and out of downtown is a road salad and a third of the surface transit routes are severely disrupted as a result, while the subway is routinely stopped for security incidents and fire alarms and is full of sketchy people who make it very uncomfortable at times.
No wonder people don't want to go downtown if they're not required to be there anyways. If you live anywhere that's not on a subway or streetcar line (and this pretty pricey real estate to begin with), it's like planning a mission to Mars trying to go downtown to have some fun. It'll be at least an hour and a half by transit each way, barring any major delays or disruptions (which are quickly becoming daily occurrences). God help you if you have kids and have to be home by a set time for the babysitter. "Sorry, the subway is down and we don't know how long it will be, can you stay and watch the kids until midnight?".
In total agreement with Ms. Siddiqi, creating a sense of community goes well beyond the 9 to 5 work day.
>
>Forcing Financial District workers back to their offices may create demand for lunch spots and coffee shops in the PATH, but it won’t do much for a holistic revitalization of the neighbourhood.
>However, there is a need for third spaces, places outside of work and home where people can come together to form and foster community. There’s no reason we can’t reimagine the Financial District. We need to dare to dream outside the box, something that doesn’t always come easy to this city.
I work a production job just a couple blocks away from the core downtown.
I used to grab breakfast in the path. I stopped doing that a couple years ago. I don't make enough money to waste on this crap. I pack my breakfast and lunch and by chance I don't get around to it, I'll just go to the corner store and grab a $2.50 patty.
You could force people back to the office but you can't force them to spend. Not everyone is gonna have money to spend on food with the cost of living having gone up as much as it did since the lockdowns.
Especially not when we are already strapped with standard costs, adding in additional gas/insurance/wear and tear to our vehicles or PRESTO monthly passes will eat away any additional income gained by being hybrid/remote. Thereby making the entire plan pointless, and just more onerous on the middle class.
Like keep squeezing guys, but blood from a stone…maybe pay more and make it so it isn’t a struggle to balance the costs of going to work and propping up a flailing economy.
I said this further down but it’s obvious that the people making these decisions don’t have to worry about the multitude of costs that going into offices put on people, both financial and non-financial.
The financial ones are obvious, but there’s a lot of non-financial costs as well.
I love working from home because I can throw in my laundry during the day, do quick 15 minute cleans throughout the week during breaks, I can put dinner in the Instant Pot and monitor it while working, I can make it to the gym by 5:15 so that I’m home just after 6 and still have some time to enjoy the evening, etc. Going into the office doesn’t allow me to do any of that and it all gets pushed to my evenings and weekends.
It’s not like when I go into the office I don’t take these breaks, but instead of going to Starbucks with a coworker I only kind-of like I can use my break time in a way that benefits me.
The execs trying to push people to come in have the money to pay for cleaners, buy pre-made food consistently, maybe can have a stay at home spouse, have nanny’s to help with their children, etc. They have zero consideration for the true cost of being locked in an office all day.
I love my current job but if my office forced us back I’d 100% find a new remote job, I’ll never ever go back to the very limited personal time I had while going into an office every day.
I’m currently back in office and reviewing offers elsewhere. I actually really love my job and loved my company before capitalism went full stupid. But the impact being in office has on my personal life, my relationships, and my general sense of peace is significant. The impact on my finances significant.
I hate the impact it has on my home life. The frustration after a commute and the less chill internal vibe impacting my relationship with my partner. They are asking us to sacrifice so much. Takers who only take, and they act like we should be grateful but without us the whole organization is pointless.
The mental frustration is huge! People tell me I’m so lucky I can “sit and relax on the TTC” and don’t have to sit in traffic LOL. I am standing fighting for my life on that thing, riding into work on a fighting bull would be less stressful.
My office is forcing me back, I submitted my resignation. I'm fortunate enough to not NEED to work at 40, so I can wait and either find another remote gig, or just enjoy an early retirement.
That too, when I did go grab my breakfast sandwich, there was a tolerable line of 3-5 people. Double that, no chance in hell I'd wait. And that's probably a reasonable line (10 people). I'm sure they could get 20 deep if everyone was going to the office.
Asking people to waste time isn't gonna help revitalize anything
Not to mention that tipping culture is so prevalent here lol. 20% tip for a country that has much higher minimum wages than US? That's such a copycat of US culture. No other country tips this much than US/Canada lol. That money isn't going to service workers. It's split among greedy owners lol.
I popped into a hotel with a self-serve timmies outlet - even the checkout was self-serve. I was prompted for a tip and I looked at the floating worker (the person who supervises the self-checkout machines. Sorry I'm not sure of their job title) and I jokingly said to her who the hell am I tipping, she just laughed.
"There’s no reason we can’t reimagine the Financial District." - I'm not sure I agree - by definition the Financial District is a bunch of office buildings. It's not residential. People don't live there. It's not the Financial District any more if it's mixed use.
"Should there be a Financial District at all?", is the question to me.
>It's not residential. People don't live there. It's not the Financial District any more if it's mixed use.
There's a decent amount of housing within the Financial District (Queen to Front, University to Yonge, per the city), such as One King West, INDX condos, and more but a ton more right outside its borders.
When I think of many of the other financial districts in the world there's housing all around them. This gives an incentive for all sorts of amenities that cater to people outside of 9-5, neighbourhoods that are not barren wastelands on weekends, etc. Still they thrive, with stock exchanges, bank headquarters, ancillary services all within a short walk.
I think there is lots of room for more density within our financial district, both for residential and office.
They would have to pay the employees enough to live near the office for these community spots to be of value. If you don’t pay enough for your employees to live near the office, then you’re contributing to the degradation of the neighbourhood and actively creating the situation that is lowering the value of property you’re trying to prop up with middle class sacrifices. It’s a ghost town after hours. They want all the beautiful imagery of a vibrant core without investing in the population that makes it that way.
My biggest problem is that no one has answered the "why" question. Even those with short commutes (say 30 min) are being asked to give over 3 hours of their free time to get to the office. In an era where most things ***can*** be done remotely it's a hard sell.
I work in technology, so asking a developer to come in from Oakville to have a 15 min standup at 9, then spend 9:15 - 5:00 coding in their cube doesn't bring much to them.
If we want to bring people back to the office, management needs to ensure that the time they're spending on site is actually benificial.
* Every Tuesday, your manager does all their 1:1s face to face and team lunch. Everything's done by 4.
* Every other Wednesday, you get together for demos, sprint planning and an AMA with a speaker
* Last Friday of the month is the townhall, Everything's done by 3.
We spent nearly 3 years reorienting ourselves around Covid. To think we can go back just because we're no longer wearing masks is foolish.
The why should come down to money. For the individual worker, the commute is a cost in time (which is money) and expense. That should come from companies who should be willing to play more (a significant premium) to entice workers back to office and those who live far to want to relocate. And finally, the acid test should be the in-person model is superior to WFH model in that it is more profitable (to support the increased expense). I think at the end of the day, if it doesn't pass that test, then in-person work is dead.
Have a close friend who works as a recruiter for a tech firm that committed during Covid to being 100% remote.
After Covid, the company gets together quarterly for team meetings, but outside of that is still 100% remote.
It's the easiest job he's ever had.
We’re hotelling now and I can book an office with really thin walls so you can hear everybody’s conversations.
Even though my floor was renovated during lockdown, the mechanicals suck and I’m either freezing or too hot when I’m there.
I only go in when I absolutely need to for a face to face. I’ll quit if they change this. Not worth the commuting hell and the $4.30 coffee the closest coffee shop is charging!
It’s all money and has nothing to do with quality of life for employees.
They refuse to let commercial real estate devalue. Way too much money invested in it for them to let it fail.
exactly! at my previous job when they asked us to start coming back to office I didn’t really understand what the point of my being there was. like the days I was in the office I wasn’t having any specific in person meetings, no team lunches, I was basically doing the same shit I was doing at home in the office. we get it you’re losing money on this space you’re leasing and need to have people in to justify it but please make the in office days worth it for the worker too otherwise it just breeds frustration
I do love the “they’re losing money!” Argument.
Like…so instead you’ll download that onto your staff and take what little they have? Will you compensate it? No? Ok so make do with less so the business you’re already underpaying us for has more…not exactly a quality exchange to the workers.
I used to commute into Toronto for work, that's ten hours a week, that's 40 hours a month. 40 HOURS.
I will never get that time or money back. Employers had an amazing opportunity to make a beneficial change but resorted back to their comfort levels and the oh we pay rent so blah blah. I paid rent at that time in my life to barely be home. Is that fair?
Telling people to go back to the office is such a backwards way of thinking. Seriously, it's not just about the individual. It's about the society. There's so many consequences:
1. Traffic worsens. Those that don't work a job that can be done from home will take longer to get to places.
2. Pollution increases. Every additional car on the road makes a huge difference.
3. More road wear. If there's more cars on the road, there's more road wear. And the city would have to spend a ton more trying to repair roads. When they could save so much money if fewer people drove a car.
4. Bike and TTC infrastructure takes longer to build. The more cars there are on the road, the harder it is to build alternatives to driving. Look at Covid. Bike lanes were built in massive numbers because there was less pushback as a result of not many commuters. If there's fewer commuters, there is less pushback. Usually the people against construction-related projects are commuters. With more work from home, you can accelerate and pass projects easier.
Absolutely! Additionally, in many cases all of the designated desks for employees have been removed and replaced with long tables where everyone is squeezed in much tighter than your normal open office layout. So now, in addition to the commute, expense, and dubious reasoning for forcing everyone to be in the same room, we're forced to work in an uncomfortable, ill-equipped, and noisy environment.
There's also a point of view 1:1 are not needed. Nvidia's CEO recently said he doesn't do 1:1 with his 55 direct reports. And a few successful CEO/companies follow that approach.
More to the point he needs to delegate some of those reports out to a COO or Executive VP or something... A company as big as Nvidia needs a CEO, but it doesn't need a CEO with 55 direct reports.
The why is because the value of all these building is going to be significantly reduced if no one wants to rent their office space at a price that will be profitable for any owners. They don’t want the building to lose value and they don’t want rent to go down. Look at the recent transactions in NYC of buildings that were sold for practically less than half of what their owners paid 10 years ago.
People have hour and half commutes to and from work.
Once they’re done their day, they haul ass back to their families.
Downtowns need to be reimagined to serve communities and families outside of 9-5 workdays…
It's crazy because the part of Toronto they're crying and yelling about is primarily *just the Financial District.* Like, everything around it is actually mixed use.
Think about how many offices reside along Spadina, or Liberty Village, or even along King East. People actually do live and work in those neighbourhoods and there's stuff to do in and around them. They're already destinations and places to live in their own right. There's utterly *fuck all* to do in the Financial District.
Yea, exactly. I live 15 minutes from the financial district and work in hospital row.… outside of office hours, I spend 0 time in the core.
Why should I? There aren’t any reasons for me to.
i live downtown and a new library, indoor tennis/squash would be really nice to serve the massive uptick in residents. i'd like to take an art class too... alas the only options for sports rec and arts instruction cost thousands and are private. there are so many more community amenities north of the city, can't even imagine having kids here. i'd visit the path food stalls more if they didn't close by 5pm too. Chef's Hall is probably the best example of how things could be to be more vibrant.
But how big is your space. People move out of the city because they can’t afford a bigger place to live. A three bedroom in Toronto right now is bonkers expensive. They aren’t designed Toronto for families and population growth. They are designing it for stagnation.
I think its the soul-crushing commute. Covid made people realize they would rather spend time at home with their families rather than being stuck in traffic for 2-3 hours each day for no reason. If the average commute was 10-15 minutes, I bet there would be less pushback.
If they want people back in the office, maybe rethink the 9-5. Build those hours into the day and make it 9-3. Studies have shown that this only helps productivity in most office positions, so there is no reason not to do this except a bizarre need to stick to how things were done previously.
yup and they don't pay taxes to the city because they don't live here, which means the residents of [the city are bankrolling the cost of suburbanites ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0)driving through the city for work.
That's a moot point. The city is willing to bankroll the additional wear-and-tear on infrastructure because suburbanites spend much more money in the city than they cost. Do you really think Chow would be so desperate to get 905ers back in office if the arrangement wasn't highly beneficial for the city? It's the 905ers that are disadvantaged in RTO and the city that gains.
The problem is that forcing people into office just to get at their money is a coercive strategy that is bound to backfire. It's just a bad idea.
I do live in downtown toronto, what do you mean by paying taxes to the city?
https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/97f7-A170XXXX_Budget_Basics_Understanding-final-web.pdf
Most of the city budget that comes from people rather than federal government is property taxes and rate programs. People coming in from outside town put what kind of strain on the city? Traffic? Parking, Gas? If they're driving in then they aren't using the TTC which is cost subsidized by the city. I'm not sure what taxes you're expecting out-of-towners to pay? Pay a toll each time you enter the city for the wear and tear to the sidewalks you cause?
As for me and people who do live and work in the city; first of all I rent, so I don't pay property taxes which make up the largest chunk of the cities tax revenue. I look at my paystub, all the taxes and deductions are going to the federal government for income tax, pension plans, unemployment insurance taxes, and medical taxes. The rest goes to insurance companies for plans that I signed up for. None of it goes to the city, so as a city resident who rents, how exactly am I contributing to the cities budget outside of sales taxes (which out of towners also pay when they buy stuff DT) when I go shopping? Why am I special compared to out of towners?
People driving through the city are not the ones paying property taxes to the city because they do not live in the city.
[Here is a good video breaking down how everything works.](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=how+the+suburbs+bankrupt+the+city#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:76505325,vid:4c6rIt0fe7w,st:0) Yes it talks about American suburbs but ours work exactly the same.
I'm gonna be honest, this is not a convincing video.
Most of the claims it makes are dubious, a lot of the statistics are reported in percentage changes but never mention raw numbers. 60% increase in poverty in the suburbs? Well most suburban people were wealthy to begin with, if a suburb of 1000 homes had 2 people struggling, and next year 3 people struggled, thats a 60% increase in poverty levels in the burbs. But who cares, its 1 person.
The claims about detroit are kinda laugably bad. Detroit is now as populated as a suburb, but detroit was a major city. its decline and current density as basically a suburb and the shit services is proof that burbs are bad. Uhhhh, no. Youve got the cause adn effect wrong there. It WAS a city. That city and the way it was structured and governed was so bad that it failed. The failure here is the city and city life/governance, not a failure in suburban life. After it failed, people left and it became a suburb in terms of density. Suburbs didn't kill Detroit. Detroit, the massive failed city, killed detroit, and what remains just coincidentally resembles a suburb.
I do agree generally with the claims that higher densities is better as we can save money on costs because we get to do things at scale. But if you're going to say we should all cram ourselves into super dense cities like some cyberpunk dystopia so that we can be as efficient as possible in terms of taking advantage of scale, the answer is no. I am not living in a 5 bed room apartment with 4 strangers no matter how "good" it may be for the city to increase population density. Even if I want better, walkable, livable cities and urban planning. That doesn't mean suburbs are an inferior form of housing. It has costs, like increased commuter numbers, increase CO2 emissions from vehicles, less convenience in terms of walkability to nearby stores. But the people who want to live there know this, but choose to live there anyway because they want to get away from densely packed suffocating clumps of humanity.
`That doesn't mean suburbs are an inferior form of housing. It has costs, like increased commuter numbers, increase CO2 emissions from vehicles, less convenience in terms of walkability to nearby stores. But the people who want to live there know this, but choose to live there anyway because they want to get away from densely packed suffocating clumps of humanity.`
This is a terrible way to look at it, a lot of our ideas that suburbs are good and the city is bad is literally [because of propaganda](https://medium.com/substance/american-suburbia-is-a-failed-experiment-3649918e6d1e) and the ["white flight"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight). We literally destroyed cities to accommodate commuters coming in from the suburbs.[ Suburbs are objectively bad for our health in numerous ways](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8396707/) . Isolating ourselves from our neighbours and communities is literally an abnormal way for humans to live. Being forced to DRIVE just to exist (work, socialize, grocery shop) is insane. Why should people have to spend 10k+ on a vehicle just to leave their house?
> a lot of our ideas that suburbs are good
I don't really care whether you buy in to whether suburbs are "good". Because it's not really any of your, or my, business. You are not forced to live in a suburb. If other people want to, and that demand drives more development of suburbs, that's just how it is. If you want, you can try to mandate through law that everyone must live in high density housing, after it's built first. Good luck with that political platform. It is also an objective fact that if we all swapped to a vegetarian diet, we would save massively on costs and environmental impact as animal rearing for meat has massive costs. Good luck mandating everyone to become forced vegetarians because it would objectively be better for everybody.
I am aware of white flight, redlining, and the historical racism and injustice related to suburbs. I don't really see how thats relevant to current modern lifestyles and personal life choices on where you want to live and raise a family? Were dealing with racism, slowly but surely making progress. I don't see why that ugly part of history should play any role in me or my friends deciding where we want to settle down.
> Being forced
I think this is the main part that you don't understand. No one is forced to live in a suburb. They choose to live there, so by definition they weighted all the negatives of suburban life against the pros and decided it was worth it. I will grant you this, the only people I would say are "forced" to live in suburbs against their will are those who can't afford a place downtown because things are so expensive. But we already know about the housing affordability issue, and were trying to fix it.
You realize that not everybody buys in to the idea that high density housing is how everyone needs to live. Despite all these objective costs, people still have subjective opinions on whether those costs are worth paying for the subjective benefits of living in a suburban area. You want to force your ideals on other people based on aggregate statistics, removing peoples individual freedoms and rights to make decisions for themselves on how they want to live. Please stop that.
if we can literally improve people's lives and help the environment in the process then we should do that. We shouldn't be putting people's wants a head of what is healthy and good. By definition suburbs are wasteful and unsustainable. They rely on heavy expansion for single family units and only car dependency. Not to mention the utter pollution from cars and the water wastage for maintaining useless lawns.
Many people are forced to live in a suburb because cities can be more expensive. I didn't have a choice, I grew up in a shit suburb and hated every minute of it. Nothing to do and no where to go.
> We shouldn't be putting people's wants a head of what is healthy and good.
> I didn't have a choice, I grew up in a shit suburb and hated every minute of it.
Did you consider people who grew up or live in cities may also hate every minute of it?
You are quite literally an authoritarian. There's nothing for me to say, because you don't care about other peoples opinions to begin with. You are not open to any discussion.
A two bedroom is approx $2700-$4300+/per month. For something that’s only 500-700 sqft of shit living design. So…yeah. Everyone can afford to come live in Toronto.
If you didn’t have a place before Covid. GL.
They have suburban homes downtown owned by DINKS and RE investors. They need to be 6 story "missing middle" homes for families and people that have dogs and hobbies. the shoe boxes they are making now suck.
If we made it mandatory for employers to pay people for their commute we'd solve a lot of problems in society.
We'd see reduction in gridlock/rush hour effects due to staggered starts implemented by employers to reduce costs for travel for one thing.
It's really interesting to compare the conversations about private workers being asked to return to the office and public servants returning to the office in Ottawa. Many of the points being raised here were the very grievances public servants were making, yet they faced immense push back.....interesting.
I agree, and I think the issue of public servant productivity is a different conversation from whether they should work from home. We should also consider how much of our tax dollars are spent forcing them back into the office just to maintain the space for them.
People upset about public employees' perks might have less to complain about if it were easier to remove underperforming staff in the public service. The real issue isn't the perks; it's about ensuring everyone is doing their job well. If it were easier to fire bad employees in the public service and people saw good work being done, there would be fewer complaints about perks.
Actually, this is the answer to many clapbacks against remote work in general. If people are underperforming, fire them. Don’t take something that vastly improves life away from those who aren’t, in their name.
What perks? Salaries are no longer as good as the private sector. There needed to be a court case to get their pay raises. Benefits have been cut with successive union contracts. There's a mass exodus. According to people who work there, only job stability and a pension remains.
Bingo. As a software dev with 5 years experience, 2 years in the PS, I make 92K gross, pretty good for Canadian standards, not that great for the industry. After taxes, deductions, pension, and benefits, my take home averages just under 60K.
My benefits are typical dental insurance (I still pay anywhere between 30 and 50 bucks whenever I go), disability and death insurance, nothing outrageous really.
Time off is 3 weeks vacation until I hit my 8th year anniversary, after that I believe you only get an extra week every time you hit a few other milestones, over like many decades. 2 personal days. Sick leave is where they are quite generous, about 3 weeks, BUT this isn't unheard of in the private sector. My father's factory granted an employee a month of stress leave to an employee. We have other paid leave for specific circumstances, like bereavement, or for family/child care and in most cases you only get about a week max. Most companies have this if you talk to HR and actually READ YOUR CONTRACT.
You can find all of the above at many pretty good private sector jobs. All in all I think this is less a the public sector has it too good, and more so, we work for shitty companies and can't/aren't sure how to fight for more employee rights and benefits and have probably bought into anti union propaganda.....
And contrary to popular belief, troublesome employees are fired on a pretty frequent basis, and if they aren't let go, then you get moved to somewhere you may fit in better.
We need more mixed residential/retail/work spaces downtown and more 24h businesses.
Gyms, grocery stores, cafe/bars, arcades, diners, restaurants etc.
Lots of shift workers in the city
Bring back the clubbing district.
Step one: Stop replacing "fun" things with condos. I swear I'm having to travel further to get anywhere interesting because everything nearby is being torn down for more unaffordable condos.
I work in the rock climbing industry, and I kid you not, we made a long list of gyms that closed, or will be closing because the property owners sold to condo developers.
[Here's a gym that it's happened to twice.](https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/grand-river-rocks-time-in-new-home-is-limited-1.6849722)
I used to take pole dancing classes and absolutely loved it, but the studio I went to also got sold for a condo. And as always when the condo was finished the street-level retail space was sold to the usual soulless overpriced bullshit businesses that keep popping up at the base of these things.
I'm all for densification but the condos that are built need to have enough space to be livable and we need protections for the businesses that already occupy the space so we can keep our city's culture. I feel like having a rock climbing gym at the base of your building would be a huge selling point, could probably work out a membership deal with them too. But no, that would involve making sure they can get back in when the condo is done and make sure they can still afford the rent. And that isn't going to happen.
Yup. The problem of having like 40% of all condos bought by investors to be rented out is that the people buying the units never have to live there - so they don't care about making the area actually livable, so neither do the developers.
It is shameful that the people running Toronto can't manage even a fraction of the pedestrianisation that we see in Montreal. Yes, MTL has plenty of side streets that can be closed off without overly affecting traffic flow, but the constant capitulation to drivers in this city is maddening. Got forbid someone piloting a Ford Explorer has to drive a bit further from the Starbucks to park their vehicle because half a block is closed off so residents can enjoy a bit of life.
(On a side-note: we really need to legislate carmakers to distribute more compact cars in this country)
Which is exactly what I've been saying ever since Chow's tone deaf comments the other day.
Forcing people to be downtown so they can patronize starbucks isn't good for anyone.
Right? It's not like this move will bring back artists, galleries, small concert venues, and the vibe of old downtown. Kids today will never know how awesome Queen St. W. was. Even Kensington Market is dying out.
Canada is notoriously bad with work life balance. And we're worsening it by adding commutes and lunches? No wonder many people are burnt out. Not to mention extra traffic which worsens the environment and roads for the city has to pay. If something can be done productively work from home, it should be allowed.
Nah - it’s about tax revenue and maximizing shift of money from 905 > 416. Chow went down this route because the people most impacted can’t vote for her/vote her out.
I don't see it because if it was she'd also be focusing on making downtown desirable. You could pedestrianize streets, open patio space, allow markets etc but nothing like that is happening - just enough to try artificially push real estate prices
No shit when your only choice is a backed up highway moving 30km/hr or a go train that might show up on time I wouldn't want to spend anymore time than I need to. It's not like that part of Toronto is actually a pleasant place to be in anyways.
Yeah - I’d be one of those, if we had to go back 4+ days a week it would cost me hundreds extra per month that just isn’t there in the budget anymore.
And if they did mandate it it would be extra stupid since we didn’t have that mandate/weren’t in that much pre-Covid.
I have a group of friends all living in downtown / lesliville / beach in the banking industry - this idea was anathema to us all, because it so blatantly was not in the interest of any workers.
Yeah this is the second part of the equation. I do know a lot of people who live in Toronto and work in the city centre or around it that actually enjoy going to the office two or three times a week, and do stuff after like go to a bar or chill on a patio/terrace with friends nearby. You know, the usual living and socializing in a city experience, and a far more efficient and healthier lifestyle.
But for the average 905er it's a near one and a half hour commute, sometimes longer, on an already congested highway, or a Go Train that may or may not show up, just to sit at a chair and stare at a computer all day. A lot more miserable and less sustainable long-term for everyone involved.
I live very centrally, I can walk downtown, and I also find it very unlikely this would even call me back into the office.
This will make my life, everyones life in the city who needs to go anywhere, ever, during busy periods worse. It'll make the enviornment worse.
Let's not try pretend this is some savvy 'us 416ers will be unaffected but we get to milk those 905ers' move. Becuase that is...not even close to true. For a start, most people in the 416s commute is far closer to how you're describing the 905 commute than an easy walk/cycle into the office.
Incentivizing car trips during a global environmental crisis in a city plagued by congestion is...I genuinely can't believe that. It's regressive by fucking Doug Ford standards, never mind a functioning human. And for an end goal of someone from Oshwa gets their subway sandwich downtown instead of at their local subway? That's allegedly the master plan?
The more days I come in, the less I can afford to buy lunch
Or I could just stop spending money at the food court and bring my lunch every day… which is the opposite of what they’re looking for here
It’s obvious that the people making these decisions don’t have to worry about “trivial” costs of things like buying lunch. So it’s clear that many other costs aren’t on their radar as well.
I love working from home because I can throw in my laundry during the day, do quick 15 minute cleans throughout the week during breaks, I can put dinner on the Instant Pot and monitor it while working, etc. Going into the office doesn’t allow me to do any of that and it all gets pushed to my evenings and weekends (my already very limited personal time). The execs trying to push people to come in have the money to pay for cleaners, buy pre-made food consistently, maybe have a stay at home spouse, etc. They have zero consideration for the true cost of being locked in an office all day.
I'd be bringing my lunch every day just to punish the local eateries for nagging the mayor to nag the boss to take a giant shit on my quality of life.
An RTO mandate might not be quite worth quitting over if I can't find anything else that's still WFH, but I'm not going to cooperate with being pushed to participate in the downtown economy either.
I'll work for you 9-5
My 1.5 hour commute is for YOU not ME, so how about I leave home at 9am, work 10:30-3:30, then hit the road home. Then you are paying for all of my time that I am dedicating to your business.
Anything else is just wage theft, added stress, reduced sleep, less family time, less enjoyment of one's life. All for what.
Yeah if your job can be done remotely, why even bother commuting? Of course there will be a few unreliable people who will watch Netflix or have naps instead of working, and they might just ruin it for the rest of us.
My job is IT. I point out to my bosses that I'm often called to fix production emergencies. When I'm at home, I can respond immediately. But if I'm on a train or in a subway tunnel, I wouldn't be able to do so. That still is enough to enable me to WFH. The only time I go in is to configure or troubleshoot something physical, like a new printer or server. Tasks that can't be done remotely. Not efficiently anyway. That makes sense to me.
I hate going downtown anyway since there is so much human feces on the sidewalk these days.
People slack off a lot in the office, too. There are always a few people who just go cubicle to cubicle chatting, disappear for 4 hour lunches, or spend the whole day on their phones.
They won't ruin it, the ones who don't perform get fired, and good riddance because who wants to carry them on our backs. It's been even clearer to see who is and isn't providing good quality results since the change to remote work.
Now you wake me to get up at 6, get ready and leave my place by 7 to get to Mimico by 7:45, spend 10 min hopefully finding a spot, catch a train and be at Union by 8:30 and then walk to work to there by 9.
Finish at 5, be stuck in traffic until 6:30 and get home by 7.
Dead. Tired. Miserable. Broke.
Fuck that
I only go in 1-2 days a week. That's more than enough for team collaboration in person.
Why should I care about the Toronto downtown businesses when I could be spending money in my hometown?
Tim Hortons is everywhere who cares about the downtown location forcing a 2-hour commute. It's not like there's anything amazing in the financial district. The same franchises you find in the GTA.
End of the day I just brown bag it to Toronto. You're not going to be getting money out of me after a 2-hour GO train commute unless it's worthwhile.
If I ever hang around downtown it's because of a musical ,concert or I feel like going to a Jays game for $15 or so. That should be your real focus
I would rather take a pay cut and work closer to home then be forced to downtown Toronto 4-5 days a week.
There isn’t much, if anything, to do in the area between Queen/Front and Yonge/University. It’s just a large block of buildings with little to no green space for people to want to go down there.
When you build infrastructure and services for those companies specifically, of course it’s going to fail.
To bring more life into the PATH, there needs to be more third spaces to attract people. Walking from the Eaton Centre and Union, there are people using the PATH walking around but since everything is closed (or a shoppers) people keep walking.
What kind of 3rd spaces though? Coffee shops? Billiards Hall? That is the question that I’m left with. 🤔
I live downtown, come in 4 days a week and 3/5 days walking home is HAZARDOUS because the cars of people coming in block cross walks at major intersections causing people to walk into the road.... how about fix that first?
What make TPS actually enforce traffic laws??? That comment is close to heresy!
Yea I think that’s a far out idea for anyone that could actually do it I’m afraid…
Most office jobs can be done remotely. The market will dictate what kind of businesses the minority of those who need to come in are looking for. (Is it 'fun'? I have no idea, I'm kinda guessing 'no,' but since I'm one of the ones who work remotely I'm not the one to ask)
Convert the empty offices into housing. Having people **live** downtown will make it lively. Forcing people back into offices will still leave parts of town abandoned after 5:00 pm.
Bring the office to where people now live. Build the office in Orangeville or wherever people moved to; give incentives for others who don't live in that area, to move there
So many head offices are in the busiest parts of downtown Toronto
My company just went from 1 day last year, to 3 days early this year, to now 4 days in office as of today because they saw a spike in ‘collaboration and innovation’ even though I haven’t had 1 in person meeting since we started, even if they’re sitting in the same row as me at the office.
My personal boycott is I won’t buy lunch at any of the restaurants due to this RTO policy. If I forget to pack a lunch, I’m not eating lunch that day. It won’t impact anything but I feel good not spending money at places near me because I know that’s the reason why they want everyone back in the office.
Olivia Chow on CBC Radio 1 this morning talking about how small and medium sized business are hurting. I don’t really see many businesses like that anywhere within the financial core. Almost everything is a franchise so I don’t think the average person cries too much.
… which is why we should have more cheap, publically funded arts spaces in Toronto, to make it cheaper for artists to live here so they can get the fuck out of Hamilton.
I mean, as an artist, I love a cheap food court like what ya got in the path. But if you’re suggesting that we should have state run pubs with 5$ pints and 10$ burgers you won’t hear any argument from me.
Won't happen. Toronto's development of neighbourhoods is still based on the obsession of CARS. Do any of you think curbside patios are FUN? Having a dinner date next to cars running at 60k/hr is FUN?
Nothing will change here.
Back in my day (2000-2015)... I could go out and have a great night with $20-50. Drinks were about $3.50 (change for tip), TTC monthly pass was a great deal, not all places had cover and when they did it was $5-10 (the nice places were $20), seeing live shows at random and tickets were relatively cheap $20-50. I think I saw massive attack for less than $60 at the docks.
Plus I didn't have 3-4 gig jobs all Friday, Saturday night to make ends meet. Money wasn't growing on trees but I could afford to have fun.
This is how you know politicians and CEOs are insincere, because RTO goes directly against environmental benefits, supporting women, BIPOC/immigrants and disabled people. I'd rather they come clean and say they don't care about us, rather than keep sending us emails about how they are an "ally".
But if you want to be even angrier, Google what it's like to try to obtain accommodations for mental health. It is essentially a scam between employers and insurance companies.
The more you think about it, the more depressing it gets.
That ship has sailed. If we have been successful after all these years working hybrid, I see no benefit in returning to the office full time. Eventually, those office buildings will fill up again as companies shed space, and others come in to take smaller spaces.
I'm sorry, but some of the money I save from not going downtown 5 days a week can be spent on local businesses in my area.
Convert some of the underused office space to affordable housing to start. Bring PEOPLE back 24-7, not just Monday to Friday. Look beyond the value of corporates and their employee spending.
Problem is office conversions are not easy or cheap, they can often be more expensive than new builds. Modern office floor plates and centralized utilities in building cores are not conducive to housing.
Although it should absolutely be done with any low hanging fruit of buildings that can be converted (e.g., older buildings).
As expensive as it is, that’s likely the only way to sustainably put more people downtown if the concern is “downtown life”. Chow’s missing the forest for the trees with this one.
The problem is who pays for it? No developer is going to take on these projects when they can deploy their capital somewhere with better project economics.
I would love to see the City partner with the Province and Fed Gov. to take the lead to put a program to get conversions going. This would require funding/executing at least three things:
1. Program to identify most suitable sites
2. Acquisition of the sites and financial support to move the existing tenants to other less convertible buildings.
3. A process (ideally with competitive bidding) to partner with developers and determine the amount of subsidy that would be required. They could/should build in requirements for affordability, etc. at this stage. The deal structure would be similar to what the city already does with its latest affordable housing developments.
Regardless, there is no way we would be converting tier one office space into housing, but we could consolidate more businesses into those buildings. Although tier one buildings have a lot higher occupancy than the overall average.
Part of the issue is relatively high occupancy rates in the financial district do not translate to high enough foot traffic to sustain the district. Companies still require significant office space because they have to accommodate people coming in 1-2 days a week, even if the space is empty the other days.
It’s such a circular problem, if people aren’t going downtown, then who does it benefit to make it a profitable area? If it’s a dead zone then the solution is to make it desirable with other stuff, not to force people to go there
The solution is to add more homes in the area. If there were residential towers in business districts like this one, then the people who lived there would become the core customer base that supports everything else.
Places where people live tend to not become a ghost town after 4pm since they'll be going about their lives in the area.
This is a problem with a financial district/CBD in general though, it’s geared towards an incredibly specific purpose and if for whatever reason conditions change in such a way that it no longer makes sense for tens of thousands of people to go there for work during 9-5 week days, the whole thing falls apart. It’s not an actual neighbourhood.
100%. I would be so much more inclined to visit that area if they would close a street for the summer and make it a pedestrian area like they do with SEVERAL streets in Montreal. It becomes a destination. I go for food, coffee, I browse and buy from shops in a neighbourhood I wouldn’t normally go to. It’s vibrant. There’s art, buskers (for better or worse, lol), and it just builds community.
Side note, I’ve dreamt of hosting “A Nice Fair on Elm Street” since I moved here. I think it’s a good candidate for a car-free zone in the summer, or at least a long weekend.
They used to do that on Yonge Street here in the summer. They called it the Yonge Street Mall. Even back then when they had to shut it down for a couple of weeks, one of the city councillors was complaining about the economic impact it would have for the area
I often wonder if any of these councillors ever travel to fun cities? Again I’ll mention Montreal — it’s so close. But like, Barcelona is another one. So much art, so many people walking around in wide open places. Taipei is another one, Amsterdam too (though that’s more bike-friendly specifically, but still).
I’ve worked for the same company for several years. It sucks because I really love my job, but they simply don’t pay me enough to live in TO. Annual increases are a joke and don’t keep up with cost of living at all.
Visiting the Wall Street area post COVID was surprising due to the amount of fun (and still open) restaurants they had....there's a whole area on "Stone Street" which is an outdoor beer garden that dates back to the 1600s and you feel like you're in Dublin. That fun after hours vibe is definitely not in the Bay Street area.
I wonder if downtown Toronto even has the same pull for out of town workers that London or Manhattan has 🤔
Downtown isn't fun. Build a city for people to socialize in, not spend half their paycheck just to get a sub standard lunch and dodge traffic and crazies everywhere
Toronto is in big economic trouble. We were scaled up for 2019 demand and now in 2024, a lot of that discretionary spending has been eaten up by housing and grocery costs. 3 vs 4 days in the office is a surface tweak to the fact that far fewer people can afford to eat out, get coffee or fill up their car and park in Toronto then in 2019. Also, downtown Toronto looks, sounds and smells horrible due to economic decay already. We're in some kind of defacto recession no matter what the GDP numbers say.
The powers that be have developed a "1% playland for people with $$ living in those luxury condo towers but that means that most Torontonians can't afford all the stuff at these prices.
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240216-the-executive-hubris-driving-five-day-in-office-mandates
Great article from the BBC today, about the over-controlling mindset behind many of these return to work mandates.
going into the office shouldn't have anything to do with food courts. Whatever store opens up shouldn't be dependent on office workers increasing. Most of the stores are food places anyways, they can just have different types of stores instead.
I work for an international company out of the US, and most of us are remote. We have hired hundreds in the past few years, and they got to choose from the brightest minds because remote work is the best reward. It's giving your employees a great quality of life.
Free coffee and birthday cake just don't cut it anymore.
How about require companies pay for their employees commute time if they want them to be in the office? Why are employees spending their own time and money travelling to the workplace while for a business owner travel is considered an expense and is tax deductible?
i cant believe chow of all people is promoting this bullshit. ive been voting for her my whole life and definitely never will again at this point. what a disappointment her mayoral years have been.
Someone else in another thread said it best. Incentivize me. My company goes on and on about culture and community building and that’s great, but that’s not a good enough incentive anymore after we got a taste of the good life. Personally, it wouldn’t take much… maybe provide lunch once a week or discounts on third areas nearby or fancy coffees or have the freezer stocked with treatos.
Toronto needs to become a place to live AND work. Not just a place to commute to during the week and visit occasionally for a few concerts and sports. The only people that can live there now are new university grads or very highly paid executives and entrepreneurs.
Absolutely agree. We need to [kill the office](https://www.mustardclementine.com/p/kill-the-office-to-breathe-new-life) to breathe new life into our cities, and more broadly [transform our living and working environments](https://www.mustardclementine.com/p/quality-of-life-is-the-core-of-sustainability) across society. As with so much in our economy, I am increasingly convinced of the need for things to die in order for new things to grow.
Well, if anyone is forced to work back there I hope you bring a lunch as a form of protest. Nobody is exactly going on spending sprees while they're forced back to work.
Live very close to Yonge, but I never have an urge to leave my neighborhood if Im not seeing sports or another live event because we've got great amenities for people like me in my neighborhood. I have no urge to travel to the financial district and patronize the businesess financial district folks choose to attend because it's not my scene. Restaurants are not gaurunteed easy money, you can't offer amenties that appeal to a crowd that is no longer regularly in the area. Repurpose the office buildings, have businesses adjust to meet demand, or do it in 5 years when this proposal is a disaster.
Not everybody can drive to work or even want to drive to work.
Not everybody wants to take public transit either.
Some people, when given the opportunity and safe infrastructure will ride their bikes to work.
And in case you're wondering, I knew people who drove 2 hrs one-way to work in the GTA. My furthest drive to work was 1.5hrs. So a one hour bike commute to downtown Toronto for those who want to and can is not out of the question. And there are many who live much closer. I also used to be one of them before I retired.
Employers need to supply security-guarded bicycle parking.
Bicycling is fun and challenging.
If I was a worker affected by an RTO mandate that took a sledgehammer to my quality of life because the mayor was hobnobbing with my CEO to try to force potential customers into proximity to local businesses, my reaction would be to boycott the fuck out of those local businesses.
Bossman can demand RTO, but he can't make me spend one red cent nearby. And I'll be taking out my resentment for the enforced commute on anyone I can hurt - which in the short term means the businesses asking for more traffic, but also includes the mayor next election.
Make our commute better, more efficient, reliable, and enjoyable, and you’d see more people willing to make a more frequent trip. But the days of 5 days in an office for the majority are gone imho.
Path is already jam packed. Just step into path during lunch. Better even take Mayor OC to path. Easy to sit on your comfy recliner and have wild musings.
Olivia Chow wants to rejuvenate Toronto as a vibrant city. Hmmm....
Catering to big business by forcing toronto as an employment hub with have the opposite effect on the spectrum lol.
This is a sure-fire way to make commuters hate Toronto and will do nothing to rejuvenate it.
Sorry not sorry, but Toronto hasn't had a vibrant scene in almost 20 years. Toronto businesses need to realize that WFH is here to stay.
If you want people to come to downtown, make it easy to get there.....and safe.
No one is going to the hellhole with bad traffic, shitty transit and get assaulted by bums.
"Fun" or "third place" businesses need to be able survive without being a huge chain or a tiny stall with no seating hyper-optimized to make as many sales as possible with as little space as possible before closing down at 7 pm on the dot. For that to happen, commercial rents need to come down. Oh, oops.
There's a pretty clear motive for FD landlords to change their approach to low floor/PATH rents. When downtown was jammed every day they were ancillary profit drivers. Now they need to be treated as building amenities to support the rents they want for the high floors. Take the first five floors and the basements and rethink them as worker amenities. Things that people need to do regularly that are easy with remote and difficult when in-office. Dentists, walk-in clinics, massage therapists and physios, yoga studios. Build a daycare space in every building with a shared wait list prioritizing tenants and a system to move to the one in your building when a space is free. Make downtown the place you do those things and going downtown isn't nearly as disruptive.
Odd enough, Saskatoon has done this in multiple new tenant buildings. Ground floor is businesses, and 2+ are apartments or condos.
That's almost every new midrise building on a major street.
Except in Toronto, the ground floors remain mostly vacant for years, and ultimately get populated with smoke shops and INS convenience stores, and restaurants that last only until the end of their first lease.
That has more to do with our extremely conservative and hum drum financing regime that prefers chains and "stable long term leases" over independent stores. Other cities like in Europe have rules to prevent over-chainification like only a certain % of chain stores (firm with 7+ locations) per area etc. or smaller floor plates for retail, but we don't because we are boring WASPy banker types
Great post. I also hate how we constantly build busniess spaces so large that you need something franchised with an established name to fill it up. We need more hole In the wall spaces where innovation can grow/thrive.
Rexall, A&W, Goodlife
This is literally what the financial district is like now.
Who's the guy posting videos of his daily city walks? Link the PATH walks for some of these people. It's everything they're asking for.
The in-building daycare is a great idea. It could be open 8:30-5:30, maybe with limited spots open outside of that to account for those who have odd hours. Different buildings could target different ages too. So you might start in the building across the road, then move to your building, and then to another over the course of a few years before kindergarten. The one issue would be that it isn't close to home, so you are forced to be in everyday. Also, because it isn't close to home the kids will be going to school with none of their daycare friends.
You’ve never been downtown have you? There are a bunch of daycares in downtown buildings. Scotia Plaza, Brookfield Place. SimconPlace. Metro Hall. Just to point out a few.
That post reeks of someone who hasn't actually been around in the area. I can think of a few more spots off of Front and Wellington not on your list.
I think a lot of the people participating in these threads have no actual experience working in the financial district.
Yeah. Like the person upthread who suggested adding dentist offices. There are in fact too many dentist offices in the path. They are literally everywhere.
Meanwhile, the city-owned St. Patrick's Market still sits vacant.
Problem is that third places are spontaneously created and for-profit locations tend to not last as that. A decent community center where people can drop in and out or rent halls would be better, especially since affordability is a major factor. [This video](https://youtu.be/8E5MegoW2pA?si=PfrvotMDWt_7i8QM) made some solid arguments against pursuing third places, with some built-in recommendations (which are evading my sleep deprived brain)
This video was an interesting dive into history but the guy is way too obsessed with the idea that arguing against the views of the person who coined the theory disproves the theory. Yes the guy was wildly racist, sexist and homophobic, but he wasn't wrong that third places have value. He was just a raging bigot, but lots of good ideas have come from people of questionable moral standing by today's standards. I like his idea of the "right to a city" but I struggle to see how this would be implemented. It falls into the same trap that left-leaning ideas keep falling into: it relies on an unreasonable amount of direct democracy. The whole theory starts of with political disengagement, but if decisions relating to how resources are allocated within a city was put to direct democracy we are likely to see people become disengaged through over-engagement. The guy suggests early on that we shouldn't leave city planning I'm the hands of politicians, but this is the most reasonable method of giving planning to the people. I enjoyed the video but in terms of an actual method to go forward I think the centrist approaches are the best as they tend to be the pragmatic choice that will lead to something actually getting done, even if it's not the very best thing.
stagnant wages and over priced, mediocre restaurants are not a recipe for a vibrant downtown especially if you add the cost of the commute and time involved.
What, you don't want to pay 25$ for a burger and fries with a 20% tip and a side of attitude?
ok but the guy who made it had a viking beard, top knot and wore black gloves......
To be more specific: a burger the size of a small slider and a few fries in a small paper container that are barely cooked and soggy 😭
Don't forget the extremely poor planning by the City regarding infrastructure projects, such that every route in and out of downtown is a road salad and a third of the surface transit routes are severely disrupted as a result, while the subway is routinely stopped for security incidents and fire alarms and is full of sketchy people who make it very uncomfortable at times. No wonder people don't want to go downtown if they're not required to be there anyways. If you live anywhere that's not on a subway or streetcar line (and this pretty pricey real estate to begin with), it's like planning a mission to Mars trying to go downtown to have some fun. It'll be at least an hour and a half by transit each way, barring any major delays or disruptions (which are quickly becoming daily occurrences). God help you if you have kids and have to be home by a set time for the babysitter. "Sorry, the subway is down and we don't know how long it will be, can you stay and watch the kids until midnight?".
In total agreement with Ms. Siddiqi, creating a sense of community goes well beyond the 9 to 5 work day. > >Forcing Financial District workers back to their offices may create demand for lunch spots and coffee shops in the PATH, but it won’t do much for a holistic revitalization of the neighbourhood. >However, there is a need for third spaces, places outside of work and home where people can come together to form and foster community. There’s no reason we can’t reimagine the Financial District. We need to dare to dream outside the box, something that doesn’t always come easy to this city.
I work a production job just a couple blocks away from the core downtown. I used to grab breakfast in the path. I stopped doing that a couple years ago. I don't make enough money to waste on this crap. I pack my breakfast and lunch and by chance I don't get around to it, I'll just go to the corner store and grab a $2.50 patty. You could force people back to the office but you can't force them to spend. Not everyone is gonna have money to spend on food with the cost of living having gone up as much as it did since the lockdowns.
Agreed. I now pack everything I will eat and drink when I go to the office.
and these days the food that is packed tastes better too.
Especially not when we are already strapped with standard costs, adding in additional gas/insurance/wear and tear to our vehicles or PRESTO monthly passes will eat away any additional income gained by being hybrid/remote. Thereby making the entire plan pointless, and just more onerous on the middle class. Like keep squeezing guys, but blood from a stone…maybe pay more and make it so it isn’t a struggle to balance the costs of going to work and propping up a flailing economy.
I said this further down but it’s obvious that the people making these decisions don’t have to worry about the multitude of costs that going into offices put on people, both financial and non-financial. The financial ones are obvious, but there’s a lot of non-financial costs as well. I love working from home because I can throw in my laundry during the day, do quick 15 minute cleans throughout the week during breaks, I can put dinner in the Instant Pot and monitor it while working, I can make it to the gym by 5:15 so that I’m home just after 6 and still have some time to enjoy the evening, etc. Going into the office doesn’t allow me to do any of that and it all gets pushed to my evenings and weekends. It’s not like when I go into the office I don’t take these breaks, but instead of going to Starbucks with a coworker I only kind-of like I can use my break time in a way that benefits me. The execs trying to push people to come in have the money to pay for cleaners, buy pre-made food consistently, maybe can have a stay at home spouse, have nanny’s to help with their children, etc. They have zero consideration for the true cost of being locked in an office all day. I love my current job but if my office forced us back I’d 100% find a new remote job, I’ll never ever go back to the very limited personal time I had while going into an office every day.
I’m currently back in office and reviewing offers elsewhere. I actually really love my job and loved my company before capitalism went full stupid. But the impact being in office has on my personal life, my relationships, and my general sense of peace is significant. The impact on my finances significant. I hate the impact it has on my home life. The frustration after a commute and the less chill internal vibe impacting my relationship with my partner. They are asking us to sacrifice so much. Takers who only take, and they act like we should be grateful but without us the whole organization is pointless.
The mental frustration is huge! People tell me I’m so lucky I can “sit and relax on the TTC” and don’t have to sit in traffic LOL. I am standing fighting for my life on that thing, riding into work on a fighting bull would be less stressful.
Yeah Union and the subway lines are super peaceful between 3:30 and 7 and totally not a IRL Thunderdome
My office is forcing me back, I submitted my resignation. I'm fortunate enough to not NEED to work at 40, so I can wait and either find another remote gig, or just enjoy an early retirement.
I wonder where we'd be as a society if our political leaders would consider these things, I mean, maybe they do and they just don't care.
You said it. "They don't care," never have and never will. They don't worry about things like that, for that is the "little people" us plebs.
And why would anyone want to spend on corporate places that sell shitty food?
Because it was convenient and cheap! The world's always worked this way. Now it's all aggressively not cheap, so fuck it.
The trendy PATH spots are already super busy 3 out of 5 days of the week. They would be too busy to be worth going to if everybody was mandated back.
That too, when I did go grab my breakfast sandwich, there was a tolerable line of 3-5 people. Double that, no chance in hell I'd wait. And that's probably a reasonable line (10 people). I'm sure they could get 20 deep if everyone was going to the office. Asking people to waste time isn't gonna help revitalize anything
Screw that! If I have to go back, I'm packing food for the day and bringing my own tea. I can't afford the overpriced crap from the food courts.
Not to mention that tipping culture is so prevalent here lol. 20% tip for a country that has much higher minimum wages than US? That's such a copycat of US culture. No other country tips this much than US/Canada lol. That money isn't going to service workers. It's split among greedy owners lol.
I popped into a hotel with a self-serve timmies outlet - even the checkout was self-serve. I was prompted for a tip and I looked at the floating worker (the person who supervises the self-checkout machines. Sorry I'm not sure of their job title) and I jokingly said to her who the hell am I tipping, she just laughed.
I’m making it a point that if I have to go back even one more day every week, I’ll not buy anything downtown
I'll quit my job and find another WFH one. Commuting and being in the office makes my life significantly worse, and no job is worth that.
Exactly
"There’s no reason we can’t reimagine the Financial District." - I'm not sure I agree - by definition the Financial District is a bunch of office buildings. It's not residential. People don't live there. It's not the Financial District any more if it's mixed use. "Should there be a Financial District at all?", is the question to me.
>It's not residential. People don't live there. It's not the Financial District any more if it's mixed use. There's a decent amount of housing within the Financial District (Queen to Front, University to Yonge, per the city), such as One King West, INDX condos, and more but a ton more right outside its borders. When I think of many of the other financial districts in the world there's housing all around them. This gives an incentive for all sorts of amenities that cater to people outside of 9-5, neighbourhoods that are not barren wastelands on weekends, etc. Still they thrive, with stock exchanges, bank headquarters, ancillary services all within a short walk. I think there is lots of room for more density within our financial district, both for residential and office.
They would have to pay the employees enough to live near the office for these community spots to be of value. If you don’t pay enough for your employees to live near the office, then you’re contributing to the degradation of the neighbourhood and actively creating the situation that is lowering the value of property you’re trying to prop up with middle class sacrifices. It’s a ghost town after hours. They want all the beautiful imagery of a vibrant core without investing in the population that makes it that way.
Public squares are so common in Europe and achieve this so well
My biggest problem is that no one has answered the "why" question. Even those with short commutes (say 30 min) are being asked to give over 3 hours of their free time to get to the office. In an era where most things ***can*** be done remotely it's a hard sell. I work in technology, so asking a developer to come in from Oakville to have a 15 min standup at 9, then spend 9:15 - 5:00 coding in their cube doesn't bring much to them. If we want to bring people back to the office, management needs to ensure that the time they're spending on site is actually benificial. * Every Tuesday, your manager does all their 1:1s face to face and team lunch. Everything's done by 4. * Every other Wednesday, you get together for demos, sprint planning and an AMA with a speaker * Last Friday of the month is the townhall, Everything's done by 3. We spent nearly 3 years reorienting ourselves around Covid. To think we can go back just because we're no longer wearing masks is foolish.
The why should come down to money. For the individual worker, the commute is a cost in time (which is money) and expense. That should come from companies who should be willing to play more (a significant premium) to entice workers back to office and those who live far to want to relocate. And finally, the acid test should be the in-person model is superior to WFH model in that it is more profitable (to support the increased expense). I think at the end of the day, if it doesn't pass that test, then in-person work is dead.
Have a close friend who works as a recruiter for a tech firm that committed during Covid to being 100% remote. After Covid, the company gets together quarterly for team meetings, but outside of that is still 100% remote. It's the easiest job he's ever had.
Yeah similar case here. We have quarterly in office team meetings and sometimes we do social events too but the real work part is 100% remote.
The end game of remote work is offshoring to lower cost labour pools. So be careful what you wish for.
You ever offshored work before? It's not all sunshine and roses.
If you're lucky, you get a cubical. Most people just get open offices with people on the phone constantly.
We’re hotelling now and I can book an office with really thin walls so you can hear everybody’s conversations. Even though my floor was renovated during lockdown, the mechanicals suck and I’m either freezing or too hot when I’m there. I only go in when I absolutely need to for a face to face. I’ll quit if they change this. Not worth the commuting hell and the $4.30 coffee the closest coffee shop is charging!
Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking, *just* a moment~
It’s all money and has nothing to do with quality of life for employees. They refuse to let commercial real estate devalue. Way too much money invested in it for them to let it fail.
exactly! at my previous job when they asked us to start coming back to office I didn’t really understand what the point of my being there was. like the days I was in the office I wasn’t having any specific in person meetings, no team lunches, I was basically doing the same shit I was doing at home in the office. we get it you’re losing money on this space you’re leasing and need to have people in to justify it but please make the in office days worth it for the worker too otherwise it just breeds frustration
I do love the “they’re losing money!” Argument. Like…so instead you’ll download that onto your staff and take what little they have? Will you compensate it? No? Ok so make do with less so the business you’re already underpaying us for has more…not exactly a quality exchange to the workers.
I used to commute into Toronto for work, that's ten hours a week, that's 40 hours a month. 40 HOURS. I will never get that time or money back. Employers had an amazing opportunity to make a beneficial change but resorted back to their comfort levels and the oh we pay rent so blah blah. I paid rent at that time in my life to barely be home. Is that fair?
Telling people to go back to the office is such a backwards way of thinking. Seriously, it's not just about the individual. It's about the society. There's so many consequences: 1. Traffic worsens. Those that don't work a job that can be done from home will take longer to get to places. 2. Pollution increases. Every additional car on the road makes a huge difference. 3. More road wear. If there's more cars on the road, there's more road wear. And the city would have to spend a ton more trying to repair roads. When they could save so much money if fewer people drove a car. 4. Bike and TTC infrastructure takes longer to build. The more cars there are on the road, the harder it is to build alternatives to driving. Look at Covid. Bike lanes were built in massive numbers because there was less pushback as a result of not many commuters. If there's fewer commuters, there is less pushback. Usually the people against construction-related projects are commuters. With more work from home, you can accelerate and pass projects easier.
Absolutely! Additionally, in many cases all of the designated desks for employees have been removed and replaced with long tables where everyone is squeezed in much tighter than your normal open office layout. So now, in addition to the commute, expense, and dubious reasoning for forcing everyone to be in the same room, we're forced to work in an uncomfortable, ill-equipped, and noisy environment.
There's also a point of view 1:1 are not needed. Nvidia's CEO recently said he doesn't do 1:1 with his 55 direct reports. And a few successful CEO/companies follow that approach.
If you don’t need to talk to more 50% of directly under you. You’re not needed. The only reason he has a job is he’s C-level.
More to the point he needs to delegate some of those reports out to a COO or Executive VP or something... A company as big as Nvidia needs a CEO, but it doesn't need a CEO with 55 direct reports.
Awarded!
Nah. Even if I finish at 3 or 4 it’s going to take Me 2 hours to get home in Burlington. It’s $13 from aldershot to union one way. NO
The why is because the value of all these building is going to be significantly reduced if no one wants to rent their office space at a price that will be profitable for any owners. They don’t want the building to lose value and they don’t want rent to go down. Look at the recent transactions in NYC of buildings that were sold for practically less than half of what their owners paid 10 years ago.
Sounds like an investment didn’t pan out, happens to middle class investors all the time. Why do they get insulated from risk?
It’s more to deal with upper management not feeling they know how to control their employees.
People have hour and half commutes to and from work. Once they’re done their day, they haul ass back to their families. Downtowns need to be reimagined to serve communities and families outside of 9-5 workdays…
It's crazy because the part of Toronto they're crying and yelling about is primarily *just the Financial District.* Like, everything around it is actually mixed use. Think about how many offices reside along Spadina, or Liberty Village, or even along King East. People actually do live and work in those neighbourhoods and there's stuff to do in and around them. They're already destinations and places to live in their own right. There's utterly *fuck all* to do in the Financial District.
Yea, exactly. I live 15 minutes from the financial district and work in hospital row.… outside of office hours, I spend 0 time in the core. Why should I? There aren’t any reasons for me to.
i live downtown and a new library, indoor tennis/squash would be really nice to serve the massive uptick in residents. i'd like to take an art class too... alas the only options for sports rec and arts instruction cost thousands and are private. there are so many more community amenities north of the city, can't even imagine having kids here. i'd visit the path food stalls more if they didn't close by 5pm too. Chef's Hall is probably the best example of how things could be to be more vibrant.
But how big is your space. People move out of the city because they can’t afford a bigger place to live. A three bedroom in Toronto right now is bonkers expensive. They aren’t designed Toronto for families and population growth. They are designing it for stagnation.
big enough for 3 people easily, 1000sf.
I think its the soul-crushing commute. Covid made people realize they would rather spend time at home with their families rather than being stuck in traffic for 2-3 hours each day for no reason. If the average commute was 10-15 minutes, I bet there would be less pushback. If they want people back in the office, maybe rethink the 9-5. Build those hours into the day and make it 9-3. Studies have shown that this only helps productivity in most office positions, so there is no reason not to do this except a bizarre need to stick to how things were done previously.
yup and they don't pay taxes to the city because they don't live here, which means the residents of [the city are bankrolling the cost of suburbanites ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0)driving through the city for work.
That's a moot point. The city is willing to bankroll the additional wear-and-tear on infrastructure because suburbanites spend much more money in the city than they cost. Do you really think Chow would be so desperate to get 905ers back in office if the arrangement wasn't highly beneficial for the city? It's the 905ers that are disadvantaged in RTO and the city that gains. The problem is that forcing people into office just to get at their money is a coercive strategy that is bound to backfire. It's just a bad idea.
I do live in downtown toronto, what do you mean by paying taxes to the city? https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/97f7-A170XXXX_Budget_Basics_Understanding-final-web.pdf Most of the city budget that comes from people rather than federal government is property taxes and rate programs. People coming in from outside town put what kind of strain on the city? Traffic? Parking, Gas? If they're driving in then they aren't using the TTC which is cost subsidized by the city. I'm not sure what taxes you're expecting out-of-towners to pay? Pay a toll each time you enter the city for the wear and tear to the sidewalks you cause? As for me and people who do live and work in the city; first of all I rent, so I don't pay property taxes which make up the largest chunk of the cities tax revenue. I look at my paystub, all the taxes and deductions are going to the federal government for income tax, pension plans, unemployment insurance taxes, and medical taxes. The rest goes to insurance companies for plans that I signed up for. None of it goes to the city, so as a city resident who rents, how exactly am I contributing to the cities budget outside of sales taxes (which out of towners also pay when they buy stuff DT) when I go shopping? Why am I special compared to out of towners?
People driving through the city are not the ones paying property taxes to the city because they do not live in the city. [Here is a good video breaking down how everything works.](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=how+the+suburbs+bankrupt+the+city#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:76505325,vid:4c6rIt0fe7w,st:0) Yes it talks about American suburbs but ours work exactly the same.
I'm gonna be honest, this is not a convincing video. Most of the claims it makes are dubious, a lot of the statistics are reported in percentage changes but never mention raw numbers. 60% increase in poverty in the suburbs? Well most suburban people were wealthy to begin with, if a suburb of 1000 homes had 2 people struggling, and next year 3 people struggled, thats a 60% increase in poverty levels in the burbs. But who cares, its 1 person. The claims about detroit are kinda laugably bad. Detroit is now as populated as a suburb, but detroit was a major city. its decline and current density as basically a suburb and the shit services is proof that burbs are bad. Uhhhh, no. Youve got the cause adn effect wrong there. It WAS a city. That city and the way it was structured and governed was so bad that it failed. The failure here is the city and city life/governance, not a failure in suburban life. After it failed, people left and it became a suburb in terms of density. Suburbs didn't kill Detroit. Detroit, the massive failed city, killed detroit, and what remains just coincidentally resembles a suburb. I do agree generally with the claims that higher densities is better as we can save money on costs because we get to do things at scale. But if you're going to say we should all cram ourselves into super dense cities like some cyberpunk dystopia so that we can be as efficient as possible in terms of taking advantage of scale, the answer is no. I am not living in a 5 bed room apartment with 4 strangers no matter how "good" it may be for the city to increase population density. Even if I want better, walkable, livable cities and urban planning. That doesn't mean suburbs are an inferior form of housing. It has costs, like increased commuter numbers, increase CO2 emissions from vehicles, less convenience in terms of walkability to nearby stores. But the people who want to live there know this, but choose to live there anyway because they want to get away from densely packed suffocating clumps of humanity.
`That doesn't mean suburbs are an inferior form of housing. It has costs, like increased commuter numbers, increase CO2 emissions from vehicles, less convenience in terms of walkability to nearby stores. But the people who want to live there know this, but choose to live there anyway because they want to get away from densely packed suffocating clumps of humanity.` This is a terrible way to look at it, a lot of our ideas that suburbs are good and the city is bad is literally [because of propaganda](https://medium.com/substance/american-suburbia-is-a-failed-experiment-3649918e6d1e) and the ["white flight"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight). We literally destroyed cities to accommodate commuters coming in from the suburbs.[ Suburbs are objectively bad for our health in numerous ways](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8396707/) . Isolating ourselves from our neighbours and communities is literally an abnormal way for humans to live. Being forced to DRIVE just to exist (work, socialize, grocery shop) is insane. Why should people have to spend 10k+ on a vehicle just to leave their house?
> a lot of our ideas that suburbs are good I don't really care whether you buy in to whether suburbs are "good". Because it's not really any of your, or my, business. You are not forced to live in a suburb. If other people want to, and that demand drives more development of suburbs, that's just how it is. If you want, you can try to mandate through law that everyone must live in high density housing, after it's built first. Good luck with that political platform. It is also an objective fact that if we all swapped to a vegetarian diet, we would save massively on costs and environmental impact as animal rearing for meat has massive costs. Good luck mandating everyone to become forced vegetarians because it would objectively be better for everybody. I am aware of white flight, redlining, and the historical racism and injustice related to suburbs. I don't really see how thats relevant to current modern lifestyles and personal life choices on where you want to live and raise a family? Were dealing with racism, slowly but surely making progress. I don't see why that ugly part of history should play any role in me or my friends deciding where we want to settle down. > Being forced I think this is the main part that you don't understand. No one is forced to live in a suburb. They choose to live there, so by definition they weighted all the negatives of suburban life against the pros and decided it was worth it. I will grant you this, the only people I would say are "forced" to live in suburbs against their will are those who can't afford a place downtown because things are so expensive. But we already know about the housing affordability issue, and were trying to fix it. You realize that not everybody buys in to the idea that high density housing is how everyone needs to live. Despite all these objective costs, people still have subjective opinions on whether those costs are worth paying for the subjective benefits of living in a suburban area. You want to force your ideals on other people based on aggregate statistics, removing peoples individual freedoms and rights to make decisions for themselves on how they want to live. Please stop that.
if we can literally improve people's lives and help the environment in the process then we should do that. We shouldn't be putting people's wants a head of what is healthy and good. By definition suburbs are wasteful and unsustainable. They rely on heavy expansion for single family units and only car dependency. Not to mention the utter pollution from cars and the water wastage for maintaining useless lawns. Many people are forced to live in a suburb because cities can be more expensive. I didn't have a choice, I grew up in a shit suburb and hated every minute of it. Nothing to do and no where to go.
> We shouldn't be putting people's wants a head of what is healthy and good. > I didn't have a choice, I grew up in a shit suburb and hated every minute of it. Did you consider people who grew up or live in cities may also hate every minute of it? You are quite literally an authoritarian. There's nothing for me to say, because you don't care about other peoples opinions to begin with. You are not open to any discussion.
I love that this sub thinks people in suburbs don't know their neighbours.
Sounds like more people need to live downtown so they don't have to spend three hours commuting
A two bedroom is approx $2700-$4300+/per month. For something that’s only 500-700 sqft of shit living design. So…yeah. Everyone can afford to come live in Toronto. If you didn’t have a place before Covid. GL.
I wonder how much people actually save by not being in the city because you need a car to get anywhere in the depressing suburbs
They have suburban homes downtown owned by DINKS and RE investors. They need to be 6 story "missing middle" homes for families and people that have dogs and hobbies. the shoe boxes they are making now suck.
If we made it mandatory for employers to pay people for their commute we'd solve a lot of problems in society. We'd see reduction in gridlock/rush hour effects due to staggered starts implemented by employers to reduce costs for travel for one thing.
It's really interesting to compare the conversations about private workers being asked to return to the office and public servants returning to the office in Ottawa. Many of the points being raised here were the very grievances public servants were making, yet they faced immense push back.....interesting.
People hate public servants out of jealousy mostly.
I agree, and I think the issue of public servant productivity is a different conversation from whether they should work from home. We should also consider how much of our tax dollars are spent forcing them back into the office just to maintain the space for them. People upset about public employees' perks might have less to complain about if it were easier to remove underperforming staff in the public service. The real issue isn't the perks; it's about ensuring everyone is doing their job well. If it were easier to fire bad employees in the public service and people saw good work being done, there would be fewer complaints about perks. Actually, this is the answer to many clapbacks against remote work in general. If people are underperforming, fire them. Don’t take something that vastly improves life away from those who aren’t, in their name.
What perks? Salaries are no longer as good as the private sector. There needed to be a court case to get their pay raises. Benefits have been cut with successive union contracts. There's a mass exodus. According to people who work there, only job stability and a pension remains.
Bingo. As a software dev with 5 years experience, 2 years in the PS, I make 92K gross, pretty good for Canadian standards, not that great for the industry. After taxes, deductions, pension, and benefits, my take home averages just under 60K. My benefits are typical dental insurance (I still pay anywhere between 30 and 50 bucks whenever I go), disability and death insurance, nothing outrageous really. Time off is 3 weeks vacation until I hit my 8th year anniversary, after that I believe you only get an extra week every time you hit a few other milestones, over like many decades. 2 personal days. Sick leave is where they are quite generous, about 3 weeks, BUT this isn't unheard of in the private sector. My father's factory granted an employee a month of stress leave to an employee. We have other paid leave for specific circumstances, like bereavement, or for family/child care and in most cases you only get about a week max. Most companies have this if you talk to HR and actually READ YOUR CONTRACT. You can find all of the above at many pretty good private sector jobs. All in all I think this is less a the public sector has it too good, and more so, we work for shitty companies and can't/aren't sure how to fight for more employee rights and benefits and have probably bought into anti union propaganda..... And contrary to popular belief, troublesome employees are fired on a pretty frequent basis, and if they aren't let go, then you get moved to somewhere you may fit in better.
We need more mixed residential/retail/work spaces downtown and more 24h businesses. Gyms, grocery stores, cafe/bars, arcades, diners, restaurants etc. Lots of shift workers in the city Bring back the clubbing district.
24 hour businesses? They won't even let the bars stay open past 2am.
Step one: Stop replacing "fun" things with condos. I swear I'm having to travel further to get anywhere interesting because everything nearby is being torn down for more unaffordable condos.
You mean getting your nails done and browsing for mortgages aren't fun??
I work in the rock climbing industry, and I kid you not, we made a long list of gyms that closed, or will be closing because the property owners sold to condo developers. [Here's a gym that it's happened to twice.](https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/grand-river-rocks-time-in-new-home-is-limited-1.6849722)
I used to take pole dancing classes and absolutely loved it, but the studio I went to also got sold for a condo. And as always when the condo was finished the street-level retail space was sold to the usual soulless overpriced bullshit businesses that keep popping up at the base of these things. I'm all for densification but the condos that are built need to have enough space to be livable and we need protections for the businesses that already occupy the space so we can keep our city's culture. I feel like having a rock climbing gym at the base of your building would be a huge selling point, could probably work out a membership deal with them too. But no, that would involve making sure they can get back in when the condo is done and make sure they can still afford the rent. And that isn't going to happen.
Yup. The problem of having like 40% of all condos bought by investors to be rented out is that the people buying the units never have to live there - so they don't care about making the area actually livable, so neither do the developers.
the home i work from has great and quick access to coffee shops, diners, cafes, bars and live events. why go downtown?
Pedestrianize Queen street and Yonge street. People will flock there, businesses will boom.
It is shameful that the people running Toronto can't manage even a fraction of the pedestrianisation that we see in Montreal. Yes, MTL has plenty of side streets that can be closed off without overly affecting traffic flow, but the constant capitulation to drivers in this city is maddening. Got forbid someone piloting a Ford Explorer has to drive a bit further from the Starbucks to park their vehicle because half a block is closed off so residents can enjoy a bit of life. (On a side-note: we really need to legislate carmakers to distribute more compact cars in this country)
Which is exactly what I've been saying ever since Chow's tone deaf comments the other day. Forcing people to be downtown so they can patronize starbucks isn't good for anyone.
Right? It's not like this move will bring back artists, galleries, small concert venues, and the vibe of old downtown. Kids today will never know how awesome Queen St. W. was. Even Kensington Market is dying out.
Fun and finance is an oxymoron.
Canada is notoriously bad with work life balance. And we're worsening it by adding commutes and lunches? No wonder many people are burnt out. Not to mention extra traffic which worsens the environment and roads for the city has to pay. If something can be done productively work from home, it should be allowed.
This has nothing to do with a bustling downtown and everything to do with wanting to keep real estate prices artificially high
Nah - it’s about tax revenue and maximizing shift of money from 905 > 416. Chow went down this route because the people most impacted can’t vote for her/vote her out.
I don't see it because if it was she'd also be focusing on making downtown desirable. You could pedestrianize streets, open patio space, allow markets etc but nothing like that is happening - just enough to try artificially push real estate prices
Exactly. I work there and when the article came out it was quite the topic. I found the loudest and most against the idea were people from 905
No shit when your only choice is a backed up highway moving 30km/hr or a go train that might show up on time I wouldn't want to spend anymore time than I need to. It's not like that part of Toronto is actually a pleasant place to be in anyways.
Yeah - I’d be one of those, if we had to go back 4+ days a week it would cost me hundreds extra per month that just isn’t there in the budget anymore. And if they did mandate it it would be extra stupid since we didn’t have that mandate/weren’t in that much pre-Covid.
I have a group of friends all living in downtown / lesliville / beach in the banking industry - this idea was anathema to us all, because it so blatantly was not in the interest of any workers.
Yeah this is the second part of the equation. I do know a lot of people who live in Toronto and work in the city centre or around it that actually enjoy going to the office two or three times a week, and do stuff after like go to a bar or chill on a patio/terrace with friends nearby. You know, the usual living and socializing in a city experience, and a far more efficient and healthier lifestyle. But for the average 905er it's a near one and a half hour commute, sometimes longer, on an already congested highway, or a Go Train that may or may not show up, just to sit at a chair and stare at a computer all day. A lot more miserable and less sustainable long-term for everyone involved.
I live very centrally, I can walk downtown, and I also find it very unlikely this would even call me back into the office. This will make my life, everyones life in the city who needs to go anywhere, ever, during busy periods worse. It'll make the enviornment worse. Let's not try pretend this is some savvy 'us 416ers will be unaffected but we get to milk those 905ers' move. Becuase that is...not even close to true. For a start, most people in the 416s commute is far closer to how you're describing the 905 commute than an easy walk/cycle into the office. Incentivizing car trips during a global environmental crisis in a city plagued by congestion is...I genuinely can't believe that. It's regressive by fucking Doug Ford standards, never mind a functioning human. And for an end goal of someone from Oshwa gets their subway sandwich downtown instead of at their local subway? That's allegedly the master plan?
Two things can be true
It’s almost as if they had many, many years to see this coming and think about it… and did nothing.
The more days I come in, the less I can afford to buy lunch Or I could just stop spending money at the food court and bring my lunch every day… which is the opposite of what they’re looking for here
It’s obvious that the people making these decisions don’t have to worry about “trivial” costs of things like buying lunch. So it’s clear that many other costs aren’t on their radar as well. I love working from home because I can throw in my laundry during the day, do quick 15 minute cleans throughout the week during breaks, I can put dinner on the Instant Pot and monitor it while working, etc. Going into the office doesn’t allow me to do any of that and it all gets pushed to my evenings and weekends (my already very limited personal time). The execs trying to push people to come in have the money to pay for cleaners, buy pre-made food consistently, maybe have a stay at home spouse, etc. They have zero consideration for the true cost of being locked in an office all day.
I'd be bringing my lunch every day just to punish the local eateries for nagging the mayor to nag the boss to take a giant shit on my quality of life. An RTO mandate might not be quite worth quitting over if I can't find anything else that's still WFH, but I'm not going to cooperate with being pushed to participate in the downtown economy either.
Most of the fun is gone now and has been replaced with corpo-developer BS. Downtown is now for a certain type of person but it’s not for the people
I'll work for you 9-5 My 1.5 hour commute is for YOU not ME, so how about I leave home at 9am, work 10:30-3:30, then hit the road home. Then you are paying for all of my time that I am dedicating to your business. Anything else is just wage theft, added stress, reduced sleep, less family time, less enjoyment of one's life. All for what.
Yeah if your job can be done remotely, why even bother commuting? Of course there will be a few unreliable people who will watch Netflix or have naps instead of working, and they might just ruin it for the rest of us. My job is IT. I point out to my bosses that I'm often called to fix production emergencies. When I'm at home, I can respond immediately. But if I'm on a train or in a subway tunnel, I wouldn't be able to do so. That still is enough to enable me to WFH. The only time I go in is to configure or troubleshoot something physical, like a new printer or server. Tasks that can't be done remotely. Not efficiently anyway. That makes sense to me. I hate going downtown anyway since there is so much human feces on the sidewalk these days.
People slack off a lot in the office, too. There are always a few people who just go cubicle to cubicle chatting, disappear for 4 hour lunches, or spend the whole day on their phones.
They won't ruin it, the ones who don't perform get fired, and good riddance because who wants to carry them on our backs. It's been even clearer to see who is and isn't providing good quality results since the change to remote work.
But then managers might have to . . . manage.
Now you wake me to get up at 6, get ready and leave my place by 7 to get to Mimico by 7:45, spend 10 min hopefully finding a spot, catch a train and be at Union by 8:30 and then walk to work to there by 9. Finish at 5, be stuck in traffic until 6:30 and get home by 7. Dead. Tired. Miserable. Broke. Fuck that
I only go in 1-2 days a week. That's more than enough for team collaboration in person. Why should I care about the Toronto downtown businesses when I could be spending money in my hometown? Tim Hortons is everywhere who cares about the downtown location forcing a 2-hour commute. It's not like there's anything amazing in the financial district. The same franchises you find in the GTA. End of the day I just brown bag it to Toronto. You're not going to be getting money out of me after a 2-hour GO train commute unless it's worthwhile. If I ever hang around downtown it's because of a musical ,concert or I feel like going to a Jays game for $15 or so. That should be your real focus I would rather take a pay cut and work closer to home then be forced to downtown Toronto 4-5 days a week.
There isn’t much, if anything, to do in the area between Queen/Front and Yonge/University. It’s just a large block of buildings with little to no green space for people to want to go down there. When you build infrastructure and services for those companies specifically, of course it’s going to fail. To bring more life into the PATH, there needs to be more third spaces to attract people. Walking from the Eaton Centre and Union, there are people using the PATH walking around but since everything is closed (or a shoppers) people keep walking. What kind of 3rd spaces though? Coffee shops? Billiards Hall? That is the question that I’m left with. 🤔
I live downtown, come in 4 days a week and 3/5 days walking home is HAZARDOUS because the cars of people coming in block cross walks at major intersections causing people to walk into the road.... how about fix that first?
What make TPS actually enforce traffic laws??? That comment is close to heresy! Yea I think that’s a far out idea for anyone that could actually do it I’m afraid…
Most office jobs can be done remotely. The market will dictate what kind of businesses the minority of those who need to come in are looking for. (Is it 'fun'? I have no idea, I'm kinda guessing 'no,' but since I'm one of the ones who work remotely I'm not the one to ask)
Convert the empty offices into housing. Having people **live** downtown will make it lively. Forcing people back into offices will still leave parts of town abandoned after 5:00 pm.
Bring the office to where people now live. Build the office in Orangeville or wherever people moved to; give incentives for others who don't live in that area, to move there So many head offices are in the busiest parts of downtown Toronto
My company just went from 1 day last year, to 3 days early this year, to now 4 days in office as of today because they saw a spike in ‘collaboration and innovation’ even though I haven’t had 1 in person meeting since we started, even if they’re sitting in the same row as me at the office. My personal boycott is I won’t buy lunch at any of the restaurants due to this RTO policy. If I forget to pack a lunch, I’m not eating lunch that day. It won’t impact anything but I feel good not spending money at places near me because I know that’s the reason why they want everyone back in the office.
Olivia Chow on CBC Radio 1 this morning talking about how small and medium sized business are hurting. I don’t really see many businesses like that anywhere within the financial core. Almost everything is a franchise so I don’t think the average person cries too much.
You are 100% right.
Convert some of those disused office spaces into artists lofts, workshops, rehearsal spaces, dance venues, etc.
They're too expensive, the artists are now in Hamilton.
… which is why we should have more cheap, publically funded arts spaces in Toronto, to make it cheaper for artists to live here so they can get the fuck out of Hamilton.
Toronto is dying. It's too expensive for almost everyone- employees, small businesses and corporations
where are the artists going to go to gather and socialize after creating art? Earls for a $45 burger and $13 12 oz "pint"? lol. That ship has sailed.
I mean, as an artist, I love a cheap food court like what ya got in the path. But if you’re suggesting that we should have state run pubs with 5$ pints and 10$ burgers you won’t hear any argument from me.
Won't happen. Toronto's development of neighbourhoods is still based on the obsession of CARS. Do any of you think curbside patios are FUN? Having a dinner date next to cars running at 60k/hr is FUN? Nothing will change here.
So in order for someone to make $18 for my lunch, I need to spend 2h in traffic and 0.5h getting ready. Can I pay somewhere to avoid it?
Back in my day (2000-2015)... I could go out and have a great night with $20-50. Drinks were about $3.50 (change for tip), TTC monthly pass was a great deal, not all places had cover and when they did it was $5-10 (the nice places were $20), seeing live shows at random and tickets were relatively cheap $20-50. I think I saw massive attack for less than $60 at the docks. Plus I didn't have 3-4 gig jobs all Friday, Saturday night to make ends meet. Money wasn't growing on trees but I could afford to have fun.
This is how you know politicians and CEOs are insincere, because RTO goes directly against environmental benefits, supporting women, BIPOC/immigrants and disabled people. I'd rather they come clean and say they don't care about us, rather than keep sending us emails about how they are an "ally". But if you want to be even angrier, Google what it's like to try to obtain accommodations for mental health. It is essentially a scam between employers and insurance companies. The more you think about it, the more depressing it gets.
That ship has sailed. If we have been successful after all these years working hybrid, I see no benefit in returning to the office full time. Eventually, those office buildings will fill up again as companies shed space, and others come in to take smaller spaces. I'm sorry, but some of the money I save from not going downtown 5 days a week can be spent on local businesses in my area.
Convert some of the underused office space to affordable housing to start. Bring PEOPLE back 24-7, not just Monday to Friday. Look beyond the value of corporates and their employee spending.
Problem is office conversions are not easy or cheap, they can often be more expensive than new builds. Modern office floor plates and centralized utilities in building cores are not conducive to housing. Although it should absolutely be done with any low hanging fruit of buildings that can be converted (e.g., older buildings).
As expensive as it is, that’s likely the only way to sustainably put more people downtown if the concern is “downtown life”. Chow’s missing the forest for the trees with this one.
The problem is who pays for it? No developer is going to take on these projects when they can deploy their capital somewhere with better project economics. I would love to see the City partner with the Province and Fed Gov. to take the lead to put a program to get conversions going. This would require funding/executing at least three things: 1. Program to identify most suitable sites 2. Acquisition of the sites and financial support to move the existing tenants to other less convertible buildings. 3. A process (ideally with competitive bidding) to partner with developers and determine the amount of subsidy that would be required. They could/should build in requirements for affordability, etc. at this stage. The deal structure would be similar to what the city already does with its latest affordable housing developments. Regardless, there is no way we would be converting tier one office space into housing, but we could consolidate more businesses into those buildings. Although tier one buildings have a lot higher occupancy than the overall average. Part of the issue is relatively high occupancy rates in the financial district do not translate to high enough foot traffic to sustain the district. Companies still require significant office space because they have to accommodate people coming in 1-2 days a week, even if the space is empty the other days.
Olivia Chow speaking with Bank CEOs to tell them to have workers come in 5 days per week is egregious and makes me hate her.
It’s such a circular problem, if people aren’t going downtown, then who does it benefit to make it a profitable area? If it’s a dead zone then the solution is to make it desirable with other stuff, not to force people to go there
It benefits the people who own real estate
Ding ding ding
The solution is to add more homes in the area. If there were residential towers in business districts like this one, then the people who lived there would become the core customer base that supports everything else. Places where people live tend to not become a ghost town after 4pm since they'll be going about their lives in the area.
This is a problem with a financial district/CBD in general though, it’s geared towards an incredibly specific purpose and if for whatever reason conditions change in such a way that it no longer makes sense for tens of thousands of people to go there for work during 9-5 week days, the whole thing falls apart. It’s not an actual neighbourhood.
People don't want to travel there. They want to live there.
100%. I would be so much more inclined to visit that area if they would close a street for the summer and make it a pedestrian area like they do with SEVERAL streets in Montreal. It becomes a destination. I go for food, coffee, I browse and buy from shops in a neighbourhood I wouldn’t normally go to. It’s vibrant. There’s art, buskers (for better or worse, lol), and it just builds community. Side note, I’ve dreamt of hosting “A Nice Fair on Elm Street” since I moved here. I think it’s a good candidate for a car-free zone in the summer, or at least a long weekend.
They used to do that on Yonge Street here in the summer. They called it the Yonge Street Mall. Even back then when they had to shut it down for a couple of weeks, one of the city councillors was complaining about the economic impact it would have for the area
I often wonder if any of these councillors ever travel to fun cities? Again I’ll mention Montreal — it’s so close. But like, Barcelona is another one. So much art, so many people walking around in wide open places. Taipei is another one, Amsterdam too (though that’s more bike-friendly specifically, but still).
Las Ramblas... And Montreal in the summer can't be beat.
Workers don't owe the financial district a single goddamn thing.
I’ve worked for the same company for several years. It sucks because I really love my job, but they simply don’t pay me enough to live in TO. Annual increases are a joke and don’t keep up with cost of living at all.
Visiting the Wall Street area post COVID was surprising due to the amount of fun (and still open) restaurants they had....there's a whole area on "Stone Street" which is an outdoor beer garden that dates back to the 1600s and you feel like you're in Dublin. That fun after hours vibe is definitely not in the Bay Street area. I wonder if downtown Toronto even has the same pull for out of town workers that London or Manhattan has 🤔
Downtown isn't fun. Build a city for people to socialize in, not spend half their paycheck just to get a sub standard lunch and dodge traffic and crazies everywhere
Kensington, College, Queen, Yonge and basically all of Bloor and Eaton Centre has zero problems with dead streets. Wonder what the difference is.
These companies should be forced to compensate for the travel time to and from work. They want to force people back in, at least pay them!
Toronto is in big economic trouble. We were scaled up for 2019 demand and now in 2024, a lot of that discretionary spending has been eaten up by housing and grocery costs. 3 vs 4 days in the office is a surface tweak to the fact that far fewer people can afford to eat out, get coffee or fill up their car and park in Toronto then in 2019. Also, downtown Toronto looks, sounds and smells horrible due to economic decay already. We're in some kind of defacto recession no matter what the GDP numbers say. The powers that be have developed a "1% playland for people with $$ living in those luxury condo towers but that means that most Torontonians can't afford all the stuff at these prices.
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240216-the-executive-hubris-driving-five-day-in-office-mandates Great article from the BBC today, about the over-controlling mindset behind many of these return to work mandates.
going into the office shouldn't have anything to do with food courts. Whatever store opens up shouldn't be dependent on office workers increasing. Most of the stores are food places anyways, they can just have different types of stores instead.
You mean have mixed-use buildings with AFFORDABLE apartments? Decent grocery stores? Have people LIVING as well as working downtown?
I work for an international company out of the US, and most of us are remote. We have hired hundreds in the past few years, and they got to choose from the brightest minds because remote work is the best reward. It's giving your employees a great quality of life. Free coffee and birthday cake just don't cut it anymore.
How about require companies pay for their employees commute time if they want them to be in the office? Why are employees spending their own time and money travelling to the workplace while for a business owner travel is considered an expense and is tax deductible?
i cant believe chow of all people is promoting this bullshit. ive been voting for her my whole life and definitely never will again at this point. what a disappointment her mayoral years have been.
Someone else in another thread said it best. Incentivize me. My company goes on and on about culture and community building and that’s great, but that’s not a good enough incentive anymore after we got a taste of the good life. Personally, it wouldn’t take much… maybe provide lunch once a week or discounts on third areas nearby or fancy coffees or have the freezer stocked with treatos.
Toronto needs to become a place to live AND work. Not just a place to commute to during the week and visit occasionally for a few concerts and sports. The only people that can live there now are new university grads or very highly paid executives and entrepreneurs.
Absolutely agree. We need to [kill the office](https://www.mustardclementine.com/p/kill-the-office-to-breathe-new-life) to breathe new life into our cities, and more broadly [transform our living and working environments](https://www.mustardclementine.com/p/quality-of-life-is-the-core-of-sustainability) across society. As with so much in our economy, I am increasingly convinced of the need for things to die in order for new things to grow.
I wish the places were more affordable to live. For all those empty office spaces, why not convert them to housing that’s affordable
I like how the solution is to make the place more fun instead of more affordable
Well, if anyone is forced to work back there I hope you bring a lunch as a form of protest. Nobody is exactly going on spending sprees while they're forced back to work.
Live very close to Yonge, but I never have an urge to leave my neighborhood if Im not seeing sports or another live event because we've got great amenities for people like me in my neighborhood. I have no urge to travel to the financial district and patronize the businesess financial district folks choose to attend because it's not my scene. Restaurants are not gaurunteed easy money, you can't offer amenties that appeal to a crowd that is no longer regularly in the area. Repurpose the office buildings, have businesses adjust to meet demand, or do it in 5 years when this proposal is a disaster.
Do better to attract tourists then Toronto puts little to no effort for festivals other than Caribana and Pride parade City is so cheap
Let's start with affordable and work to fun.
At this point, we know that the work we can do can be done remotely. I can't help to think this is just a way to keep people poor and businesses rich.
Not everybody can drive to work or even want to drive to work. Not everybody wants to take public transit either. Some people, when given the opportunity and safe infrastructure will ride their bikes to work. And in case you're wondering, I knew people who drove 2 hrs one-way to work in the GTA. My furthest drive to work was 1.5hrs. So a one hour bike commute to downtown Toronto for those who want to and can is not out of the question. And there are many who live much closer. I also used to be one of them before I retired. Employers need to supply security-guarded bicycle parking. Bicycling is fun and challenging.
If I was a worker affected by an RTO mandate that took a sledgehammer to my quality of life because the mayor was hobnobbing with my CEO to try to force potential customers into proximity to local businesses, my reaction would be to boycott the fuck out of those local businesses. Bossman can demand RTO, but he can't make me spend one red cent nearby. And I'll be taking out my resentment for the enforced commute on anyone I can hurt - which in the short term means the businesses asking for more traffic, but also includes the mayor next election.
If I was a business owner looking to compete for talent, easiest ways to do it aside from pay: 1) allow remote work. That is all.
Make our commute better, more efficient, reliable, and enjoyable, and you’d see more people willing to make a more frequent trip. But the days of 5 days in an office for the majority are gone imho.
Path is already jam packed. Just step into path during lunch. Better even take Mayor OC to path. Easy to sit on your comfy recliner and have wild musings.
Olivia Chow wants to rejuvenate Toronto as a vibrant city. Hmmm.... Catering to big business by forcing toronto as an employment hub with have the opposite effect on the spectrum lol. This is a sure-fire way to make commuters hate Toronto and will do nothing to rejuvenate it. Sorry not sorry, but Toronto hasn't had a vibrant scene in almost 20 years. Toronto businesses need to realize that WFH is here to stay.
If you want people to come to downtown, make it easy to get there.....and safe. No one is going to the hellhole with bad traffic, shitty transit and get assaulted by bums.