By Heather Mallick | Star Columnist | Sept. 19, 2020 |
What can be done about Toronto NIMBYs, angry at being caught up in an era that demands overwhelming change in how humans live and nest? I suspect there is a little NIMBY in all of us, including me. Maybe people can’t live together. Maybe everyone needs their own cave far from other caves.
People who live in detached houses often shout with great intensity that they don’t want lowrise condos built nearby because they believe it will lower their home’s resale value. I would disagree. A busier, more useful and attractive downtown neighbourhood makes a house more appealing, especially to young families.
Olivia Laing, writing about loneliness in cities, says urban living is “the massed presence of other human beings,” many of whom we wish to know. We are people in a city after all, not fresh saplings scared of the bigger birches crowding us out lakeside at the cottage.