[getsmart-l] Toronto Star stories about Mississauga Summit

[Janet May]

A brave try at remaking Mississauga TheStar.com - News - A brave try at
remaking Mississauga 

September 26, 2007 

Royson James



The more than 100 citizens, many of them corporate CEOs and upper management
types, had gathered yesterday to "chart a brave, bold future" for their
city. And the list of big ideas spilled out on the summit floor, as if
unleashed from a dam:

Build up, not out.

Provide free recreation and transit to counter social isolation.

Promote a walkable city.

24/7 access to schools, libraries and community centres - making them a
gathering place and community resource.

Brand us as the City of Children - where kids are protected and get top
priority.

Hold "continuous street parties," carrying on the pioneer spirit of early
settlers.

And where are we? Attending a city summit in Toronto? Try the Mississauga
Living Arts Centre, across from Mississauga City Hall, at the first ever
Mississauga Summit, dubbed a Meeting of the Minds.

So imagine: Mississauga, Party Capital of North America.

Amazing what one can uncover when citizens come together, bent on building a
better future. That's what's happening these days in Mississauga, Canada's
sixth-largest city, Toronto's sister city to the west, with a population
multiplying like weeds, and arguably the most popular mayor of all time.

Predictably, for a city that has concentrated on physical development at the
expense of the social bands that knit urban societies together - transit,
child care, neighbourhood shopping and recreation - urban problems have
surfaced.

Social services are nowhere near required levels. Transportation is a mess.
And funding required to address the social deficit is shockingly below the
regional averages - so far below that it is front-page news.

Some Mississauga residents took a page out of Toronto's book and yesterday
organized their own city summit, convening business and social service
providers and politicians and community activists to map out a different
future.

"It takes 18 months for a learning disabled child to be assessed. That's a
disgrace," said the executive who suggested Mississauga become the city of
children. The city has to change this, "even if it means going into debt,"
he said, spouting the kind of heresy one expects to hear in Toronto.

The summit was the brainchild of Shelley White, CEO of the Peel United Way,
and Brian Crombie, a pharmaceutical executive. Aware of the chronic shortage
of social services and the unconscionable gap in provincial funding for
services in the 905 region in general and Peel in particular, they've
started a movement for change.

In summary, White asked the summiteers what they might do to take the issue
further and suggested that they could "write letters signed by the 50 CEOs
of the largest companies in Mississauga."

Loud, sustained applause greeted the suggestion.

A recent study showed 905 residents are grossly underfunded for child care,
hospitals and health care compared with the rest of Ontario. Fast growth and
traditional funding formulas leave areas like Mississauga with half the
funding other Ontario municipalities get.

"We must get the funding gap on the political agenda," Crombie said.

White said Mississauga is "at the tipping point ... having emerged from a
suburban town to Canada's sixth largest city. We have to change our thinking
to being a sustainable and liveable city."

To fuel dialogue, the city will hold what it calls conversations about a
21st-century city, starting this fall. They will give voice to more ideas
like yesterday's, ideas Mayor Hazel McCallion pledged to nurture.

  _____  

Email: rjames at thestar.ca

 

 

Public transit hot topic at 905 city's conference TheStar.com - GTA - Public
transit hot topic at 905 city's conference 

Mayor pledges to review myriad ideas floated at meeting of city's community,
business leaders

September 26, 2007 

Michele Henry and Teenaz Javat
Staff Reporters


Transportation stole the show. 

Gridlock, urban sprawl and the nightmare of spending hours in traffic were
on the mind yesterday at Mississauga's first-ever ideas summit.

A sizeable crowd of Mississauga executives and community leaders ruminated
about issues facing the 905's biggest city - from how to cope with its aging
population, to how to better welcome new immigrants - but a majority of the
Mississauga Summit 2007 focused on how to make transit a viable option for
car-dependent Peel Region residents. 

"If we really want to transform our city from a suburban municipality,
transit has to be a key component of it," said Martin Powell, Mississauga's
transportation commissioner.

Still, Powell was shocked at how the issue took over roundtable
brainstorming sessions at the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga, between
panel debates and moderated discussions. 

An afternoon talk about how to spend the $17.5 billion promised to GTA
transit by the province - whether in building a rapid link from Pearson
airport to downtown Toronto or a light rail line linking the 905 with the
416, or both - spawned myriad ideas from Summit participants. 

Edward Sajecki, Mississauga's commissioner of planning and building, told
attendees public transit wasn't on anyone's mind when officials began in
1970 to turn acres of cornfields into a city.

That's why steps are now being taken to build high-density housing along
transit lines. 

Square One, once a suburban mall surrounded by 7,000 parking spots, is now
at the heart of a highrise condo community next to the Mississauga Transit
terminal, a major step in the city's new urban intensification.

Sajecki said more than 10,000 residential units within a 10-minute walk of
the city's downtown have been approved or are under review. 

Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion pledged to review all the ideas put forth
at yesterday's summit. 

"We have a great city, we have a lot of assets, but as we look down the road
we have some major challenges. We need the help of the corporate sector, we
need the help of the citizens." 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.web.net/archives/getsmart-l/attachments/20070926/14f84a18/attachment.htm