The Slow Takeover of the Ultra-Privileged
Toronto has been for sale for a long time now, but the citizens aren’t the ones getting the benefits
An announcement was made this week in Toronto to unsuspecting commuters at Yonge-Dundas Square.
The announcement: world-renowned music producer Pharrell Williams is helping design a condominium to be built at the already seemingly-crowded area of Yonge and Eglinton.
As expected, there’s already backlash. And it’s justified.
Pharrell’s involvement in this venture is on-brand for him, if not just straight up tone-deaf. (Pun sort of intended?) He’s savvy when it comes to self-promotion — that savviness is debatable, to be sure — so this latest stunt shouldn’t come as a surprise. However, this is just one issue out of many in Toronto that speaks to the relative ignorance that resides here, and most other cities that bill themselves as “world-class”: Toronto has been for sale to the highest bidder for a while now, and the people vying to purchase a piece of the pie aren’t looking to share it with the people who live here.
The concept that this condo has brought to the forefront, as tweeted by federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, is affordable housing. Singh pointedly asked Williams (read: screamed into the void of Twitter, without expecting an answer) if there was any “affordable housing planned in this”; the short answer is, of course, no. But is it really up to Pharrell to spearhead a movement about affordable housing? Frankly, no. He only has his own interests at heart, and investing into affordable housing not only isn’t his wheelhouse, but the return on that investment to him would be peanuts. To someone ultra-rich, ROI is paramount to anything they do; “how can I make more money?” is among the first questions they ask before investing.
Let’s back up for a moment and look at the broader implications of Toronto being for sale. To me, one of the biggest examples of it is the sale and subsequent destruction of the old Honest Ed’s building at Bathurst and Bloor; where a majestic, gaudy looking building once stood alongside the quaint Mirvish Village is now a crater that will be filled with a possibly gaudier-looking condo building. If the city is for sale, then it doesn’t seem as if long-standing landmarks that even belonged to the super-wealthy people of Toronto are safe, either. Honest Ed’s was a haven for low-cost merchandise, and people came from all over the city to shop in the utterly confusing building to save a few bucks on much-needed items. For it to be replaced by a symbol of ultra-privilege is quite sad.
You see it all over the city; Leslieville, where one of my partners lives currently, is slowly being taken over by mixed-use buildings, most of which are populated by stores and restaurants that cater to people of a certain median income that may or may not already live there. In the year that they’ve been at the edge of Leslieville (a 10–15 minute walk from Woodbine Beach), the scene has changed drastically along Queen Street East.
And let’s not forget the other neighbourhoods where low-income families are being forced out: Regent Park, Little Jamaica, Parkdale… the list goes on.
Toronto is for sale, and the only people that stand to gain are the people who aren’t being forced out. People with privilege like Pharrell. People who can “live untitled”. People who aren’t living paycheck to paycheck. People who keep others down by raising rent or coming up with absurd excuses to kick tenants out, forcing them to find a place to live in a shrinking market.
While we likely won’t see any reneging on Pharrell’s part with respect to this condo, one thing remains true: so long as cities like Toronto allow for this sort of thing to happen in the first place, the hubris of pushing people out will eventually consume it.
