Conducive Environments

I’m spending a lot of time at home these days, and will probably be keeping this up for this school term because I don’t have a packed school week.

The main challenge is keeping to a favourable schedule at home. One that have me motivated to do something, but perhaps also varied so I don’t burn myself out with boredom. One of my main problems is waking up early. Early enough to take advantage of the stillness or the morning, but not exactly at the hours that would be required of me, had I needed to get up for a morning class. There are always things, even if small, that I want to get done but the comfort of sleep is a bitch of a temptress. Like last year, I’m trying to adhere to an attitude of the more you sow, the more you reap, but this time, I’m not journeying downtown everyday to pay my work ethic dues. Whereas last year it was most definitely necessary, it isn’t this term. I also do not have the convenience of having my own space at school and I don’t really wish to live the life of a book hole hermit – doing everything in the stuffy library.

As most Generation Y-ers, what matters to me is an environment that allows for efficient thinking – a challenge living in suburbia. I am relatively lucky with what I have, including a library close to home, but it’s still small and come 3:30 PM or so, it gets swamped by elementary school kids and their online games.

I love public spaces, somewhere where you can be out in a collective casual public area. Removed from the tangles of clutter a personal space may have, yet providing the essentials for the support of work material, seems to free you to be able to focus on what is on hand … yes, my partial reason for my enamor for coffee shops for reading and writing.

While my immediate area isn’t too bad, its still frustrating to see land wasted. I often ask would the energy of this place be more dynamic if the strip malls were more multi-functional and contained more than 1 level, add a few more multi-leveled residences, and combined, would people be more inclined to walk? Would living be more convenient? How about more coffee places? Yes … and no, right? If you know where I’m talking about, this area of real estate isn’t that cool, hip or trendy of a place to be in, so whatever that would crop up probably wouldn’t be that ambitious. Hell, that big name pizza place, Pizza Nova recently moved some streets over to be closer to align itself to a more “It” place. These are sad moments for people who can’t drive cars and are craving for pizza.

None of this is new, suburbia’s problems have been known for awhile, but I always come back to these thoughts when I ponder environments that are conducive for brain activity.

The suburbs are so dull, they’re so disconnected from the heart of what city living is, yet they are still considered a part of the city. They’re so inconveniently planned – requiring one to waste time travelling through wasted spaces. True, people don’t always like subway lines because of the dense activity they typically bring, but in the end, it is everyone’s home and land. We collectively raise future generations, traverse through it, and together are affected by it in the end through political, economical and social issues. The transit lines of other major cities allow for far more efficient commuting, so how can we want to be a great major city that wants to serve and get people where they want to go, when our arteries and veins are so dinky? Many of our major roads I’ve been exposed to only lead 2 lanes one way, and our freeways aren’t much better considering the traffic that moves through. The transit map of the subway system is such an embarrassment when I compare it to major cities that Toronto no doubt, wants to be amongst, such as London, New York, and Chicago.

As housing construction has already touched the far reaches of roads like 16th Avenue and Major Mackenzie, there is a demand for housing, large personal space à la Rob Ford; but we also do not want to be heavily inconvenienced when making plans and there’s no car available, but can we have it both ways? What does that great city we dream Toronto to be like? As new suburban areas are being developed, I can’t help but get worked up how ineffective patterns of development are continually carried out. The market works with demand however, which leads me to figure that there must be a demand for replicating boring suburban neighborhoods. Its still in the minds and hearts to aspire to own that brick house with two cars and a white picket fence at the front where you would get your fix of freedom and boundaries by driving in and out.

I guess it can’t be helped though, and I can’t say that I haven’t fantasized living in a cookie cutter, pastel-coloured brick house, and zipping to and from in some mid-priced stylish sedan. Reality shortly prods me however,  it isn’t sustainable, and such a safe detached world isn’t what I would want, but many still do. Is that why these neighbourhoods are still propagating? Are our personal ideologies actually rooted in entitlement and excess?