Toronto | Rob Ford the View from an American on the New York Times Website

Toronto | Rob Ford the View from an American on the New York Times Website

As bizarre and hilarious as all of this is (from a distance), Toronto has far more serious problems than Rob Ford. As an American who lived in the Hazleton Lane neighborhood of Toronto for three years I witnessed up close (at least for a brief window of time) the deeply corrupt city zoning approval process that has led to a wholesale transformation of the city.


The City has transformed from a one of traditional neighborhoods with distinct identities (including the Hazleton Lane neighborhood in which we lived) to a characterless sea of high-rise glass-and-steel towers, few of which cleared the formal zoning process but proceeded anyway as the result of the option of a mayoral override that is granted far too often and far too indiscriminately for any reasonable person to believe that it is all on the up-and-up. Given the strong whiff of corruption that seemed to hover above the planning process I am not really all that shocked that a Rob Ford could emerge as the chief executive, though he is quite the piece of work.