Privatized city cuts public adrift
A rush to unload assets owned by us all for short-term benefit hurts the city in the long run.

thestar.com
Aug. 11, 2015
By Christopher Hume

The public realm is more than just a series of spaces; it’s all those places and things that connect the individual to the community. That includes public health, public education, libraries and cultural facilities as well as squares, streets, parks and, of course, government itself.

In Toronto and cities around the world, the public realm in all its forms is under attack. An alignment of factors - civic impoverishment, widespread cynicism and the politics of conservatism - has made the abandonment of these shared goods and services seem desirable.

Having allowed the public realm to fall into disrepair, if not disrepute, we would rather sell it off than pay the price of rehabilitation. And because taxes are toxic, the public sector’s hands are tied. Privatization has become the new mantra.

The most dramatic example in these parts is Premier Kathleen Wynne’s decision to unload 60 percent of Hydro One. The money - an expected $9 billion - would be used to pay off Hydro’s debt and cover the costs of transit expansion.

Adam Beck must be spinning in his grave. Good Tory that he was, Beck believed that “The gifts of nature are for the public.” Though a series of private electricity providers existed, Beck, appointed first chair of Ontario’s Hydro-Electric Power Commission in 1906, considered them inadequate.

Now we’ve come full circle; returning to the private sector that which was taken from it long ago. How long before the same sort of thing happens with transit? Health care?

In the meantime, safeguards put in place to protect these public goods and services have become obstacles to saving them. That’s why Wynne commissioned a report into how to stop unused schools being sold to developers. With one in 10 Toronto schools up for review in the next decade for possible closure, this has become an issue.

It’s not hard to understand why. Once public property is sold, that’s that. It’s gone. Though such sites can be remade to suit almost any public purpose, it’s easier for a perennially cash-strapped school board to sell them off.

The study recommends ways to make it easier for non-profit organizations to acquire these properties, thus keeping them in the public realm. These so-called “community hubs” could come in many forms - clinics, centres for seniors, drop-in centres and so on. They might be in high-density downtown neighbourhoods or out in the hinterland. Regardless of what new use these buildings might have, the point is that they remain public.

It’s worth noting that not all jurisdictions believe selling public assets is smart public policy. Helsinki, Finland, for example, owns 65 percent of all land within its city limits, and the national government owns a further 15 percent. That means fully 80 percent of land in the Finnish capital is publicly owned. Compared with Toronto, where virtually every project becomes the subject of endless acrimony, Helsinki is free to pursue the possibilities of its own priorities.

Schools, a traditional community hub, are ideally positioned to have a second life. Already, dozens of hubs have been created across the province; as the report also makes clear, every dollar invested in such a program returns three, four or five times that amount, mostly in social cost savings.

Still, the pressure to privatize grows ever more urgent. Whether it’s advertising overkill on the TTC, commercials on the CBC or a skyline controlled by corporate interests, the public realm is increasingly the private domain. And as business takes over more of the public sector, it begins to seem normal.

For the rich, the city will be better than ever. The rest will just have to move along.