Creating a Meeting Place

York Region needs to give its people the chance to connect with each other.

He tells me, “Come to the backyard. Some nice vino, a nice sandwich with tomato from the garden, fresh olive oil, then a nice espresso. We have a nice talk.” He always feels the need to insert nice before everything.

My 87-year-old neighbour, with a voice like thousands of cigarettes and hands like the thousands of bricks he laid to build houses, now homes. He’s the convener of all important community meetings – in his garage on old stools, in his backyard on the picnic table, in the cantina on purple stained damiggiana’s.

He tells me he saw my picture in the Vaughan Citizen. “Nice picture. What’s the story about?”

I tell him about our report, “…if addressed”, released in the middle of one of the only open fields in Richmond Hill, which juxtaposes York Region today with Toronto in 1979. I tell him that the defining issue for our sprawling amalgam of nine municipalities, a mix of urban, suburban, and rural communities, is not the pace of growth, not the changing face of that growth, not even the places where that growth is planned, but the intersection of all three of these things and our ability to respond.

And as I bite into the sandwich, all olive and oregano and tomato, I tell him this is exactly what happened in Toronto in 1979 in the then outer suburbs of Jane and Finch, Rexdale, Etobicoke, etc, as documented in a report called Metro Suburbs in Transition that was released by the Community Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto. And if we do not address these issues now…

“Ah nice,” he says, although I am not sure if he is referring to the vino sip still on his lips or the report. “Ma’… for your work, when you talk to people, what do they say they need in this Vaughan or in Markham or in Georgina – in York Region?”

I tell him that between 2001 and 2006 York Region has had a 55 per cent increase in the number of people living in poverty, a group that now includes over 112,000 people. Over 43 per cent of our population is comprised of newcomers and immigrants, families who make the area their first destination in the GTA. It is among the fastest growing regions in Canada, with double digit increases in the number of children and youth, families, and seniors. And all of this with a slim and stretched social service network, underfunded at all government levels.

I pause to catch a breath, wondering how much of my blurt he caught, if any.

He gathers the crumbs on his plate on his finger. “That is what you hear when you talk to people?” he asks.

He tells me to get on the back of his scooter and drives me north on Kipling Avenue, past Highway 7. He brings the vehicle to a halt and says, “This is what I hear people need in York Region.” He points to the street sign – Meeting House Road. “This is what every great city, every great region needs. We get to know each other and the place by all the little things we do together” he says. “We are who we are with and where we are with them – sometimes planned, sometimes by mistake. This is what makes neighbourhoods, communities, cities, regions. Not programs or services or problems, but messy discussioni (discussions) and soluzioni (solutions) and forza (strength).”

He reaches into the scooter’s front-basket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. “The issue in York Region is not the jump in poverty, or welcoming of newcomers or more seniors,” he continues. “That happens in every city with growth. The issue in York Region is getting people involved – and we can only do it by creating meeting houses: places where people can stop, talk, get to know each other – because our drive-thru planned sub-divisions just don’t give us a chance to connect.”

He pauses to catch a breath now, likely wondering how much of his blurt I caught. He straddles back onto his scooter and says, “Y’am – lets go back. Time for a nice espresso”

I climb on the back and hold on as we zip back up the road.