The Globe and Mail

The City of Toronto is situated on a lake -- Lake Ontario to be exact. You wouldn't know it. The city turned its back on its waterfront years ago, fencing it off behind an elevated expressway, a grim expanse of industrial land and, more recently, a wall of apartment buildings. For at least a generation, every right-thinking person in the city has agreed that this is a crying shame and that something really must be done about it. There have been architectural competitions, environmental studies and traffic plans.