Print

E-mail

Text

"This is a critical time for our community. Because it is only beginning to be a community. Community-building takes time and effort..."

These words are part of a Jane-Finch ratepayers' association redevelopment brief - from 1974. (This is available for viewing on jane-finch.com.) Among the impending challenges cited for the area, then under jurisdiction of the rapidly growing municipality of North York, were weighty concerns, ones not necessarily unique to that time or place: traffic, community services and crime, among others, were front of mind.

This is not to suggest, however, that the challenges the community known as Jane-Finch faces today are identical to those cited more than 30 years ago. There are strong similarities, naturally, but the landscape is certainly different in 2008: the population is now much larger and more diverse and the very body responsible for administration of the community, the municipality of North York, has since been swallowed up through the 1998 megacity amalgamation.

Currently, the community is in the midst of a number of ongoing initiatives that are making headlines. Last week saw the continued pushing forward of the idea of an area rebranding - the name University Heights would presumably help draw attention to other, sunnier aspects of the community and help paint a more fulsome picture. On a broader scale, a partnership of six west-end city councillors, whose wards include the Jane-Finch corridor, held their inaugural meeting at the York Civic Centre. The goal: a more united front to deal with root causes of community safety concerns.

Last Friday, a number of Jane-Finch residents, tired of the perception of the area being simply a ghetto of crime, held an afternoon protest to draw attention to their case and in so doing, pointing the finger squarely at poverty as a main culprit. There's also frustration at what's perceived to be attempts to define a community through broad strokes when a subtler touch may help form a more accurate rendering.

When it comes to community building, growing or repairing, none of the attendant multiple concerns that come with those processes have a mutual exclusivity. None of these issues exists in a vacuum. In some way, they all have ties to one another.

Just as none of the issues exists in a vacuum, however, neither do the individual communities themselves; the ones that make up North York and Toronto, exist in one. They're all part of a larger whole. To suggest otherwise is to perpetuate the problem, not contribute to the solutions.