kathleen_dailey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kathleen_dailey) wrote2023-09-03 11:46 am
kathleen_dailey) wrote2023-09-03 11:46 am
Entry tags:
It was twenty years ago today ...
... that we moved from our little 1930s quasi-Tudor cottage in the Beach(es) to the heart of downtown T.O., to a location just about equidistant from the Financial District, the St. Lawrence Market, and Harbourfront. Our friends thought we were insane for wanting to move.
Our house (which was on a big lot and had a big garden) backed on to a ravine, giving us a panoramic view of trees, more trees, and many more trees. My spouse loved that house and poured an enormous amount of his energy, skills, and creativity into designing and implementing energy-efficient, state-of-the-art systems and materials, and so we stayed put and enjoyed the results of his labour. But eventually the house was perfect, and by that time real-estate values had risen enough that we could sell the house, buy a condo, and still have a little bit left over for the beginning of a retirement fund. So we made the decision to move.
So eager was I to escape (after enduring for many years) the isolation of the neighbourhood, the endless garden maintenance (a chore that neither my spouse nor I was interested in or good at), the lack of decent restaurants and entertainment, and the inevitable short-turnings of the unreliable Queen streetcar (especially in midwinter) that I swore I only wanted to see skyscrapers from the windows of my next home. That wish was granted, and I've never regretted it.
Living downtown has been wonderful in every respect. Being car-free at last and able to walk--walk!--to work, shopping, theatres, clubs, restaurants, doctors, the dentist, the optometrist, and friends' homes is a privilege that I hope I never take for granted.
I'll admit that it was painful to leave our next-door neighbours, whom we had known from the day we bought our house, just two months after they bought theirs. (The surviving member of that couple now lives in a condo just a few blocks from us, so we've maintained the friendship!) But nothing on earth could make me live in a house again. Dealing with all the complicated, hugely expensive, and unending maintenance, repairs, renovations, upgrades, and emergencies of home ownership may suit some folks, but I'm not among them.
We're in our second condo now, closer to Bloor Street than to the Financial District, and I feel that we still have all the benefits of home ownership--space (our condo has a larger square footage than our house did); amenities (swimming pool, gym, terrace, rooftop patio with barbecues); and, above all, friendly and compatible neighbours. (Don't believe anyone who tells you that condo or apartment dwellers are invariably isolated from one another; much depends on the building's demographics, and on the residents and their willingness to interact with their neighbours.)
I grew up in Hyde Park, near the University of Chicago, and virtually no one I knew lived in a house. The neighbourhood was full of lovely apartment buildings and co-ops that accommodated multi-child families, and people were accustomed to taking public transit or cabs when they needed to go somewhere. (A few of my friends' families had cars, but not many.)
When I moved to Toronto, which I'd distantly perceived as a sophisticated urban centre comparable to Chicago or New York, I soon found out that almost everyone I met seemed to aspire to the middle-class cliché of a car or two and a big house with a big yard in a residential (that is, non-downtown) neighbourhood: one lived in an apartment only until one reached a social and marital status that allowed one to achieve that ideal. That was a shock.
Things have changed now, of course. It's no longer a novelty to live downtown--from my window I can see no fewer than 11 residential towers. Prices for detached houses in this city are now beyond stratospheric, so there's no shortage of demand for condo and co-op apartments. That's fine with me--the more people who live in these towers with their pets and kids, the more street life there is, which makes the area safe and congenial.
And my Chicago upbringing obviously imprinted me with a preference for apartments; I feel safer and more relaxed in my 100-unit downtown condo than I ever did in my single-family house in the bucolic Beaches.
Our house (which was on a big lot and had a big garden) backed on to a ravine, giving us a panoramic view of trees, more trees, and many more trees. My spouse loved that house and poured an enormous amount of his energy, skills, and creativity into designing and implementing energy-efficient, state-of-the-art systems and materials, and so we stayed put and enjoyed the results of his labour. But eventually the house was perfect, and by that time real-estate values had risen enough that we could sell the house, buy a condo, and still have a little bit left over for the beginning of a retirement fund. So we made the decision to move.
So eager was I to escape (after enduring for many years) the isolation of the neighbourhood, the endless garden maintenance (a chore that neither my spouse nor I was interested in or good at), the lack of decent restaurants and entertainment, and the inevitable short-turnings of the unreliable Queen streetcar (especially in midwinter) that I swore I only wanted to see skyscrapers from the windows of my next home. That wish was granted, and I've never regretted it.
Living downtown has been wonderful in every respect. Being car-free at last and able to walk--walk!--to work, shopping, theatres, clubs, restaurants, doctors, the dentist, the optometrist, and friends' homes is a privilege that I hope I never take for granted.
I'll admit that it was painful to leave our next-door neighbours, whom we had known from the day we bought our house, just two months after they bought theirs. (The surviving member of that couple now lives in a condo just a few blocks from us, so we've maintained the friendship!) But nothing on earth could make me live in a house again. Dealing with all the complicated, hugely expensive, and unending maintenance, repairs, renovations, upgrades, and emergencies of home ownership may suit some folks, but I'm not among them.
We're in our second condo now, closer to Bloor Street than to the Financial District, and I feel that we still have all the benefits of home ownership--space (our condo has a larger square footage than our house did); amenities (swimming pool, gym, terrace, rooftop patio with barbecues); and, above all, friendly and compatible neighbours. (Don't believe anyone who tells you that condo or apartment dwellers are invariably isolated from one another; much depends on the building's demographics, and on the residents and their willingness to interact with their neighbours.)
I grew up in Hyde Park, near the University of Chicago, and virtually no one I knew lived in a house. The neighbourhood was full of lovely apartment buildings and co-ops that accommodated multi-child families, and people were accustomed to taking public transit or cabs when they needed to go somewhere. (A few of my friends' families had cars, but not many.)
When I moved to Toronto, which I'd distantly perceived as a sophisticated urban centre comparable to Chicago or New York, I soon found out that almost everyone I met seemed to aspire to the middle-class cliché of a car or two and a big house with a big yard in a residential (that is, non-downtown) neighbourhood: one lived in an apartment only until one reached a social and marital status that allowed one to achieve that ideal. That was a shock.
Things have changed now, of course. It's no longer a novelty to live downtown--from my window I can see no fewer than 11 residential towers. Prices for detached houses in this city are now beyond stratospheric, so there's no shortage of demand for condo and co-op apartments. That's fine with me--the more people who live in these towers with their pets and kids, the more street life there is, which makes the area safe and congenial.
And my Chicago upbringing obviously imprinted me with a preference for apartments; I feel safer and more relaxed in my 100-unit downtown condo than I ever did in my single-family house in the bucolic Beaches.