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Toronto's waterfront has always in a constant state of flux. Parts of the harbour have been dredged up to produce more land for construction, erosion from the Scarborough Bluffs helped produce the Leslie Spit and the industrial waste had long seeped into the ecosystem (most of which has been cleaned up).
Revitalization of Toronto's waterfront has always been a big source of conflict. As old factories sell off their property, many developers have been snatching up the expensive land, hoping to build luxurious buildings. However, urban planning is usually put in the background and the main problem is that Lake Ontario becomes less accessible to the millions of people who live throughout the city. The amount of discussion by various levels of government and business leaders has tried to find a solution that hopefully benefits everyone yet seems to line the pockets of the rich.
My company flew me up to Toronto for a visit with headquarters one week late in February. I stayed in the corporate apartment along the Toronto Waterfront; an area I had only whizzed by on my bicycle but I never had a real excuse to visit for various dumb reasons. As I've now spent over a year and a half now in New York, I'm always near water there, so this visit gave me an opportunity to explore yet another part of the city I previously spent seven years living in.
Using what little free time I had outside of work, I took advantage of the sunny days before spring and took the digital camera along as I explored the western downtown parts by the lakeshore. Other than affording me a wonderful walk, I aimed to capture at least one section of an area in transition.
N.B. – all the photos you see have been colour-corrected for the web and a few have been stylized a touch for artistic purposes (probably rather badly, but I'm learning). I'm not going to boast about what equipment I use, although I will state I'm using digital just for the convenience of removing all the lovely blurry pictures of the ground I seem to acquire. I'll eventually get my contact thing working soon when I have a moment, but I think you can guess my email address if you really try.
--kari.
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