How does Toronto prepare itself for the future without neglecting its present and past?
 
It's a question both panelists and attendees wrestled with at the second in Yonge Street's speakers series, held Oct. 27 at OCAD University. Moderated by Toronto Star columnist Royson James and anchored with a presentation by Rahul Bhardwaj on the Toronto Community Foundation's recent Vital Signs report, the theme was leadership and belonging. The evening's lively discussion made links between Toronto's changing demographics, our transportation and infrastructure challenges, and the importance of neighbourhood vibrancy and good urban design.
 
"The city has undergone an incredible amount of change and we've managed it well," said Bhardwaj. A quarter of Toronto's 2.7 million residents have arrived in the last 20 to 25 years. Despite this rapid transformation, the Vital Signs report points out that Toronto ranks highly on various indexes of livability, safety and innovation, and has seen notable improvements on issues like environment and crime. In 2010, two-thirds of Toronto residents reported feeling a strong or somewhat strong sense of belonging, a 6.3 per cent increase over 2009. Young adults, though, have, on average, a weaker sense of belonging. That suggests the city needs to look for ways of making young people, especially second and third generation immigrants, feel more included.
 
"We'd be naïve to think if we don't take care of these issues, they will just go away," Bhardwaj told attendees.
 
Rapid growth, without vision and attention to detail, can tear apart communities. One attendee worried that several proposed high-rise developments on Yonge Street between Gerrard and Bloor might turn the city's most famous artery into something less people-friendly. Another suggested that Thorncliffe Park—a planned high-rise community built in the 1950s with little thought to community amenities and transportation connections to the rest of the city—is struggling with social and infrastructure problems. Bhjardwaj said the city needs to find a balance between increasing density and maintaining the character and social connections of neighourhoods.
 
Joining Bhardwaj on the panel was Josh McManus, chief innovator, curator and creative director for Little Things, a social innovation laboratory based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Visiting Toronto for the first time, McManus was impressed with the city: "I usually work in very, very broken places." In his work in cities in the U.S. and Europe, McManus has found that strengthening intergenerational connections and creating a common vision are two key strategies to attracting and keeping good people, even when times get tough.
 
"Sometimes talent retention is as simple as making a clear case of the history of the place and that the person is needed there," said McManus.

Entrepreneurship plays a major role in a dynamic economy built for the long term. For example, Chattanooga and Detroit, where McManus is currently doing consulting work, depended for decades on Fortune 500 to provide jobs and prosperity. When those huge companies stumbled, so did the cities.
 
"When we're so prosperous we believe everything will advance on the shoulders of our existing institutions," said McManus. "That doesn't take long to unravel."
 
Taxation and investment play a major role part in city building. The problem is, McManus suggested, that people who say they want the best will often, in the end, decide to spend the least.
 
"If we want to live in great places, we have to pay for great places," he said. "It comes back to the individual and where we truly have our priorities…. But there's also a responsibility on the leadership side to make the argument correctly."