To paraphrase John F. Kennedy: Ask not what your neighbourhood can do for you — ask what you can do for your neighbourhood.
Mark Weiser, 38, is asking.
Five years ago, Mr. Weiser returned to Midland Park, where he grew up, after living briefly in other areas of Scarborough. The heavily treed neighbourhood of mid-century-modern back-splits and two-storeys is bounded by the Birkdale Ravine to the east, Midland to the west, Ellesmere to the north and Lawrence to the south.
He didn't like what he saw. In addition to a recent rash of "taggers" scrawling their urban nomenclature all over fences and city infrastructure, it wasn't as friendly a place as he had remembered.
"I would see people walking the streets and they wouldn't make eye contact, they wouldn't say hello, they crossed the street when they saw you coming and I just thought, 'That's weird, that doesn't feel like the neighbourhood I grew up in.'"
So, he decided to revive the dormant Midland Park Community Association, which hasn't assembled for at least a decade. Not only does he want to tackle the graffiti problem, he hopes the group makes friends out of neighbours, since he laments the fact that he doesn't know who lives just a few doors down.
Lee Garrison, 50, could relate. His community group, the Don Vale Cabbagetown Residents Association, was resurrected just four years ago. It was first formed in 1967 to prevent the massive St. James Town development from hopping across Parliament Street to clear-cut its way through their leafy enclave of Victorian homes.
When that battle was won and other issues were settled, interest dropped little by little as the neighbourhood stabilized and property values went up. Eventually, the ratepayers' group went into a long slumber and, in its absence, issues such as vandalism, crack houses and public safety were dealt with on an ad hoc basis by small, temporary groups, Mr. Garrison says. People also went to the Cabbagetown Preservation Association, he adds, but that was of little use since its mandate is chiefly one of an architectural and educational nature.
In the early part of this decade, he says, "a lot of us started to realize that we needed a more cohesive strategy" so, in early 2004, the group was reborn after informal polling had determined there was significant interest. Now, he says, residents no longer feel "impotent" since the "chaos of voices" has been replaced by one united voice that lobbies on their behalf at city hall and elsewhere.
At the group's first annual general meeting, members nominated a board and created bylaws to give the new organization a structure. These were extremely important steps, he says, needed to counter a perception that it was a "fly-by-night group of people that are pissed off about something." Mr. Garrison, who has lived in Cabbagetown since his teens, was elected president of the group last May.
"I think that gave people a sense of confidence that this is something worth investing in. Specific issues can be lighting rods and help, but I think what people want to know — long term — is there is some stability here."
Of course, in those first few years, most of the items addressed were related to crime and safety, since those are the issues (other than development) that usually bring residents together. Today, however, Mr. Garrison boasts that they're no longer the top concerns of his 500-plus members.
According to his surveys, "there's much more discussion around the vitality and economics of Parliament Street and what do we do about streets and traffic," he says. "I'd like to think that it's a combination of the police doing things differently, the fact that the residents' association has created a forum, and people are a lot more vocal and observant."
But what about Midland Park? Mr. Weiser certainly will have his hands full with finding a sanctioned space for spray painters (which he is working on), with performing community safety audits and with trying to rekindle interest in the Neighbourhood Watch program, but what will keep member-households interested once those issues are resolved?
