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so this is Mississauga

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Today, for the first time in years, I had reason to visit Mississauga - Toronto's strictly-for-drivers "other half".

I was there on business of course. If you're not going to the airport there's typically no other reason to visit the sprawling "suburb without a city" that makes the western half of Toronto. The affair (a rather useful one on audit issues and the introduction of the COBIT 5.0 standard) took place in a sophisticated performance center called the "Living Arts Center" that frankly blows the doors off of some of Toronto's aging equivalents. Getting there I was a bit surprised to see just how many towering new residences have popped up out there in what had always been a sea of houses and strip-malls.

The day's site was situated on a vast concrete apron that went on for blocks, only interrupted by paved streets and faceless office towers and condos. And of course a shopping mall, the focus of urban design in suburban "cities" everywhere in this continent. I was at once surprised and not at all surprised when someone told me, "This is the downtown core!"

Ah.