PublicHousing–BuildingTowardaGreatNewCanada,1965.pdfVIP

Centre for Urban and Community Studies U N I V E R S I T Y O F T O R O N T O U r b a n P o l i c y H i s t o r y A r c h i v e Public Housing – Building Toward a Great New Canada, 1965 By The Rt. Hon. Lester B. Pearson, Prime Minister of Canada Speech to the Ontario Association of Housing Authorities, September 1965 ousing problems are not confined to cities. There is a great deal to be done in ru- ral housing and in that of smaller communities. We are more aware now than we H were that slum conditions are not peculiar to crowded metropolitan areas. But city and suburban life is increasingly becoming identified for better or for worse with the Ca- nadian way of life, and we think mostly now of housing problems in that context. Today, of the total population of Canada, about 70 per cent live in cities and towns, and this proportion — in Canada as in other countries — is increasing at a rapid rate. So cities are now the centers of our society; the place for the great human experiences of most of us. In the cities of today, squalor and luxury, sordid exploitation and unselfish service, skillful planning and hopeless disorder, exist side by side. In contemporary civilization the city is the place of the most startling contrasts. I suppose it always has been so, but today a growing social conscience is insistent on doing some- thing about the contrasts. We no longer accept the fact that Skid Row and Park Avenue should co-exist. The city today represents the convenience of concentration, as the suburbs — and even more the country — represent the escape of dispersion. Many people regret this concentration in huge packed urban communities, with all the social and economic problems involved. We still tend to couple the good life with rural virtues and simple rural living, and the city with confusion and corruption, the place where the “slickers” come