I recently spent a week in Toronto on a Tuesday in November. I had a few a
places to go that were mostly unknown to the locals. I asked various people
who worked at Eatons and few other places for directions on how to get to
the Royal York. They told me they hadn't heard of it and didn't know where
it was. Its only a few blocks from where they worked. I thought this was an
interesting so I asked various people the locations of buildings I could
see across the street. All except for one did not know where they were. The
point is the lack of orientation/interest in our cites and the need to look
up and look around is as much the responsibility of the designer as the
pedestrian or the worker down town. Architects and urban designers as a
group have abandoned sensibility in the city in favor of big design... mine
is bigger than yours or more importantly... yours is smaller than mine...

As a boy in a small town I took great comfort in knowing where everything
was and being able to navigate by the hills and the ocean. Why is it we
cannot build in that sense of place and location in these places? We have
made some many giant steps in technology but our ability to create good
solid design in the city is dismal. Why?  We can communicate across the
country but not across the street. Will there be no streets in the future.
Why didn't the lady from New York look to see the Empire State Building?
No reason to look?
What was the value of her being on that street?

I ve always found a grounding in working in heritage places that I would
like to see designers replicate in  everyday life. Unfortunately they don't
know the challenge exists let a lone how to begin to design for it.