I have a theory about the dis-like, contempt, even anger, that so many Canadians express toward Toronto. It’s not the city’s wealth or presumed indifference toward the rest of the country (both greatly overplayed, in my view); it’s more likely grounded in the aura of nickel-paring, aesthetically stunted disregard for civic values that permeates so much of the city’s public and commercial spaces.

What many people see when they visit Toronto is a place that doesn’t seem to care whether or not its citizens have easy access to vital and rejuvenating areas, both natural and built, especially in the all-important city core. Where’s our Central Park, Hyde Park, Mount Royal? Why is our outstanding natural feature, the waterfront, an industrial wasteland obliterated by concrete? Why are relatively new streets so often deserted, while the sidewalks of Yonge Street, south of Bloor — a sorry strip of rundown, seedy but visually lively and accessible 19th-century piles — perpetually alive with people?

Toronto is bursting with creative energy, business acumen and cutting-edge research.But you’d hardly know it, walking around the place. Instead, we come across as a bunch of nearsighted tightwads, more concerned about the bottom line than the basics that go into building a major city, such as walkable streetscapes, accessible and well-kept parks and the kind of vistas that only brave and sophisticated architecture can provide.

Over the past six or seven years, in the midst of a vigorous building boom and during a period of massive immigration, some of this began to change. For the first time since the 1960s (the last time we built anything “world class”), civic leaders and pools of private capital started listening to architects, concerned citizens and savvy public officials. Some of the results have been salutary: a handful of internationally ranked public buildings, the start of the waterfront’s long-delayed rejuvenation and the planned renewal of several key downtown “precincts,” such as Ryerson University. There has also been a decided uptick in elegant new residential towers, one of the surest signs that both builders and buyers are becoming confident enough to demand good design.

But there have been far more disasters. One prominent Toronto architect has described the central waterfront as taking on the look of a “pincushion” over the past few years, as multiple towers of mediocre quality sprout like toadstools. At least one downtown neighbourhood is doing battle with a developer’s application to build a big-box store, the better, apparently, to serve the many new residents attracted to the area by its historic character.

Although a slowdown is, unfortunately, likely to hurt some of the high-quality new projects underway, there may be an upside to this downturn: the time to step back, take a breath and reflect on the recent changes, with the goal of defining some clear new directions for development, before the next, frantic, inevitable, boom arrives. Pauses like this should be used as timely opportunities to take stock — and avoid more blunders.

History provides some painful lessons when it comes to the alternative, short-term penny-pinching. Toronto was laid out by British officials, who set aside large tracts on and near the waterfront for public parks and gardens. Most major British colonial cities were similarly endowed. Today, these spaces, meant for repose of heart and mind, crucial in any great city, are nowhere to be seen — and there’s no getting them back. Piece by piece, they were sold off to meet immediate, mostly passing needs. It was easy money.

There are similar stories about grand avenues never built, historic landmarks demolished to make room for indifferent apartment slabs, major waterways needlessly degraded by expressways.

The irony is that the world’s richest urban centres — with the highest real estate values, the largest tourism, service and entertainment industries and the greatest concentrations of the professional knowledge that drives and protects a country’s competitive advantage— are found in cities that are jealous guardians of their built and natural spaces. They take the often uncomfortable steps necessary to ensure that more than money guides development.

All three levels of government should take the lesson. And then they should take the steps that will protect Toronto’s ambitious plans to transform itself into the compelling and beautiful city that Canada deserves. IE