Toronto deserves a civic space with heart. Why can’t it fix Nathan Phillips Square?

There is a void at Toronto’s core. Its City Hall still looks like the future, and the adjacent Nathan Phillips Square should be humming. Instead the five-hectare open space, which turned 60 in September, has slumped into slow decay.

It’s not that no one’s noticed. The square has been designed and redesigned. What’s missing is execution and vision. City Hall hires designers, commissions plans, then abandons them.