After analyzing primary documents pertaining to the SkyDome, it is evident that this piece of urban infrastructure is not “useless”, as it does fulfill its proposed functions. It serves as a multi-sport complex, which provides a comfortable atmosphere for its athletes and audience. Toronto’s weather is not always predictable, thus having a retractable, domed stadium makes most sense for the city. Additionally, it is built to serve the needs of the Canadian Football League, Major League Baseball, and acts as a venue for concerts and other large events. The SkyDome has played host to the Grey Cup Finals, baseball’s World Series, and big name musicians such a Bruce Springsteen. It is evident that it is more than capable to have and maintain elite status. Similarly, the stadium is going to be used as the venue for the opening and closing ceremony for the 2015 Pan Am Games. This demonstrates how the stadium continues to be viable for the City of Toronto and is still an important piece of urban infrastructure.

            Moreover, this research is important because it not only provides a more in-depth historical context to Toronto’s SkyDome, but also explores and important aspects of building urban infrastructure. When a city is to build infrastructure, their proposals look at planning and building for the future. According to T.J Kent, cities must plan for the future, by taking any unforeseeable factors into account (for example, extreme weather). Additionally, the unforeseeable factors correlate to the “three basic physical elements of the urban environment,” which include land use, circulation, and public activities[1]. The SkyDome does take any unforeseeable factors into account, as the dome can eliminate the issue of inclement weather, and the fact that the stadium is a multi-complex allows for a variety of land uses. Similarly, unlike Olympic Stadium in Montreal, the roof/dome has been functioning well since its creation, and has yet to be replaced. This illustrates planning for the future, as Toronto learned from Montreal’s past mistakes, and in turn created a successfully operating retractable roof. An important question to take away from this blog is how does one plan for the future, or think of potential unforeseeable events? As stated earlier, the Canadian Football League was important to the City of Toronto in the 1980’s, thus planning to build a stadium to potentially host a National Football League team may have seemed farfetched. Similarly, the SkyDome was built with the latest technology and was deemed a state of the art stadium. Furthermore, another question one can think about is how far into the future do you plan? Do we build infrastructure with the intention of it being aesthetically pleasing in 50 years? Conversely, do we build infrastructure with the sole intention that it will be fully operational and requires minimal maintenance in a 50-year period? This demonstrates that although one can plan for the future, there will always be unforeseeable events or factors that may occur. Although the SkyDome may seem as an “obsolete” stadium in a 21st Century scope, it ultimately still serves its main purposes and is still an important piece of Toronto’s infrastructure.

 

[1] Kelly, E. “Planning, growth and Public Facilities: A Primer for Local Officials,” Washington: American Planning Association (1993): 1-10.