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-chicago felt more segregated, while toronto feels much more integrated. a nice guy that owned a t-shirt store in wicker park was saying how he and wife loved toronto and wishes chicago had more integration. the conversation was brought up when i asked him for directions to carribean restaurants which he said chicago doesn't really have that many, which then lead to him asking me where im from, and so on. another girl that was working in one of those hipster vintage clothing stores said something similar, but she was originally from nyc.
-chicago has a large domestic feel to it, while toronto has the international/ feel to it. similar to nyc. i largely seen white/african-american/hispanics, and little pockets of other races here and there. with toronto you see a little bit of everything.
-the loop/ and just north of the loop (mag mile are) was busy, but at night is was half empty at times nearly empty. it was very "commercial"/"corporate". what i mean is every corner had either a walgreens, dunkin donuts or a bank (yes i know walgreens calls chicago home). while in dt toronto, yes you get the commercial stuff, but its well integrated with everything else. mom and pop shops, dollar/convenience stores, chinese/sushi places, big and small businesses of all kinda.
-chicago has more "grand" or wider dt streets, while toronto has less (university, jarvis, spadina, etc). the rest of toronto’s dt streets are mainly 2 lanes in each direction. i liked the wider streets more, save certain streets which are one-direction like richmond, adelaide, etc.
-chicago has more homeless and crazy people and they were all over the trains, the streets, etc. toronto does have this as well, but not to the same extent.
-toronto has a better maintenance record for the streets, sideways, etc. i can’t count how many times i almost tripped while walking in north side and dt because the non-leveled blocks of concrete on the sidewalks.
-toronto suburbs are better maintained. the was A LOT of run down, rusty, not pleasant to look at places once you leave the loop. it was almost like night and day. toronto also has areas (east of dt for example) that are not in the greatest shape and are not kept up properly like outer parts of toronto, but it was worse in chicago.
-the double decker streets in chicago was nice, makes getting around much easier.
-despite what pictures say, dt chicago is not exactly bigger than toronto. walking from the john hancock tower/mag mile, to the sears tower area, is pretty much the same as walking from queens key up yonge all the way to bloor. the skyline of toronto is catching up in size to chicago. there may not be same amount of supertalls, but the scale in terms of how it stretches it is near identical. yes there are more buildings along the lake going north, but the same can be said for toronto going north along the yonge corridor. so speaking in terms of the dt skylines alone, the both stretch out about the same. chicago has this along the water, while toronto does this more so inwards from the lake towards bloor, in similar length.
-man the amount of big ugly parking garages in the the loop was pretty horrible to see.
-wicker park was very similar to queen st west. but queen st west in terms of things to see, do, eat, shop etc, is much longer better maintain, more attractive,, more diversified, etc than what was on milwaukee/damen/north ave. in chicago.
-while chicago has a great food scene, it wasn’t as diversified as what toronto has imo.
-the lakefront was very nice, but again, the gravel for joggers to run along as falling apart. different variations, cracks, holes etc right in the concrete. other than it was nice to walk along there. millennium park is already having some rust issues along its stairs and railing which i was surprised to see. i don’t even think the park is 10 years old yet. with all this said, toronto does not have an answer in terms of a large downtown park that can compete with this. but of course the toronto waterfront is completely being revitalized.
-citizens of the chicago were very polite and helpful. when asking for directions, etc people would stop to give you the full information that you require.
-buses were very clean (on the north side and loop and parts of the west side at least...never took any buses on the south side).
-i don’t care what anyone says about toronto’s streetcars. the are efficient and though they sometimes move slow in traffic, they get you to where you need to go. at 2 pm in the afternoon on a tuesday in chicago, i was waiting for a red line train at harrison to go to addison station to check out shedd and then walk along the lakefront. 20 minutes to wait for train is ridiculous, on a weekday afternoon....to travel one measly stop. and to add to that, there are a couple of loop stations that you could literally run from one to the next and probably beat the train. you could say the same thing for the streetcars in toronto, but at least the streetcars run more frequently.
-the el's train cars are small and narrow compared to toronto. i had to keep moving around a lot for people to get in and out of the train at several stops. put it this way. sitting in the l is sitting in a mid-side car. while sitting in a toronto subway felt like a large minivan or large suv. much much more spacious/roomy and welcoming. it was nice that there are more el "lines" the city to get you places, but when you factor in all the track sharing that takes place between certain lines (trains pass you, you wait more, etc), the amount of time to wait for trains during certain times, the l’s “slow zones”, trains holding less people, the fact that you're waiting outside for your train, etc. its pretty much the same as what toronto has which has less lines. you can definitely make an argument for toronto having a similar and maybe even the better overall transit system when taking EVERYTHING into consideration.
there was a similar amount of people on the streets in each city.
weather was similar.
^again, some of this stuff i knew already and/oir expected, but did not see it in person for myself until recently. there are more things i observed during my visit, but these are just a few that came off the top of my head.
Lots of "in my opinions" here. It comes off as very defensive.
They're both great cities. Having been to Toronto a couple of times -- relative to Chicago -- it seemed a bit smaller, and not terribly vibrant/dynamic. That said, in absolutes, Toronto is a dynamic, cosmopolitan, world city and the leading city in Canada. I recognized it for what it is and tried to enjoy it as such. Why the need to take passive-aggressive potshots at Chicago? They are both great cities, and frankly, they are somewhat peers.
Wow, that's great insight. Is this verified to be true? I had no idea that Toronto incorporated such a geographically vast area when compiling it CSA (MSA?). That's a *huge* area (2,750sqmi). If Chicago were to broaden its CSA to such a vast size, it would probably add another 2-3 million in population, right?
Say whaaaaa??? The Chicago MSA and CSA are both FAR larger in area than either Toronto's CMA or the GTA.
The Chicago CSA is 10,856 sq. miles!
Only the Greater Golden Horseshoe is comparable in size of area to The Chicago CSA.
Lots of "in my opinions" here. It comes off as very defensive.
They're both great cities. Having been to Toronto a couple of times -- relative to Chicago -- it seemed a bit smaller, and not terribly vibrant/dynamic. That said, in absolutes, Toronto is a dynamic, cosmopolitan, world city and the leading city in Canada. I recognized it for what it is and tried to enjoy it as such. Why the need to take passive-aggressive potshots at Chicago? They are both great cities, and frankly, they are somewhat peers.
I don't see anything passive aggressive about mrjun18's post? To me it seemed very well thought out and accurate based off of what many others have said when comparing the two cities.
I don't see anything passive aggressive about mrjun18's post? To me it seemed very well thought out and accurate based off of what many others have said when comparing the two cities.
Some of it was accurate, some of it was passive aggressive, some was just flat-out wrong.
I don't see anything passive aggressive about mrjun18's post? To me it seemed very well thought out and accurate based off of what many others have said when comparing the two cities.
I agree with you, I would love to know just what exactly came off as passive aggressive?
The issue with Chicago isn't decline or even that it is a bad city or anything of that sort. The issue with Chicago is that it has spent 160 years only having minimal American competition, minimal North American competition, minimal Western Hemisphere competition, and a manageable global competition.
Today the entire planet is improving by leaps and bounds. The United States is no longer such a special place anymore, lots of countries are making advancements rapidly, and entire cities are being built from ground up in a swift fashion. The competition is increasing incrementally each year. In 2010 New York was the 5th largest urban area on Earth, today it has fallen to 9th, next year it will fall out of the top 10 largest urban areas in the world. In 2010, Los Angeles was the 15th largest urban area on the planet, today it has dropped to 19th and next year will drop out of the top 20 largest urban areas in the world. In 2010 Chicago was the 25th largest urban area in the world, today it is sitting pretty at 37th, falling 3 spots just in the last 1 year and 12 spots in total in 4 years. Next year it will fall out of the world's top 40 largest urban areas. I'm not worried about New York and Los Angeles being passed in population because they are still in a higher league for importance but Chicago does not share that sort of advantage over other cities. It's population and importance is certainly passable.
At one time, Chicago proper was in the world's top 5 largest, today it isn't even in the world's top 90. Today it probably wouldn't even be in the world's top 100, it isn't in the top 88 right now, at least.
Now this is just population and not really importance. Chicago's importance is very high and it remains one of the world's premier cities. Even then, each year the field of competition grows for Chicago and that field of competition is growing more and more each year, even more cities are joining it every year. Chicago isn't exactly booming here, it isn't economically expanding fast enough, it isn't growing much, it isn't infilling as fast as several world cities, it isn't getting the same foreign investment or attention that it once used to.
Chicago in general is going to have to deal with increased competition, not just from Toronto and other American cities but from the world on over. So far, it hasn't responded to that call all that well, at least the last 15 years, especially the last 5. I can see Chicago's status begin to drop in a multitude of different metrics for world cities and other cities from all over the world replace it at those things.
Being in America is a great safe guard for Chicago. The lowest I can see it falling for importance there is 5th and even that would be arguable. Outside of America? The competition is rough and brutal for Chicago, it'll have a really hard time defending its elite global position that it's held for some 150 years.
I don't see my post as having anything to do with Chicago being a top 5 city in population/metro size or the fact that we're moving towards a much more multipolar world. It deals with Chicago having had a somewhat difficult time even in a local context and that it seems like there's a possibility of it doing much better for itself in the near future.
The idea of the balance of power shifting to several major players around the world is a foregone conclusion and there is little that the US can or even should do about that.
NOLA ... accept some statistics. Globally Chicago may be #7 global city in a Big Diverse World of many bigger cities.... and #9 in Global Finance that ROSE 3 POINTS THIS PAST YEAR INTO THE TOP 10.
IT STILL IS #3 IN THE NATION AND TOP 5 IN THE WORLD IN SOME SUB-SPACIFIC RANKINGS.
PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE IT HAS STILL A GLOBAL STATUS. ABOVE MOST US CITIES BUT NYC AND SF....
A.T. Kearney Global Cities 2015 Identifies 16 Elite Cities Based on Their Current... -- CHICAGO, May 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --
Economy CHICAGO... STILL has the MOST DIVERSIFIED ECONOMY in the Nation. No more then 14% in one industry of the city's workforce....
The 20 best cities for global finance GFCI index - Business Insider⤵
CHICAGO is 9th in the World for GLOBLAL FINANCE. That is ahead of LA (not even on the list) DC. Toronto and Boston yet. But SF just edged it out for 8th.
CHICAGO STILL DOES WELL IN FINANCIAL SECTORS.
The GAWC ranking of absolute financial
centers divided the industry into sub
sectors:
Financial Services, Top 5 Cities
1 New York
2 London
3 Chicago
4 San Francisco
5 Sydney
Banking, Top 5 Cities
1 New York
2 Chicago
3 Boston
4 Washington DC
5 London
Investment Banking, Top 5 Cities
1 New York
2 London
3 San Francisco
4 Chicago
5 Paris
Investment Management, Top 5 Cities
1 New York
2 London
3 San Francisco
4 Chicago
5 Boston
Capital Markets, Top 5 Cities
1 New York
2 London
3 Chicago
4 Mumbai
5 Toronto
NOLA.. YOU ALSO BRING IN NYC IN THREADS IT IS NOT A TOPIC.... This is RELAVENT IN WHY THE BUSINESS SECTOR OF THE WORLD.... DOES NOT SEE CHICAGO AS FLYOVER... Even if some Precocious New Yorkers might... in favor of LA and SF.
Chicago actually went up in many rankings, im not worried about it loosing importance. hell it is the architecture capital of the world and inventor of the skyscraper
I find Torontos central urban core area a more appealing place to live than Chicagos central urban core,
however, I find Chicago inner ring suburbs like Evanston and Oak Park to be lacking in Toronto, from what I know about it (however, I could be wrong - maybe they are there).
The idea of the balance of power shifting to several major players around the world is a foregone conclusion and there is little that the US can or even should do about that.
Sure there's still a lot America and others can do about that. It probably wont stop a place from being surpassed in population and possibly importance but at the very least there's a lot a place can do to further enhance its image at least.
It should be a priority to build a quality environment that people want to live in, visit, or do business in.
Ever since I moved to London, I've come to the conclusion that Chicago just has a godawful reputation out here in Europe. Just about all anyone here knows about the city other than it being large is that it has gang and crime issues. That is literally all anyone comments on about that city out here. I never see anyone with any interest to ever see it or even to respect it enough to ask what the city has to offer or what it is known for. I would imagine if these people visit Chicago that they would be pleasantly surprised but to visit a place, you need to have an interest in the place first, which I don't really see from most people here that I interact with at least.
My roommate for example makes fun of the United States all the time, often directly to me, just about anytime I walk into the room in the middle of the night after I get falafels, I always see the guy watching some deginerate home video movie of hoodlum things in the United States. Just last week the guy was trashing Atlanta after watching "Snow on tha Bluffs" the entire movie and trashing how ghetto and unsophisticated the people in Atlanta are off of a stupid home video. He does this frequently on Chicago too, he doesn't even have to try hard, there's like an eternity of videos on crime in Chicago and messed up things in Chicago and its literally everywhere all over the Internet. It isn't like you can defend the place either since the statistics paint the city off to be worse than it actually is and most people don't seem interested in knowing "but the crime is only concentrated in 30% of the neighborhoods, most people live in crime free or low crime areas," they just don't seem to care.
I think Chicago needs to 1) fix its public school systems (its awful, even worse than most other cities' inner city system); 2) reduce its crime rate to something people actually can respect; 3) increase funding in brand promotion, because whatever Chicago is spending now to get good publicity isn't working abroad here in the United Kingdom and it definitely doesn't work in Singapore.
All the other issues, including being more economically competitive or population growth should be secondary concerns, but Chicago needs to become an environment people actually respect, actually want to live in (people outside America I mean), and people actually want to visit or do business in.
University of Chicago and Northwestern University are two of the best schools on the entire planet, yet their student body population is incredibly domestic, with little appeal to foreigners relative to other California or Ivy League schools of the same tier. There is work to be done, Chicago misses out on so much potential.
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