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These are urban parks within city limits. Where you go for lunch during work hours or a quick run in the morning, not a day trip with the family.
Otherwise in and around Toronto there are a ton of lakes, waterfalls, and national parks. Everything from Niagra Falls to the 1,891,097 acre Algonquin National Park.
You said Toronto had better access to 'parks and nature.' That's patently untrue. The report you linked to was based on a faulty premise (parkland WITHIN city limits), which heavily biased toward Toronto which has over 5x the land area of San Francisco.
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area's 80,000 acres border the city of San Francisco
Gulf of Farallones National Marine Sanctuary's 800,000 acres border the city of San Francisco
Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary's 3,900,160 acres border the city of San Francisco
Angel Island State Park's 800 acres border the city of San Francisco
Point Reyes National Seashore's 71,000 acres are 30 minutes away
That is 150,000 acres of protected land within 30 minutes of San Francisco + 4,700,000 acres of protected marine land bordering San Francisco. This is not 'daytrip' parkland.
Toronto to Niagara Falls, by comparison, is 1 hour and 30 minutes by car. Algonquin Provincial Park is 3 hours away!! You aren't honestly comparing the two are you?
Toronto to Algonquin Provincial Park is the same distance as San Francisco to Yosemite National Park and the Sierra Nevadas. That's 5,000,000+ acres. But I'm not going to claim every California National Park within daytrip distance of San Francisco. That would be extremely unfair since Ontario can't really compete with Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Lake Tahoe, Redwood, Death Valley, Big Sur, Shasta-Trinity the Pacific Coast Mountains, etc etc.
Manitopiiia apparently sees it as his/her life's mission to "call out" Toronto "homers" on C-D.
That being said, SF is a beautiful city no doubt.
I never thought the Toronto fanboys would get so out-of-touch with reality that they would literally argue that Toronto beats San Francisco on access to nature and parkland.
Next they'll claim Toronto beats Honolulu on coral reefs and palm tree density.
2014. I went from NYC with my friend via megabus (I don't reccomend this. lol) to meet up with some friends of hers (that we met in NYC before) from there that were DJing at some club. Spent one weekend (3 days) there.
Don't get me wrong, I liked Toronto. I had a good time, and I know that it has grown a lot since then, but few cities have really, really impressed me like SF.
It would be cool to go back to Toronto in a few years and see how much it has changed, but to be completely honest, it's not on my highest priority of cities to revisit. I'm never doing that Megabus trip again, and if I have money for a flight I'm probably going to go somewhere else. However I have been dying to go back to SF though.
It seems like Toronto has been dominating the General US Forum for the past week or so though, in terms of number of threads, if that means anything.
I never thought the Toronto fanboys would get so out-of-touch with reality that they would literally argue that Toronto beats San Francisco on access to nature and parkland.
Next they'll claim Toronto beats Honolulu on coral reefs and palm tree density.
No you are putting words in my mouth.
By access to nature and parkland I meant within city limits. This is in the context of overall livability.
The data is per capita, so scale is irrelevant.
Places you want to go for a run or eat your lunch at work or relax and picnic when you're living in the city. I.e. the exact reason Central Park was created in NYC.
Taking day trips to parks at and beyond city limits to take in "nature" was not my point.
By access to nature and parkland I meant within city limits.
The data is per capita, so scale is irrelevant.
Places you want to go for a run or eat your lunch at work or relax and picnic when you're living in the city. I.e. the exact reason Central Park was created in NYC.
Taking day trips to parks at and beyond city limits to take in "nature" was not my point.
How is a 2 minute drive a "daytrip"? As I mentioned, Golden Gate National Recreation Area's 80,000 acres is a 2 minute drive from San Francisco. It literally rings the city and alone is 4x what Toronto offers. Many San Franciscans go there to jog, relax and picnic. Even by your own definition it should count.
By any objective measure, San Francisco's access to nature and parkland dwarfs what Toronto offers. It's jaw-dropping there are some Toronto fanboys trying to argue otherwise.
How is a 2 minute drive a "daytrip"? As I mentioned, Golden Gate National Recreation Area's 80,000 acres is a 2 minute drive from San Francisco. It literally rings the city and alone is 4x what Toronto offers. Many San Franciscans go there to jog, relax and picnic. Even by your own definition it should count. That is doesn't is a testament to you trying to bias a win for Toronto.
By any measure, San Francisco's access to nature and parkland dwarfs what Toronto offers.
This is comical.
San Francisco is not a green city, this struck me immediately when I was there two years ago from Vancouver.
This is a satellite photo of Toronto vs. San Francisco.
3D view:
This is what I mean by "access to parkland and nature".
Toronto is surrounded by big beautiful leafy trees, it surprises a lot of people who visit for the first time:
Meanwhile in San Francisco:
Last edited by Mr. Burns; 10-02-2016 at 10:10 PM..
^^ Toronto is not as dense as San Francisco, so of course it has a bigger tree canopy, especially in its suburban style developments.
I love the double standards. When Toronto is denser, the fanboys love to crow about how many tall buildings Toronto has and how dense and urban and "New York-lite" it is. So density is a plus when it benefits Toronto.
When Toronto is less dense, the fanboys love to tout how it has more trees. So lack of density is a plus when it benefits Toronto.
I also love that you zoomed in just on the 47 square mile city proper of San Francisco, so as to avoid showing all of the nature that surrounds the city.
^^ Toronto is not as dense as San Francisco, so of course it has a bigger tree canopy, especially in its suburban style developments.
I love the double standards. When Toronto is denser, the fanboys love to crow about how many tall buildings Toronto has and how dense and urban and "New York-lite" it is. So density is a plus when it benefits Toronto.
When Toronto is less dense, the fanboys love to tout how it has more trees. So lack of density is a plus when it benefits Toronto.
I also love that you zoomed in just on the city of San Francisco, so as to avoid showing all of the nature that surrounds the city:
Of course I zoomed in on the city of San Francisco, that's the topic of comparison.
"Surrounds" the city.
That's your key word.
I'm talking about the CITY.
Toronto has more highrises and a more impressive skyline than San Francisco, while at the same time it's much greener, air is cleaner, streets are cleaner, water is cleaner etc...
San Francisco proper in comparison is borderline dystopian.
But do tell us about the wineries and redwoods that surround the city. I'm sure that is a big impact on day to day quality of life.
Of course I zoomed in on the city of San Francisco, that's the topic of comparison.
"Surrounds" the city.
That's your key word.
I'm talking about the CITY.
Toronto has more highrises and a more impressive skyline than San Francisco, while at the same time it's much greener, air is cleaner, streets are cleaner, water is cleaner etc...
San Francisco proper in comparison is borderline dystopian.
But do tell us about the wineries and redwoods that surround the city. I'm sure that is a big impact on day to day quality of life.
Bahahahaha. I love how the city that is losing in a massive 38%-62% is so magically perfect on every measure.
And I love that San Francisco is "dystopian." The wealthiest city in North America, which anchors the world's greatest collection of hi-tech multinationals and has one of the most educated populations in the country. The average San Franciscan produces as much as 2 Torontonians. Not only that but San Francisco is the #1 city in terms of future outlook in the world, with Toronto at #18:
But please, tell me more about how perfect Toronto is because you have cookie-cutter value-engineered condos and suburban sprawl (built on the backs of the continent's highest household debt).
Global Companies HQed in "Borderline Dystopia" (aka San Francisco to everyone but Toronto fanboys)
Adobe Systems
Airbnb
Apple Inc. #9 in Global 500
Banana Republic
BitTorrent
Calico
Charlotte Russe
Chevron #31
Cisco Systems #183
Clorox
Del Monte
Disqus
Dolby Laboratories
Dropbox
eBay
Electronic Arts
Ericsson
Facebook
Gap Inc.
Genentech
Ghirardelli Chocolate Company
Gilead Sciences #316
Google #94
Häagen-Dazs
HP #48
Intel #158
Jamba Juice
Kaiser Permanente
Levi Strauss & Co.
LinkedIn
Lockheed Martin Space Systems
Logitech
LucasArts
Lyft
McKesson #12
Mozilla
Netflix
Netgear
North Face
Nvidia
Old Navy
Oracle #260
Pandora
PayPal
Pinterest
Pixar
Quora
Ross
Salesforce
SanDisk
Seagate Technology
Tesla Motors
Titan Aerospace
Twitter
Uber
Visa
Wells Fargo #67
Yahoo!
Yelp
YouTube
Not bad for dystopia, right Mr. Burns? What has Toronto contributed to the world? Drake and the near bankrupt Blackberry? I'm honestly curious because I can't think of a single major contribution Toronto has made to humanity. Which makes Torontonian hubris and smugness on these forums all the more vexing.
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