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View Poll Results: Best Urban Core?
Boston 25 15.43%
San Francisco 45 27.78%
Toronto 71 43.83%
DC 15 9.26%
Minneapolis 6 3.70%
Voters: 162. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 06-22-2017, 05:42 AM
 
Location: Windsor Ontario/Colchester Ontario
1,784 posts, read 2,195,565 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NOLA101 View Post
Minneapolis should not be in the conversation.

And I have no clue why Toronto is leading the polling. SF and DC definitely have better cores, and Boston probably has a better core.

Toronto was a small city until recently, so doesn't have particularly good urban bones. SF, DC and Bos have much better urban streetscapes.
You seem to have no clue about a lot of things! If anything, you are consistent, lol.
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Old 06-22-2017, 09:18 AM
 
2,829 posts, read 3,149,745 times
Reputation: 2266
Quote:
Originally Posted by North 42 View Post
You seem to have no clue about a lot of things! If anything, you are consistent, lol.
He basically picked one of the most boring office districts (Bay & Bloor) and used that to generalize the whole city. Sorry, but taking trip on Google Maps doesn't qualify as having actually lived and experienced a city.

Sure Toronto has a ton of brutalist architecture from the 60s, 70s, and 80s - large apartment and office blocks built to accommodate a large number of people. It's a large city of close to 3 million residents in the city proper, and not every building is a gleaming piece of architectural masterpiece. At the same time, many neighborhoods are exemplary forms of urban planning, mixing mid to high density residential with transit-oriented development and preservation of all of its 11 historic streetcar lines (the 504 King Streetcar Line alone carries 25 million passengers / yr, exceeding entire subway lines in some U.S. metros).

One street behind those brutalist architecture on Bloor you have this:



And this:



And this (Four Seasons Flagship Hotel and Global HQ):



Dude also seem to have forgotten Queen West (one of the longest continuous urban retail streets in North America, and the longest urban streetcar line in the world at 15.4 miles):



Or Spadina Chinatown:


Last edited by bostonkid123; 06-22-2017 at 09:48 AM..
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Old 06-22-2017, 01:56 PM
 
615 posts, read 593,495 times
Reputation: 237
Quote:
Originally Posted by NOLA101 View Post
IMO Toronto isn't even in the same ballpark as SF.

Toronto was like smaller than Buffalo 50 years ago. It doesn't really have much of a prewar streetscape. It has single family homes, with yards, right in the city center. It has almost no historic highrises of note, no iconic places.

Toronto has a TON of condo towers, That would be its major asset. But they tend to be banal, and scattered about the metro. Besides condo construction, I can't think of any other way Toronto would even be close to SF, which has much older, tighter, denser, more urban core built form.

And DC probably has the second most iconic core in the Americas, after NYC. DC is like packed with iconic urban attractions.

Boston probably has one of the top three downtowns in the U.S. in terms of quality and cohesiveness. Really only NYC and Philly have higher quality, more cohesive cores.

This is the best part of the premiere street in Toronto. It's like the 5th Ave/57th Street of Canada. Note the banal appearance. The narrow sidewalks, brutalist highrises, weak streetscape.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6695...7i13312!8i6656

This is just blocks from the downtown core. It looks like a wealthy U.S. suburb, far from the center, but you're easy walking distance from the busiest subway hub in the city.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6747...7i13312!8i6656

Now compare the first pic to Newbury Ave. or Boyleston St.in Boston, CT or PA Ave in DC or Market Street in DC. Then compare the second pic to Back Bay or Beacon Hill in Boston, Nob Hill or Russian Hill or Pacific Heights in SF or Dupont Circle or Georgetown in DC .

These would be apples-to-apples comparisons, and I don't think Toronto looks particularly good compared to the others. It's too young, too raw, too banal.
Haha TD Bank on Boyleston St. in Boston

https://www.google.ca/maps/@42.35066...7i13312!8i6656

But anyways that's similar to King St. W in Toronto:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.64163...7i13312!8i6656

You underestimate the size and diversity of Toronto's core. It blows all these other cities out of the water.
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Old 06-22-2017, 04:24 PM
 
4,087 posts, read 3,200,597 times
Reputation: 3048
Quote:
Originally Posted by NOLA101 View Post
IMO Toronto isn't even in the same ballpark as SF.

These would be apples-to-apples comparisons, and I don't think Toronto looks particularly good compared to the others. It's too young, too raw, too banal.
I find when the group of them come in a thread? It is best to avoid further opinion. You will be the one that gets in trouble. You made your opinion known. I avoid typing in Toronto in any thread now? Just better that way....
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Old 06-22-2017, 04:53 PM
 
1,669 posts, read 4,224,099 times
Reputation: 977
Quote:
Originally Posted by NOLA101 View Post
IMO Toronto isn't even in the same ballpark as SF.

Toronto was like smaller than Buffalo 50 years ago. It doesn't really have much of a prewar streetscape. It has single family homes, with yards, right in the city center. It has almost no historic highrises of note, no iconic places.

This is the best part of the premiere street in Toronto. It's like the 5th Ave/57th Street of Canada. Note the banal appearance. The narrow sidewalks, brutalist highrises, weak streetscape.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6695...7i13312!8i6656

This is just blocks from the downtown core. It looks like a wealthy U.S. suburb, far from the center, but you're easy walking distance from the busiest subway hub in the city.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6747...7i13312!8i6656
Amazing. After all these years you still haven't learned anything about Toronto?

50 years ago Toronto was much bigger than Buffalo.

Toronto had an impressive skyline of pre-war skyscrapers by 1940 and most of those historic towers still exist to this day. The Royal York Hotel, The Canada Life Building, Commerce Court North, Old City hall and Union Station all count as iconic historic structures to anyone who lives in or is familiar with Toronto.

Toronto has a prewar streetscape covering about 50 square miles and had a million people by WW2, and it's prewar urban fabric is almost fully intact and is currently densifying.

That's not the best part of the premiere street, you purposely linked to the most unattractive spot on the corner of Bay and Bloor. The beautiful Yorkville neighbourhood is just a block to the North of Bloor.

You linked to a street in Rosedale, which is a 100 year old planned garden suburb of Edwardian mansions just to the Northeast of Yorkville. Rosedale is an old money enclave ringed by ravines and is hardly a typical neighbourhood for being that close to downtown Toronto. Most residential streets with houses that close to downtown consist of row housing and semi-detached houses.

Besides, even without all of the prewar urban fabric, Toronto would still have the biggest, most dense and BIG CITY feeling core out of all of these cities just based on the sheer scale of the place and the amazing, never ending urban growth that is constantly transforming the core.


Watch this in full screen to get the full effect.

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Old 06-22-2017, 05:12 PM
 
1,669 posts, read 4,224,099 times
Reputation: 977
Yep, not much of a prewar streetscape here!

West Queen West
https://goo.gl/maps/y942cquvgsx

Dundas West (Little Portugal)
https://goo.gl/maps/R9mb5Ms9o2C2

College
https://goo.gl/maps/DUaHRc2rdq82

Bloor West (Bloordale)
https://goo.gl/maps/S8tVEYKj6up

Roncesvalles (Little Poland)
https://goo.gl/maps/LuGLrYS6w4S2

Dundas West (The Junction)
https://goo.gl/maps/aVfcKpB9dLJ2

Ossington
https://goo.gl/maps/GHVPrBRSm5F2

King West (Parkdale)
https://goo.gl/maps/qjKzz91ptTU2

Queen East (Riverside)
https://goo.gl/maps/bdCbN7HUvCM2

Gerrard Street East (Little India)
https://goo.gl/maps/hSKhdQndKdP2

Danforth Avenue (Greektown)
https://goo.gl/maps/X5vd1tjZYJ12

Bloor West (Koreatown)
https://goo.gl/maps/2vbQ32oGdMn

Queen East (The Beach)
https://goo.gl/maps/sUuMrsZj8Ln

St. Clair Avenue West (Corso Italia)
https://goo.gl/maps/MCkcHTeJVcJ2

Spadina Road (Spadina Village)
https://goo.gl/maps/LKzAUEysDf62

Oakwood Avenue (Oakwood Village)
https://goo.gl/maps/PiLPh2Va11A2

Dupont Street
https://goo.gl/maps/vpWJRZ299x42

Eglinton Avenue West (Little Jamaica, York)
https://goo.gl/maps/K1gnqKJ2xnF2

North Avenue Road
https://goo.gl/maps/a3AvD13SuS72

North Yonge Street (uptown Toronto)
https://goo.gl/maps/7iwMyiK3JEA2

Mount Pleasant Road
https://goo.gl/maps/cEFfeK7GRVu

Bayview Avenue (Leaside)
https://goo.gl/maps/M9w64K1qDcJ2

Pape Avenue (Pape Village, East York)
https://goo.gl/maps/gASqPyXuX4T2

Main Street
https://goo.gl/maps/AjuGVHEMAfn

Coxwell Avenue
https://goo.gl/maps/B3UVS9CCqcK2

Kingston Road
https://goo.gl/maps/2K34iPVT5Qo

Broadview Avenue (Chinatown East)
https://goo.gl/maps/J3MC5zvgLt42

Bloor Street West (Bloor West Village)
https://goo.gl/maps/9ifHJNAQB1F2

Lakeshore Blvd (New Toronto, Etobicoke)
https://goo.gl/maps/Zsft5C6urp72

Weston Road (Weston, York)
https://goo.gl/maps/UU7uW587zBH2
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Old 06-22-2017, 05:21 PM
 
1,669 posts, read 4,224,099 times
Reputation: 977
More:

https://goo.gl/maps/CkLBzrPZwx32

https://goo.gl/maps/JNx4Md3cCZq

https://goo.gl/maps/tQmchRC4f372

https://goo.gl/maps/chBYaou4t712

https://goo.gl/maps/KxTfkb4RiZU2

https://goo.gl/maps/xVX7rtttGJx


Toronto 1930 - population 850,000 (within present municipal boundaries)



1940 - population 950,000 (within present municipal boundaries)


1940 Aerial View Of Downtown Toronto .... Toronto, Ontario, Canada by Greg's Southern Ontario, on Flickr
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Old 06-22-2017, 06:37 PM
 
3,733 posts, read 2,843,733 times
Reputation: 4903
I know City vs. City includes all of North America, but Toronto is in a different country, and is THE major city in Canada. In my opinion, I don't think it should be compared to US cities, unless it's our major city, which is NYC. It's never compared to NYC, because there is no comparison. SO, it gets added to comparisons of smaller US cities. Can't say why, but it's a little like comparing apples to oranges. If Toronto was in the US, it wouldn't be as important as it is in Canada. But, there's nothing in Canada to compare it to, hence threads like this......
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Old 06-22-2017, 07:52 PM
 
615 posts, read 593,495 times
Reputation: 237
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atticman View Post


Watch this in full screen to get the full effect.

Toronto is just incredible. Boston, lol.
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Old 06-22-2017, 07:59 PM
 
3,733 posts, read 2,843,733 times
Reputation: 4903
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Burns View Post
Toronto is just incredible. Boston, lol.
Your comment is exactly why I posted....what I posted. I couldn't have asked for a better post, to follow mine.
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