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Your primary argument is lack of prewar structures, which is ridiculous. It's a copout argument to prop up these other cities who are quite frankly out of their league compared to Toronto. Lack of pre-war structures does not take away from Toronto's core.
I will take this time to mention that the distillery district has the largest continuous collection of Victorian architecture in North America. But I digress.
Toronto's core is significantly larger, more populated, and one of the densest. It is 4x the size of SF and even larger than Boston. It is highly residential as well as commercial, and very diverse in terms of its neighborhoods.
Nearly 800 people live in just one tower at Yonge and Bloor, and the number will grow to over 1200 when the supertall across the street is completed. No consider how many residential towers there are in downtown Toronto and how many are on the way. You're not going to match this with cities like Boston and San Francisco, let alone Minneapolis, no matter how many pre-war structures they have.
Yonge st. south of Bloor is continuously PACKED for over 12 blocks at almost all hours of the day:
It goes on for blocks and it's all organic. These are not seasonal tourists. These are residents. Where in SF do you have this street life?
Granted Yonge north of Dundas is not a particularly pretty street (nor is it among my favorites), but a redesign is in the development stages.
Here is the waterfront.
And countless other streets and neighborhoods.
Toronto's core only has NYC has its superior in North America as far as density, population, and vibrancy are concerned. Parts of the city (i.e. yonge south of Dundas) could have you swearing you're in NYC. It's just on a smaller scale.
The density of SF is over 18,000 p/sq mile. Boston is 13,500 with the suburbs of Somerville (19,000) and Cambridge (16,500).
OK, now this is completely absurd, and not based on anything. Toronto's core isn't even as nice as that of Montreal. Even Brooklyn alone is like 100x more urban/historic/charming than Toronto.
Overall, Toronto is about the size of Dallas, Detroit, Miami, Atlanta, Boston, Houston and the like, and has a smaller economy than like a dozen U.S. cities. It doesn't even have the cultural facilities of a Cleveland or Pittsburgh. It has less prewar legacy than a Buffalo.
Toronto forumers, I think more than those of any other city forumers on C-D, have absurd delusions of grandeur re. their city, and actual facts/data are of no use.
There are tons of great things about Toronto- the city is vibrant, booming, super diverse and condo towers going up everywhere. But the homerism is comically extreme, even for C-D.
Toronto on C-D in the American context is usually underrated and sold short.
Case in point your quotes:
Quote:
Originally Posted by NOLA101
Toronto isn't quite in these other cities' league.
and
Quote:
Originally Posted by NOLA101
Overall, Toronto is about the size of...Boston....
I have added the size of Boston's core in this video, and you can clearly see who's out of who's league.
Boston would get lost in Toronto. There are suburbs in Toronto with larger skylines than Boston.
Dallas, Detroit, Atlanta, and Houston are not like Toronto at all. Their cores are substantially smaller and are almost exclusively office buildings and parking lots.
Buffalo should not even be mentioned in the same sentence.
This is not boosterism, it's defense against absurd claims that would not be made if Toronto was an American city.
Sort if agree but....unfortunately must wary when comparing a Canadian coty with a US city...
two different countries with two different ways of capturing stats.
USA has MSA's and CSA's ....is a US city the same as a Canadian city CMA ?
...not sure, I suspect slightly different thresholds.
Same with GDP....US city GDP stat could include entire GDP for the gigantic CSA...
some CSAs cover a huge area, sometimes over 10,000 square miles. Canadian do not have
equivalent CSA measurements. For Toronto, I guess the so called Golden Horseshoe would
be similar to a CSA, not sure.
If they in the same country it would be much easier to make
a fair comparison.
I totally get what people are saying about how it can be difficult to compare Toronto + other Canadian cities to US cities, and I don't disagree. Especially when things like finance or economic power/relevance are brought up, but I think it works in the context of this thread since we're mainly only looking at built environment. I don't think that the fact that Toronto is in another country affects this thread topic too much. But I understand the general confusion with other types of threads.
The density of SF is over 18,000 p/sq mile. Boston is 13,500 with the suburbs of Somerville (19,000) and Cambridge (16,500).
What is Toronto's density?
Toronto's overall average density is 11,500 ppsm, but keep in mind that Toronto is 243 square miles with 2,800,000 people and that the city propers of SF and Boston are tiny in comparison. The old city of Toronto is 37.5 square miles (more comparable to SF and Boston) with a 2016 population of 800,000 and has a density of over 21,000 ppsm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Toronto
Agree SF is not any more urban than Toronto, but please do not compare Toronto with NYC, if you mean Manhattan. One a couple of streets yes, Toronto is more like Queens than Manhattan. Your video does remind me how unattractive Toronto is. And that was Yonge st. If you go on Church, Jarvis, Queen, Spadina etc, that's even worse.
Agree Toronto's core is not as nice (although bigger than) as Montreal. Toronto for reason lack ambition and sense of beauty, so it keeps producing mediocre landscape and architecture. But Brooklyin is 100X more urban? Now you are just being dramatic. What is 100x
Obviously comparing to Manhattan is just silly and even Brooklyn or The Bronx which I believe are unmatched in terms of urban-ness outside of Manhattan, although 100X may be a bit of a hyperbole.
But I've heard the Toronto/Queens comparison before and I actually think it makes a lot of sense. They have a lot of similarities in built environment with very urban high density neighborhoods mixed in with suburban-ish neighborhoods. Queens also has around the same overall density as old Toronto at around ~21K and somewhat close overall populations. Also both are extremely diverse and have around 50% foreign-born population.
I just think Toronto is more centralized and Queens is more scattered. But that's because Queens is NYC, so Manhattan serves the function as Queens' main city core.
Toronto on C-D in the American context is usually underrated and sold short.
Case in point your quotes:
and
I have added the size of Boston's core in this video, and you can clearly see who's out of who's league.
Boston would get lost in Toronto. There are suburbs in Toronto with larger skylines than Boston.
Dallas, Detroit, Atlanta, and Houston are not like Toronto at all. Their cores are substantially smaller and are almost exclusively office buildings and parking lots.
Buffalo should not even be mentioned in the same sentence.
This is not boosterism, it's defense against absurd claims that would not be made if Toronto was an American city.
Of course NOLA is out of his mind to say that Toronto isn't in those cities' league. Why, because it doesn't have great pre-war urban bones? That's like saying that Hong King is not in the same league as Stockholm because it wasn't a big city 70 years ago.
I do think Toronto posters need to have a thicker skin though. Not everyone is going to like your city. Some people, when they don't like a place, tend to develop a narrative that fits and reinforces their already-formed views. They will magnify its faults, minimize its assets and ignore facts and logic if they clash with their preconceived ideas. You see a few characters like that around here. I think it's best not to get worked up about it and just ignore them frankly.
Great videos of Toronto btw. Very impressive. An image is worth a thousand words -- I wish people posted more videos to back up their claims. There is no qustion that much of the older architecture in Toronto looks very ramshackle. Some run down retail corridors (even Yonge); block after block of ugly two-storey row homes right in the urban core; overhead wiring, etc. I think all this reveals a city that lacks the rich and illustrious legacy of the established US cities. There is no equivalent of Back Bay, Society Hill or Brownstone Brooklyn in Toronto, and it loses some points for that. But there is no denying the dynamism of Toronto and foolish to dismiss its explosive development in the last 10-15 years. I remember when I first started tracking skyscrapers in various cities on Emporis about 15 years ago Toronto had around 80 buildings over 295 feet/90 meters (the old threshold for "skyscraper"). Now it has over 330, and if you add Mississauga and other suburbs it's approaching 400. That's astonishing by any measure, but especially in the context of the urban stagnation that still plagues all too many cities in North America. I also love Toronto's urban diversity -- from posh Yorkville to the slick Financial District to the Waterfront to funky Kensington Market (one of the coolest and most unique neighborhoods in North America IMO). There is a lot to like about Toronto and I think it's definitely one of the most dynamic cities in North America.
250,000 people live in the 6.5 square miles that make up downtown Toronto for a density of 38,461 p/sq mile.
It is the largest downtown population of any city in North America outside of NYC.
Boston by comparison had 16,000 people living in its downtown from 2010 stats.
Toronto is aboutely more impressive from the sky. Boston is more impressive on foot. In my opinion as someone who has lived In both cities. I personally spend more time on my feet than my helicopter. Mr burns being the successful fella he is definitely is always in his personal helicopter, so I can't relate.
Toronto is aboutely more impressive from the sky. Boston is more impressive on foot. In my opinion as someone who has lived In both cities. I personally spend more time on my feet than my helicopter. Mr burns being the successful fella he is definitely is always in his personal helicopter, so I can't relate.
I think they have different strengths... In terms of aesthetics Boston wins hands down, but Toronto is much busier and gives off more of a big city feel -- would you agree?
I do think though that Boston often gets short shrift on city data. "It's too small" is all you hear over and over again. Well its skyline stretches for 2 miles -- that's the distance from the Waterfront to Bloor, i.e. almost entire Toronto CBD. On top of that of course Boston has (arguably) the most beautiful historic streetscape in North America. Back Bay, Beacon Hill, South End, Bay Village etc are freaking gorgeous. Toronto has absolutely no answer for this. Also, Mr Burns' reference to Boston's 16k downtown population was a bit disingenuous. In fact Boston's population in the inner 6-7 sq miles is around 150k. Maybe not quite Toronto's level, but no mean feat.
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