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In Toronto, the "inner ring" suburbs were those that were part of the two-tier Metropolitan Toronto government established in 1953 which was abolished in 1998, establishing the single City of Toronto (they include York, East York, North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke). The "inner ring" suburbs were mostly built up from the 1920s to 1970s.
Given that they've long been under the metropolitan government (Toronto didn't magically become a "megacity" over night, it was arguably a city with a borough system since the 1950s), the "boroughs" have both "urban" and "suburban" characteristics, kind of akin to say, Queens and Staten Island, L.A.'s San Fernando Valley or London's outer boroughs.
The "outer ring" is also known as the "905" region and includes Mississauga, Brampton, Markham, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Oakville, etc. Mostly built up from the 1970s on and still expanding today.
I think places like Aurora, Newmarket and Georgetown (maybe even Ajax, Pickering, Oakville and Milton) could be considered a separate ring.
You could have
1st ring = streetcar suburbs, in Old Toronto and also East York, York, Etobicoke
2nd ring = rest of the 416
3rd ring = Mississauga, Brampton, Vaughan, Markham, Richmond Hill
4th ring = most of the rest of 905
5th ring = exurbs? (Erin, Tottenham, Acton, Uxbridge, etc)
NYC doesn't have a coherent ring structure, but if you stick to the NJ side, you have some distinct bands:
1) The very dense towns and cities of Hudson County (Jersey City, Hoboken, etc)
1a) The so-called Gold Coast of Bergen County (could be considered part of the first band)
2) Newark, Elizabeth and their inner suburbs
3) The suburbs of western Essex county, parts of Union county, parts of Middlesex county, and the rest of Bergen county
4) Morris, Somerset, far Passaic, Monmouth counties.
After that you're not really in the NYC area any more, except for the oddity of a few towns along the Northeast Corridor which based on train commute time, belong to 4. The rings are differentiated largely by commute time to Manhattan, except band 2 which is mostly differentiated from 3 by socioeconomic factors.
According to the Regional Plan Association (which includes 31 counties), the "core" includes NYC minus Staten Island, Hudson County and Newark.
The inner ring includes Nassau, southern Westchester, Bergen, southern Passaic, suburban Essex, Union and Staten Island.
An intermediate ring includes western Suffolk, northern Westchester, southern Fairfield, Rockland, northern Passaic, Morris, Somerset, Middlesex, Monmouth and Mercer.
The outer ring is basically exurbia - Putnam, Dutchess etc.
This is from the book, New York: The Politics of Regional Development, by Michael Danielson and Jameson Doig.
A simpler definition is found here, with NYC as the core, the inner suburbs consisting of Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Nassau, Passaic, Union and Westchester, and the rest of the MSA constituting the outer suburbs.
Montreal: the inner ring suburbs are those on the island and Laval (except one can argue that Westmount is essentially in the core), the off-island suburbs are the outer ring.
Vancouver: The transit system places the inner ring suburbs in Zone 2: Burnaby, New Westminster, North Vancouver, West Vancouver and Richmond.
Pittsburgh, along with Boston, is one of the cities which experienced relatively decentralized development. The large number of hills in the area focused early development along the rivers, in 19th century mill towns, some of which ended up within the city, and others of which ended up remaining independent. Then there were of course the streetcar suburbs, most of which are inside the city, but some of which were also independent boroughs. Finally there were the early suburban areas, which are mostly found outside of the city, but in some cases are inside city limits.
To give you an idea of how varied the first ring of municipalities surrounding Pittsburgh is, here are links to a bunch of streetviews.
I could have easily linked to twice as many boroughs and townships - there are just that many in Allegheny County. You can see though they vary in terms of construction from 1890s to 1960s. There's really no general theme.
Montreal: the inner ring suburbs are those on the island and Laval (except one can argue that Westmount is essentially in the core), the off-island suburbs are the outer ring.
Vancouver: The transit system places the inner ring suburbs in Zone 2: Burnaby, New Westminster, North Vancouver, West Vancouver and Richmond.
I would say that Longueuil and maybe a few of the adjacent suburbs like Saint-Lambert and Le Moyne could be considered more inner ring than Laval.
Using the whole island as inner ring makes things simple, but those areas are pretty varied. Although the West Island communities were built up at a similar time to those in North/East, they are pretty different in built form and socio-economically. West Island is mostly low density SFH and upper middle class, while the other post-WWII communities in the middle (Saint Laurent and Lasalle) and Northeast of the island are more lower middle class and quite dense.
Pittsburgh, along with Boston, is one of the cities which experienced relatively decentralized development.
Hmm. I wouldn't have considered Boston's development that decentralized. Density decreases and housing style change rather consistently going outward with the center. Past a certain point, you might run into older small cities (Waltham, Salem, etc. further more "real cities" such as Lowell). Except they're not really as intensively development as the central neighborhoods of Boston and when developed weren't really part of Boston's urban area —*later suburbanization engulfed them.
For Boston I'd say the inner ring is everything inside I-95 / SR-128 as well as the towns right next to the highway. Outer ring everything outside, excluding old cities.
Last edited by nei; 10-04-2014 at 09:50 AM..
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