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Did stagnant in the 70s and 80s, but no decline. Toronto isn't really that old anyway; it's much newer than Chicago. Parts of the south and west sides of Chicago have seen abandonment, I don't think that has happened at all in Toronto.
Quote:
Originally Posted by memph
Toronto is much newer than Chicago so obviously it won't have nearly as many pre-WWII buildings and even relatively few impressive post-WWII skyscrapers.
Can someone explain to me why I keep reading the bolded above? Toronto was incorperated as a city March 6, 1834, and Chicago was March 4, 1837. So, they're pretty much the same age, even as far as settlement goes. Or is everyone refering to what BIMBAM wrote below?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BIMBAM
What Chicago has going for it is that it's been abig city for much longer,
Can someone explain to me why I keep reading the bolded above? Toronto was incorperated as a city March 6, 1834, and Chicago was March 4, 1837. So, they're pretty much the same age, even as far as settlement goes. Or is everyone refering to what BIMBAM wrote below?
I'm referring to it being a large city for a much shorter time. The region had 1.3 million in 1951, less than a quarter of today. Chicago's metro less than doubled.
Population of city of Toronto in 1950 in current city limits was 1.2 million, Chicago was 3 times bigger; now they are both comparable within the same area.
Toronto has a nice skyline but Chicago is another level and the idea that the gap is "rapidly closing" is naive. I am sure any intelligent person from Toronto who has ever been to Chicago -- and who isn't a desperate homer -- would agree with that.
I remember the first time I went to both. It was years ago, I was still a teenager and they were the first two great North American cities I ever visited. I liked Toronto a lot, nice skyline and all.... But when I saw Chicago a few weeks later I had to pick up my jaw from the floor. Different scale. I literally walked around with my mouth open (and a camera glued to my hand) for 3 days. Now granted that was a long time ago and Toronto's skyline has mushroomed since then... but so has Chicago's (notwithstanding the last 2 years). So until we see another sixty or so 500 footers in Toronto, any talk of a "rapidly closing" gap is premature.
Agreed... AND, I'm saying that as a Toronto lover who's been to visit my friends there many times, and is mutually impressed with Toronto's building boom.
I just think it's just hard for some who haven't been to Chicago (or seen it from all its angles) to really appreciate the vastness of its skyline.
And that's not including the numerous high rises streaking off into the north and south side shoreline neighborhoods.
BUT, because I also love Toronto, here's a recent look at TO's skyline from roughly the same distance as the first Chicago photo:
Both immensely beautiful cities. I just think the scale of density, height of Chicago's buildings and unique architectural styles showcased put it a small notch above.
Toronto's total urbanized area is the densest in the U.S. and Canada with an average density of 7000 people per sq. mi. Chicago's urbanized area comes in at 3,400 people per sq. mi. - less than half that of Toronto.
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I'm sorry, but stating that Toronto's "Urbanized" area (basically a glorified term for metro) is more dense than Chicago's "Urbanized" area, isn't saying much. You're pretty much stating that Toronto's Suburbs are more dense than Chicago's, which I definitely won't deny. Toronto has always been better at spreading itself out population-wise. However, that doesn't make Toronto a more dense city than Chicago, or NYC for that matter... It makes it a city with a more even and spread-out level of density throughout the city (i.e., fewer spikes and dips in density levels throughout the measured area).
Considering the fact that TO's Metro population is 6.4 M, Chicago's 9.7 M and NYC's 20.6 M.
This average density rate that you're citing for TO's Metro area (7,300) is actually a very low number for density in terms of large cities (which averages between 50,000-100,000+ ppsm.), and I'm sure TO's density rate increases if you were to measure JUST the city.
Second, TO's measured area (880 sq mi) is much smaller than either NYC's or Chicago's (4,495 and 2,647 miles respectively). All I'm getting at here, is your source material isn't a reliable source to determine city densities. Rather, it's determining metro densities, which isn't the same conversation.
If that's what you were going for, then great... I'm just not sure it means what you think it does.
See this brief overview of U.S. city density tracts for how that varies within city limits: What are America
Would be interested to see the same map for Toronto.
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Chicago had 385,000 jobs in one square mile in the loop, and 210,000 jobs in the additional 5 surrounding miles. 1990 numbers in that link, doesn't have numbers for an extended downtown of Toronto. Metro-wise, Chicago may be less centralized as the Toronto metro is smaller overall.
Ah was wondering. Couldn't find numbers on Old Toronto.
Quote:
Originally Posted by memph
Toronto is much newer than Chicago so obviously it won't have nearly as many pre-WWII buildings and even relatively few impressive post-WWII skyscrapers.
Although Toronto does have about twice as many highrises (12storey+), I do agree that the downtown skyline does currently feel smaller. However, I don't think it's innappropriate to say that it's rapidly catching up or at least rapidly closing the gap. According to skyscraperpage, Toronto has 28 500ft+ buildings, of those 18 were built between 2005 and 2012. That's not even the most impressive part though, proposals in the last couple years have gotten taller, and there are 16 500 footers under-construction and 53 proposed. Most of the under construction buildings will probably be completed within 3 years or so, but I think a majority of the ones proposed will be completed quite soon too (say 5-7 years). Within the next decade, I could see dozens more built that haven't even been proposed yet if the boom continues or even if it slows down a little.
The big megaprojects that have recently been announced will probably take a while to be built, maybe a decade, and maybe not all of them will get built. These are 1 Yonge, 45 Bay, Holt Renfrew Tower, Oxford Place and the Gehry-Mirvish project which include a combined 10 towers in the 800-1100 ft range plus a couple smaller 500-800ft ones. However, out of the other 40 or so proposals in the 500-800ft range, I think most of them will get started within a couple years, and be completed 3-4 years from their start date. I don't think it's unrealistic to expect Toronto's number of 500ft+ buildings to increase from 28 today to around 80 six years from now. How many projects does Chicago have that are 500ft+ and at least in the proposal stages? If Toronto goes from barely on Chicago's radar in 2005 to having 2/3 as many 500ft towers in 2018, I would consider that to be closing the gap pretty fast, considering how fast cities usually change. I think it's a bit ridiculous to expect a massive skyline to pop up in 2 years to be considered "rapidly catching up".
If Toronto builds as much in one decade as Chicago built in the last three, that wouldn't be considered rapidly catching up? Even Shanghai is only building about 50 500ft+ towers per decade.
If we're talking about the state of affairs right now though, looking at what's currently on the ground, I would give it to Chicago.
Toronto does have a few advantages though, in addition to better connectivity to surrounding neighbourhoods, I do think that the residential density around downtown is higher. For Chicago, I got 29,000 ppsm for the area between the lake and river from South Loop to North Avenue (not including the census tract West of Larrabbee that includes Goose Island). This is a relatively small area (3.6 sq mi, smaller than the 5 sq mi used for downtown Toronto), but I don't think expanding the boundaries in any direction will increase the density. Chicago does have many of it's densest census tracts outside of this area, although Toronto is not entirely different, 3 of the 5 densest census tracts are in North York along Yonge Street. These are all above 100,000 ppsm.
Does anyone have any figures for job density? I think downtown Toronto has about 450,000 jobs in that 5 sq mi area, although the job density is much higher in certain parts of the downtown, especially the financial district.
And does anyone have any evidence for Toronto's employment being less centralized? I don't think Chicago and Toronto are all that different in that regard.
By the way, the former city of Toronto (pre-1998 amalgamation) did lose population from 1971 to 1981, going from 713k to 599k. This area is all pre-WWII, and includes maybe around 70% of the pre-WWII urban area. The former city has been gaining population for every other decade since WWII, although at a slower rate than that big population loss. I'm not sure what caused the loss since urban renewal had slowed down by then and there wasn't really any abandonnement, maybe decreasing household sizes? The 70s population loss was masked if you look at the current city limits though, since these include a lot of suburban areas that were developed after WWII. In fact, the NW corner of Toronto's city limits still had greenfield development a couple years ago. There's still a patch of farmland there, but I'm not sure if there are plans to develop it.
I wouldn't be surprised if the homes in Chicago (especially North side) are more spacious too, so the residential density of these areas might not be as high as you'd expect given the built density when comparing them to Toronto's equivalent neighbourhoods where the rowhouses are quite narrow and often have basement apartments.
Allow me to be of some assistance for updated Chicago CBD numbers, pasted from another post on a U.S. thread.
Chicago's CBD by the numbers (just The Loop alone, which for those on here who are unfamiliar with Chicago, only encompasses roughly 1/3 of the overall Downtown area):
Consider that since 2012, over 5 million sq feet of office space has either been added or is currently under construction, so you can now bump that aforementioned number up to 148 million square feet of office space in the just Chicago CBD. (Increase that to over 450 Million sq ft if you include all of Chicagoland.)
Also, "nearly 542,000 people held private-sector positions [in] downtown [Chicago] as of March [2014]" Source: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...rough-downtown. Anyone who knows CBD employment/sizes in the U.S. understands that this is hundreds of thousands of more jobs than Philly (or SF for that matter).
Philly's CBD has just 90 million sq feet of office space, and its construction pace is nowhere close to Chicago's. Those numbers alone should show how mistaken you are in your assumption about CBD rankings.
In terms of future residential growth, see this stat recently thrown out by the Census Bureau: "the Census Bureau reported in 2012 that Chicago gained more people within two miles of City Hall—48,288, or 36.2 percent—than any other American city, including New York, in the previous decade, in both absolute and percentage terms (Source: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...agos-mega-loop).
Location: East Central Pennsylvania/ Chicago for 6yrs.
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The debate continues with Torontonians NEED to proclaim overtaking Chicago? Whether it's population, or here by density?
IN A STEP IN THE NEVERENDING SAGA OF ITS.... "DREAM OF BECOMING CANADA'S NYC OF THE NORTH"...... on C-D anyway?
Houstonians also, long for the (years ahead if it comes) for the day it overtake Chicago proper too. May as well bring in Washington DC also. They long to overtake Chicago's whole Metro also? To proclaim being the USA's 3rd city.
Pride in ones city isn't bad. I have pride in my adopted hometown as I call it, of Chicago. Though I merely lived there for a few years in my past. It remains my favorite Big city. I merely find myself defending it on C-D, by those wanting to proclaim there city is better, has more this and that? Or have a aim to lessen it or demean its value.
Well one thing I like about Toronto's downtown is that the surrounding neighborhoods blend more seamlessly into the central business district than they do in Chicago. Aside form the Gold Coast on the north side of downtown, the neighborhoods surrounding downtown Chicago feel cut of from the city core. This gives Toronto the advantage of being more walkable.
Chicago's advantage over Toronto is the great lakefront parkland adjacent to downtown. Toronto's lakefront is pretty weak, at least in the downtown area. Chicago also has much more attractive buildings.
This is a good assessment. Chicago's downtown architecture is more impressive than Toronto, and they've done a better job with their lakefront. Chicago has kind of a Midtown Manhattan surrounded by Cleveland feel. I think cities like Boston, Philadelphia and yes, Toronto, have a better downtown-to-urban neighborhood transition.
I'm sorry, but stating that Toronto's "Urbanized" area (basically a glorified term for metro) is more dense than Chicago's "Urbanized" area, isn't saying much. You're pretty much stating that Toronto's Suburbs are more dense than Chicago's, which I definitely won't deny. Toronto has always been better at spreading itself out population-wise. However, that doesn't make Toronto a more dense city than Chicago, or NYC for that matter... It makes it a city with a more even and spread-out level of density throughout the city (i.e., fewer spikes and dips in density levels throughout the measured area).
Considering the fact that TO's Metro population is 6.4 M, Chicago's 9.7 M and NYC's 20.6 M.
This average density rate that you're citing for TO's Metro area (7,300) is actually a very low number for density in terms of large cities (which averages between 50,000-100,000+ ppsm.), and I'm sure TO's density rate increases if you were to measure JUST the city.
Second, TO's measured area (880 sq mi) is much smaller than either NYC's or Chicago's (4,495 and 2,647 miles respectively). All I'm getting at here, is your source material isn't a reliable source to determine city densities. Rather, it's determining metro densities, which isn't the same conversation.
If that's what you were going for, then great... I'm just not sure it means what you think it does.
See this brief overview of U.S. city density tracts for how that varies within city limits: What are America
Would be interested to see the same map for Toronto.
Very few cities average around 50-100k ppsm, at least if we're talking metro areas. Even if we're talking city proper though, it's basically just Paris and Hong Kong (if you exclude undeveloped parts), and then Seoul, Athens and Barcelona come close. Other than that it's mostly just third world cities, mostly in South Asia.
London, Tokyo, New York, Chicago, LA, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, Berlin, Buenos Ares... they're all less dense.
Anyways, I'm not sure how you want to measure density, but by most measures Toronto is about as dense if not denser, at least for residential population density.
Urban area? Toronto is denser
City proper? About the same
Inner core? Also about the same
Toronto has more people living in census tracts with very high residential population densities (40k+ ppsm). Chicago makes up for it by having a bit more census tracts in the 20-40k range, but overall I'd say they're in the same ball park.
As I said though, that's for residential population density. Chicago might have smaller household sizes in the densest part of the city (north side), and this doesn't take into account job density which is probably higher in Chicago's Loop than in Downtown Toronto.
Anyways, as I said, I'd agree Chicago's skyline is currently more impressive and iconic. It also helps that the tallest buildings are more spread apart, while Toronto's are all in the Financial District although that's starting to change. Toronto is catching up in terms of 500+ footers, although at the current rate it will take about 10-12 years to catch up and that's assuming things don't slow down in Toronto and don't pick up in Chicago.
Allow me to be of some assistance for updated Chicago CBD numbers, pasted from another post on a U.S. thread.
Chicago's CBD by the numbers (just The Loop alone, which for those on here who are unfamiliar with Chicago, only encompasses roughly 1/3 of the overall Downtown area):
Consider that since 2012, over 5 million sq feet of office space has either been added or is currently under construction, so you can now bump that aforementioned number up to 148 million square feet of office space in the just Chicago CBD. (Increase that to over 450 Million sq ft if you include all of Chicagoland.)
Also, "nearly 542,000 people held private-sector positions [in] downtown [Chicago] as of March [2014]" Source: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...rough-downtown. Anyone who knows CBD employment/sizes in the U.S. understands that this is hundreds of thousands of more jobs than Philly (or SF for that matter).
Philly's CBD has just 90 million sq feet of office space, and its construction pace is nowhere close to Chicago's. Those numbers alone should show how mistaken you are in your assumption about CBD rankings.
In terms of future residential growth, see this stat recently thrown out by the Census Bureau: "the Census Bureau reported in 2012 that Chicago gained more people within two miles of City Hall—48,288, or 36.2 percent—than any other American city, including New York, in the previous decade, in both absolute and percentage terms (Source: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...agos-mega-loop).
I doubt Philly's CBD has 90 million sf of office space, most reports seem to show it having around half that.
Anyways, none of this really disproves anything that I've said. I never said Toronto had as much downtown office space or employment. I said that the percentage of metro area jobs/office space in Downtown is similar. The GTA is smaller, so it's only normal that the downtown would also have less jobs/office space. That doesn't make Toronto less centralized.
As for growth within 2 miles of City Hall, I calculated something similar for Toronto, the population growth within 2 miles of First Canadian Place (tallest building and in the middle of downtown, also just a couple blocks from city hall). Toronto added a bit more from 2001 to 2011, adding 53,428 people. However, because the starting population for Toronto was higher, that amounted to a bit less in percentage terms (28.3%).
And the way things are going now, Toronto looks like it will grow faster this decade than the last.
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Density Dispute
