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Strangely - even though Toronto has over 200K Phillipino's there isn't really a 'lil Phillipines' like our other large scale ethnicities. This video eludes to that.
Little Philippines is in the Wilson and Bathurst area. It's not official but the business owners have petitioned the city to turn it into a BIA.
Yeah it would be nice to have a concentration of Philippine businesses in one area especially given the size of our Pinoy community - there are business they are just dotted all over the place.. There is a Pinoy restaurant close to where I live in Cabbagetown called Wow Philippines Eat Bulaga lol..
Eh, I'd say it's a stretch to say that Evanston is as vibrant as Sydney's suburban hubs. Evanston definitely has good (frequent) CTA rail service and decent (infrequent) Metra service, and there is some TOD around it, but the streets in the area are wider and less tightly packed with retail. In that way a lot of the Sydney immigrant-focused retail areas around rail stations seem to bear more in common with South Asian retail hubs of London (e.g. Green St north of the Upton Park tube station and High St north of East Ham tube station). Evanston feels more like North Sydney with a bit more sparse retail.
Wow, for someone who hasn't been to Sydney yet I'm impressed by how much you know about it! You're spot on about North Sydney, it's no where near the destination some of the other hubs are - in fact some would even call it a glorified business park. Businesses there generally cater for office workers only and in many cases they'll close after 5pm and maybe even open only half the day on weekends. During working hours North Sydney is very busy and lively, but apart from a couple of bars and (maybe) restaurants every here and there, the place completely shuts down afterwards and on weekends as well, to the point where you can just about hear the leaves rustle if it wasn't for the cars. The council's now making a push to revitalise the place though. There's a pretty long list of apartment projects there right now so hopefully an increased residential population will bring in more after hours businesses and activity.
Well I'm not familiar with Evanston so I'll take your word for it!
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From what I've seen on street view, shopping malls in Melbourne tend more often to be standalone malls along Toronto-style long arterials moreso than in Sydney...is that what you've experienced as well?
Also, on a related note, I was messing around with the trip planner for both Sydney Trains and Melbourne Metro Trains...it seems like Sydney Trains offers much better off-peak and weekend frequencies- did their renaming of the lines have something to do with this? The interlining also seems to be FAR more extensive on Sydney Trains, but even on non-interlined segments- e.g. Bankstown to Campsie- off-peak/weekend frequencies seem to be better than comparable trips in Melbourne. I could've sworn that I read some transport blog claiming that Melbourne suburban trains ran at higher base frequencies...could be wrong though haha.
Well TBH I'm no where near as familiar with Melbourne as I am with Sydney - had only visited it a handful of times a couple of days each, and every time it was around or near the inner city only. But from what I know yes, Melbourne isn't as hub-centric as Sydney is, but generally there's still a basic structure of building activity nodes around train lines and transit hubs (Box Hill, Hawthorn, Footscray (tram line), Oakleigh etc). I'd say they're on about the same level as Campsie or Eastwood. It would probably change eventually, but at the moment, Melbourne doesn't really have a major satellite city in the same way as Chatswood or Parramatta. St. Kilda rd would probably be the equivalent of a North Sydney in Melbourne. And yes, the malls in Melbourne are generally standalone too - so less of a focus on vibrant hubs.
Melbourne's change in the inner city however is really something to watch - it's been amazing to see the downtown improve in leaps and bounds over the last decade or so, to the point where many of Australia's cities are now looking to Melbourne to improve their downtowns (incl. Sydney, which is now 'kinda' trying to plagiarise the laneways lol). They've grown the CBD and transformed the streets, placed sculptures and arts, and activated the laneways and as a result it's become a much more vibrant place and many would argue that it's more attractive than Sydney's CBD (which I would in a sense agree as well). Comparatively I guess you can say that Melbourne is more centralised than Sydney and there's a huge boom going on in the inner parts.
And regarding transit, I'm not too familiar with Melbourne Metro so I'm not gonna comment too much about it, but you do have to note that Sydney has the highest rate of transport usage in Australia despite Melbourne having a large tram network. I guess Postman might better answer you here?
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did their renaming of the lines have something to do with this?
I'd say the renaming was almost purely politics. When this state government came into power 3-4 years ago the CityRail brand name was already pretty tarnished (people calling it CityFail, or Sh*ttyrail haha, service reliability and punctuality were the main concerns). They did however restructure the city's transport management - mainly simplify the levels of management, hire the former London tube boss and sack a lot of people because the system was overstaffed, which imo I'd perhaps cruelly, but with reason agree, 'haha', and with that decided to give it a new name as well hoping to make people think that they are doing things.
But hell, that new name and that fluro orange livery does the city no good - gimme the CityRail logo and livery any day over 'Sh*tney Trains' lol
And the lines restructuring was just a new timetable - again partly politically driven, but overall they did introduce a little more services with it.
Last edited by ciTydude123; 02-22-2014 at 11:49 AM..
The Spadina/Dundas Chinatown you are referring to has a lot of side streets connected to it - not a few and all of them are far from being suburban in feel. Gerrard East/Broadview is the other big one and although smaller than Spadina - still has streets connected to it that are part of that Chinatown and again far from Suburban feeling. I was also referring to Old Chinatown but all business effectively left it by 2010 - so in Old Toronto we have two (which counts for several as in more than one lol) Chinatowns and point being they aren't suburban in feel and they are both very large in any Chinatown context outside of China.
I think the way I worded my question was confusing haha. I knew the Spadina/Dundas and Gerrard/Broadview Chinatowns are both very urban, but I was wondering outside of those two- aren't the OTHER ones (Agincourt, parts of North York, Markham, Richmond Hill, parts of Mississauga) suburban in form?
Melbourne's change in the inner city however is really something to watch - it's been amazing to see the downtown improve in leaps and bounds over the last decade or so, to the point where many of Australia's cities are now looking to Melbourne to improve their downtowns (incl. Sydney, which is now 'kinda' trying to plagiarise the laneways lol). They've grown the CBD and transformed the streets, placed sculptures and arts, and activated the laneways and as a result it's become a much more vibrant place and many would argue that it's more attractive than Sydney's CBD (which I would in a sense agree as well). Comparatively I guess you can say that Melbourne is more centralised than Sydney and there's a huge boom going on in the inner parts.
Melbourne definitely seems more centralized than Sydney, but I feel like a lot of that is due to the difference in physical geography of the two CBDs. The Hoddle Grid in Melbourne seems to better lend itself to a more comprehensive CBD, while in Sydney the tiny peninsula in which the CBD is located is made even tinier by the fact that it's cut off on the west by the Western Distributor and on the east by the Royal Botanic Gardens/Main Pond.
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And regarding transit, I'm not too familiar with Melbourne Metro so I'm not gonna comment too much about it, but you do have to note that Sydney has the highest rate of transport usage in Australia despite Melbourne having a large tram network.
I found that interesting too. Sydney's suburban network seems to have more convenient services between non-CBD hubs, whereas in Melbourne the system seems to be more CBD-centric.
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Wow, for someone who hasn't been to Sydney yet I'm impressed by how much you know about it!
Using Street View, business searches on google maps, Australian census quickfacts, transit ridership data, transit maps, and transit journey planner data in tandem with the aid of youtube definitely gives one a good idea about how a city is laid out! =)
I think the way I worded my question was confusing haha. I knew the Spadina/Dundas and Gerrard/Broadview Chinatowns are both very urban, but I was wondering outside of those two- aren't the OTHER ones (Agincourt, parts of North York, Markham, Richmond Hill, parts of Mississauga) suburban in form? ?
Yeah I would say so because they are in the burbs... all I know is that the food and restaurants in Markham are better than anything you'll find in Chinatown!
Also, though Sydney has better and more focused suburban nodes, the long-straight roads of Melbourne do at times provide a fairly vibrant streetscape over long stretches- e.g. Sydney Road from Brunswick station to Coburg station (paralleled by the Upfield railway line) and High Street from Northcote station to Preson station (paralleled by the South Morang railway line)- that's somewhat missing in Sydney (Sydney's vibrant streetscape seems to be more fragmented)
Yeah I would say so because they are in the burbs... all I know is that the food and restaurants in Markham are better than anything you'll find in Chinatown!
Ya, that's what I've heard too. I've eaten at some Buddhist vegetarian place near Pacific Mall before, but that's because I went with my mom and she's vegetarian haha...I definitely don't know enough about Chinese cuisine, so I'll have to take your word for it!
Melbourne definitely seems more centralized than Sydney, but I feel like a lot of that is due to the difference in physical geography of the two CBDs. The Hoddle Grid in Melbourne seems to better lend itself to a more comprehensive CBD, while in Sydney the tiny peninsula in which the CBD is located is made even tinier by the fact that it's cut off on the west by the Western Distributor and on the east by the Royal Botanic Gardens/Main Pond.
And Melbourne was never split in two as Sydney effectively was prior to the opening of the harbour bridge in 1932. If not for that, centres like Chatswood on the north shore may never have had enough economic "gravity" to develop as commercial hubs.
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