Does Toronto's urban structure have more in common with large US Midwest Cities or large US Northeast Cities? (better, place)

[Atticman]

The two closest states to Toronto are New York and Pennsylvania, and Toronto definitely orients itself to the U.S. Northeast much more than it does to the Midwest.

The only midwestern city that is on Toronto's radar as a place to go is Chicago, other than that, Torontonians are much more likely to visit cities such as NYC, Boston, Philly, Washington, as they are all relatively close and easy to get to. Most of the midwest is simply too far away, Toronto has no connection to or cultural affinity with the U.S. midwest.

[benleis]

I can't speak for Toronto but growing up in Cleveland, we always thought of Toronto as nearish. I took a school field trip (by bus) and several family vacations there. And while obviously Buffalo or Rochester are the closest to it, cities like Cleveland and Detroit are closer than Albany or Pittsburgh. Its a funny geography because of the lake(s).

I always liked the idea of the great lakes region which includes Toronto. But now I'm curious how mutual this self-identity is.

[Atticman]

Originally Posted by benleis

I can't speak for Toronto but growing up in Cleveland, we always thought of Toronto as nearish. I took a school field and several family vacations there. And while obviously Buffalo or Rochester are the closest to it, cities like Cleveland and Detroit are closer than Albany or Pittsburgh. Its a funny geography because of the lake(s).

I always liked the idea of the great lakes region which includes Toronto. But now I'm curious how mutual this self-identity is.

Yeah, Cleveland and Detroit are much closer to Toronto the the big Bos-Wash cities, but they aren't really popular destinations for Torontonians in terms of places to go for vacation. Pittsburgh is fairly close to Toronto as well (5 hour drive), and it seems to me that it has become somewhat more popular lately as a place to visit, I think Torontonians are more intrigued by it than they are by Cleveland and Detroit.

[Maintainschaos]

Originally Posted by Atticman

The two closest states to Toronto are New York and Pennsylvania, and Toronto definitely orients itself to the U.S. Northeast much more than it does to the Midwest.

The only midwestern city that is on Toronto's radar as a place to go is Chicago, other than that, Torontonians are much more likely to visit cities such as NYC, Boston, Philly, Washington, as they are all relatively close and easy to get to. Most of the midwest is simply too far away, Toronto has no connection to or cultural affinity with the U.S. midwest.

But the parts of those states closest to TO are the westernmost fringes of PA and NY not far from OH; all the cities you mentioned are on the easternmost fringes, and most are physically further away from TO than several Midwestern cities, both driving and as the crow flies.

Both as the crow flies and in a car:
TO is closer to Detroit, Cleveland, and Columbus than NYC.
TO is about the same distance to Chicago as it is to Boston.

But who cares about cultural affinity and the likelihood of where someone will visit when the question appeared to be mostly about urban form...?

I stand by my original statement that Toronto's urban form most resembles that of other Great Lakes cities (several of which are Midwestern), with a close match in many regards to Chicago, regardless of the the fact that Chicago is Midwestern.

[Atticman]

Most Midwest cities (other than Chicago, St. Louis) have a built form consisting of mostly woodframe houses on spacious lots with medium levels of density, Toronto is a city of brick, tightly packed houses (many of them row houses) on very narrow lots with high levels of density (obviously it gets less dense looking the further out you go, especially North of downtown). It's much more packed-in and eclectic than your typical midwestern city in terms of built form.

It also has many long, solid commercial corridors of "high street retail" that criss cross the older parts of the city outside of downtown on streets such as Yonge, Queen, King, Dundas, College, Bloor, Danforth, Gerrard, Dupont, St. Clair, Eglinton, Avenue Road, Bayview, Mount Pleasant, Ossington, Roncesvalles, Pape, Broadview, Kingston Road and others. Many of these streets have streetcar service. These outlying strips are like little towns unto themselves and are quite healthy and thriving for the most part with their mix of shops, restaurants, coffee shops, old movie theatres, fruit stands etc. Many of them are also ethnic enclaves such as Italian, Greek, Indian, Chinese, Jamaican, etc.

[Trafalgar Law]

Toronto's mother is New York and its father is Chicago.

It takes in characteristics of both, more so New York on physical characteristics and Chicago on scale, geographic, and superficial ones. Also, not really important to the thread topic but Chicago is incredibly masculine as a city and culture, hard to even make an analogy of it where it would play a female character under any basis.

[Enean]

Toronto isn't in the US, and maybe it's just me, but I don't compare Canadian cities with those in the US. It's interesting that some people even think about this. It's Canada's premier city, and when I think about Toronto, I compare it to other Canadian cities I know...Quebec City, Montreal, and Vancouver.

[joey joe-joe]

Toronto looks like Chicago from 5000 feet in the air and a mile from the the downtown core.


At street level Toronto looks more similar to Philly (minus the extreme poverty areas on the West side) than any other city on Earth.

[_OT]

Really don't see the comparison to Philly.

[joey joe-joe]

Originally Posted by _OT

Really don't see the comparison to Philly.

Maybe because you haven't been to both cities?