Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
There are like seven North American downtowns with comparable or bigger cores than Toronto. Anyone who disagrees is pretty much being an absurd homer.
NYC is like 20x bigger and shouldn't even be discussed.
Montreal, Boston, Philly, DC, Chicago and SF all have comparable or bigger urban cores than Toronto. And I'm talking size, only. I'm not even getting into quality.
Sorry but this is just hilarious.
You are not talking about urban cores at this point, you are talking about contagious urban neighbourhoods, and even then your statements are a stretch.
I think we can all agree that it's best to ignore Mr. Burns henceforth (nothing against him personally).
I live in Toronto and can barely read his posts with a straight face Most Torontonians I know, at least those who are relatively well-traveled, are well aware of the fact that Toronto doesn't hold a candle to NYC, and it has a long journey ahead in terms of transit infrastructure and urban (midrise) density development before it reaches the level of other global cities. The reality is that, at the moment and for the next 1-2 decades, Toronto is and will be very much a city in transition - you will see areas with highly developed density, vibrancy, and transit infrastructure, but you will also find areas of growth that are complete suburban sprawls.
Yonge Eglington is not really an urban area. It's streetcar suburban, maybe. Yeah, there are a ton of condo buildings at the main intersection, but it doesn't primarily have an urban character.
Toronto is urban up to Yorkville. North of there it's pretty much only urban right on Yonge. If you step off Yonge, it's older suburban-looking. It does NOT look like older urban neighborhoods in Boston, Montreal, SF, Philly and the like.
The Yonge-Eglinton neighbourhood was originally a separate town called North Toronto (inc. 1890), and was annexed by Toronto in 1912. It began to build up as a high density node with the construction of the Yonge Street subway line in the 1950s with office and apartment buildings and in the 60s and 70s dozens of high-rise apartment buildings and several tall office buildings were built. It is a secondary CBD and it acts as the heart of midtown Toronto and it is quite urban, and in the last several years the neighbourhood has exploded with new high density development and and is becoming even more so. It rivals the downtown area of many mid-sized cities.
I never really thought much about Toronto, as it's in Canada, and I live in the US. This constant promotion of Toronto, though, has made me NEVER to want to visit it. I've been to Vancouver, Quebec City, and other, smaller cities in Canada. For some reason, I have no desire to visit Toronto. Before I was ambivalent, now I just don't like it. Sometimes, that's what happens.
The irony is that the Toronto boosters feel the need to be 'in your face' in the C-D U.S. forums to "defend" their city's reputation. In reality, their subsequent behavior is so off-putting and downright nasty that they do far more damage to their city's reputation than those they decry. It was Toronto boosters (on a different site) who destroyed my image of the city.
Mr Burns, North42, and a few others have done far more to destroy American perceptions of Toronto on C-D than anybody else could ever hope to do. Who knew that $hitting on U.S. cities constantly (for outlandish reasons, as they do) is not endearing to Americans!? It's why we should just ban Canadian cities from the U.S. forums. If Americans went to the Canada forums and spent hours attacking their cities, we'd be banned in an instant. Yet we're supposed to tolerate Canadian boosters who want to come to the U.S. forums to $hitpost and troll about how American cities suck and Canada is so great?
Minneapolis has a good downtown among its peers, like on a Denver level. But it's not in this group.
A downtown which is uninhabitable for a portion of the year because it's so cold. And it's not even on the same level as Denver, IMHO. Just better skyscrapers for Minneapolis.
As an American, I'd say Toronto would be the #3 largest core in the US.
If the comparison was offices it wouldn't rank as highly.
You said you walked down Yonge Street from York Mills all the way to the Eaton Centre when you were in Toronto, but did you walk as far east and west of downtown? The urban core is pretty strong extending several miles both to the east and west (moreso to the west, as it's not broken up by a wide river valley).
Next time you're in Toronto, try walking west on Queen Street all the way to it's end (where it converges with King Street and Rocesvailles). Or try walking east on Queen Street all the way to Victoria Park Avenue at the eastern end of the Beaches. Or west on College Street all the way to Bloor Street. Or east on The Danforth all the way to Victoria Park Avenue. All of these streets are pretty much continuous retail for miles and miles. Queen Street alone is about 9 miles from end to end (wider than the entire city of San Francisco), and it's continuous pedestrian-oriented retail almost the entire distance.
The only American downtowns with more office space are New York and Chicago. San Francisco is close.
Not true. NYC, Chicago and DC all have far more office space than downtown Toronto. DC alone has 120 million square feet of private office space. Including federal space, and you're talking like 200 million square ft. of space.
And SF and Boston have roughly comparable amounts of core office space. Really only Philly has less, but not a tremendous amount less (like 20% less).
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Most Torontonians I know, at least those who are relatively well-traveled, are well aware of the fact that Toronto doesn't hold a candle to NYC, and it has a long journey ahead in terms of transit infrastructure and urban (midrise) density development before it reaches the level of other global cities. The reality is that, at the moment and for the next 1-2 decades, Toronto is and will be very much a city in transition - you will see areas with highly developed density, vibrancy, and transit infrastructure, but you will also find areas of growth that are complete suburban sprawls.
