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Old 10-19-2014, 04:45 PM
 
1,635 posts, read 2,697,647 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by botticelli View Post
Precisely.

All "vibrant" cities have car free retail streets, often big ones. I was amazed by how long the pedestrian only streets in Rome and Istanbul were during my trip last month. If the same policy adopted, the entire Queen and Bloor from Yonge to Ossington would be car free, and Yonge from Bloor to Front as well. Yet barring a few small stretches about 50 meters long, there is not a single decent pedestrian only street in Toronto.

People keep talking how walkable downtown Toronto has become. really? For me, the car is still the king. The fact they keep running on Queen even between University and Bathurst proves that.

As to patio restaurants, smaller cities like Montreal put us in shame. Istanbul's outdoor dining scene was simply spectacular, something I just learned. In Toronto, there are so few of them, because the streets belong to the cars, who will get "angry" if one or two lanes are taken. I mean, shouldn't wide streets such as University and Jarvis be lined with patio restaurants in the summer? Nope, they serve as essentially semi-highways from cars from Rosedale and Forest Hill. This is how vibrant Toronto really is.

We feel like a city of 2-3M, not 6 million.
Well, Toronto feels like a city of 2-3M because.... it is? About 2.8M or so to be exact.
And the streets you are naming are not lined up with patios because of the way they were built over time. Jarvis is mainly a residential street for the most part. Why would there be patio restaurants lined along a mainly residential street like Jarvis?
University is mainly a commercial/business throughfare.
If you are looking for patios lined up on certain streets during a Toronto summer, you are definitely looking at the wrong streets.

And how is downtown Toronto not walkable???? Because lots of cars drive on dt Toronto streets (the second largest downtown population wise in Canada/America) Are you familiar with the term walkable and what it means?

Man, some the things I've read in this thread...I can't. lol
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Old 10-19-2014, 04:49 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Atticman View Post
I can't believe some of the comments I'm reading on here. Not only is Toronto's skyline magnificent and easily at least the 3rd biggest and most impressive in North America, but Toronto is also at least among the top three most most vibrant and bustling cities on the continent with an urban vibe and streetlife that blows away all but a few other cities in the U.S. and Canada. Period.

Have any of you naysayers walked in and around downtown Toronto on a nice day? The sidewalks are so packed with people and activity it's hard to walk sometimes, and there's ALWAYS something interesting going on day and night. Only New York City really has Toronto beat for pedestrian volume and street level activity, and even New York can't offer everything you can find in Toronto. Every walk around the city is an adventure, you never know what you might find just around the corner. Toronto looks and feels like a REAL BIG CITY and that can only be said of a few other cities on the continent.
You too the words right out of my mouth.
This is Toronto is 2014 (not 1914) which is growing rapidly in many way sand will most likely continue to do in the foreseeable future. Many other North American cities envy what Toronto has to offer and what is going on in the city.
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Old 10-19-2014, 05:55 PM
 
Location: Cambridge, MA/London, UK
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mrjun18 View Post
You too the words right out of my mouth.
This is Toronto is 2014 (not 1914) which is growing rapidly in many way sand will most likely continue to do in the foreseeable future. Many other North American cities envy what Toronto has to offer and what is going on in the city.
Assuming that everyone assumes that NYC and DF are the top 2 on the continent, would you really say Toronto blows away every single other city for urban vibrancy? Guadalajara, Puebla, Panama City, SF, Chicago, LA, Boston, San Juan, Kingston, Santo Domingo, Havana's vibrancy pales in comparison to Toronto's that they are not even in the conversation?

It is off base to say that Toronto is not vibrant at all, we all know that is so far from the fact that it doesnt even deserve discussion. But how could anyone who has traveled the globe say that Toronto ticks all the boxes and does vibrancy better than most any other city. That is ridiculous.

Toronto is a city that works well, has a ton of urban amenities, but the place feels sleepy at times to alot of us for a reason.
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Old 10-19-2014, 06:18 PM
 
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Which city has more of an urban feel to it? Chicago or Toronto?
Which city has better nightlife?
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Old 10-19-2014, 07:19 PM
 
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^ Tie.
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Old 10-19-2014, 08:56 PM
 
1,635 posts, read 2,697,647 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by edwardsyzzurphands View Post
Assuming that everyone assumes that NYC and DF are the top 2 on the continent, would you really say Toronto blows away every single other city for urban vibrancy? Guadalajara, Puebla, Panama City, SF, Chicago, LA, Boston, San Juan, Kingston, Santo Domingo, Havana's vibrancy pales in comparison to Toronto's that they are not even in the conversation?

It is off base to say that Toronto is not vibrant at all, we all know that is so far from the fact that it doesnt even deserve discussion. But how could anyone who has traveled the globe say that Toronto ticks all the boxes and does vibrancy better than most any other city. That is ridiculous.

Toronto is a city that works well, has a ton of urban amenities, but the place feels sleepy at times to alot of us for a reason.
Never said Toronto "blows away" everything except NYC and Mexico City, or other cities are "not even in the conversation". Not sure where you got that from. Other cities like Philly, SF for example are very urban and vibrant. They are not "blown away" at all. Not sure where you got that from though.

As far as Toronto is concerned, its a busy and bustling urban city just like the other cities you mentioned, but there is a different type of vibrancy in each city. Lots of factors determine this from the weather (Toronto is the "coldest"/most northern out of all these...."cold" for more than half the year), infrastructure, location, lifestyle, city life, public transport etc.

When you add it all up, Toronto is arguably at/near the top excluding NYC and Mexico City. Many of the hotter climate cities like San Juan, Havana (which isn't technically continental N.A., but whatever) are busy, bustling and vibrant for their respective sizes and due to their certain lifestyles, culture of living there, history and so on. But when you have a city like Toronto who (and I'd hate to sound like a broken record here) have dozen of condo cranes across the city, 100,000+ new residents annually, continuous public transportation expansion, and other factors... things like these contribute to the growing and expanding urbanity and vibrancy of the city. One thing that kind of hinders Toronto's vibrancy is the winters and even during winters there are still a lot of people. Just not as much as in the summer when the weather is much better and there is much more going on. And just as I mentioned before there are different lifestyles in each city so it will be different.

Anyways, to answer the thread title (lots of off topic posts in here), Toronto best compares to Chicago (geographically at least).

Both: are situated along a Great Lake, population near the 3 million mark city population, near 10 million mark metro population, have big skylines, have a grid layout, have similar climates, have big city living/lifestyle while not being expensive like SF or NYC, similar infrastructures similar densities, very similar amount of land area etc.

The Twin Cities is city and easily is one of my fav US metros (in my top 5), but it's not exactly similar to Toronto. Maybe a couple things like winter weather, the lower crime/homicide rate, and the people, but that may be about it.
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Old 10-19-2014, 09:45 PM
 
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^ He got that from my post that you quoted, but I never even said that Toronto blows away all but a few cities in North America in regards to urban vibe/streetlife, I said that it blows away all but a few other cities in the U.S. and Canada.
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Old 10-20-2014, 06:46 AM
 
Location: Cambridge, MA/London, UK
3,847 posts, read 5,247,088 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mrjun18 View Post
Never said Toronto "blows away" everything except NYC and Mexico City, or other cities are "not even in the conversation". Not sure where you got that from. Other cities like Philly, SF for example are very urban and vibrant. They are not "blown away" at all. Not sure where you got that from though.

As far as Toronto is concerned, its a busy and bustling urban city just like the other cities you mentioned, but there is a different type of vibrancy in each city. Lots of factors determine this from the weather (Toronto is the "coldest"/most northern out of all these...."cold" for more than half the year), infrastructure, location, lifestyle, city life, public transport etc.

When you add it all up, Toronto is arguably at/near the top excluding NYC and Mexico City. Many of the hotter climate cities like San Juan, Havana (which isn't technically continental N.A., but whatever) are busy, bustling and vibrant for their respective sizes and due to their certain lifestyles, culture of living there, history and so on. But when you have a city like Toronto who (and I'd hate to sound like a broken record here) have dozen of condo cranes across the city, 100,000+ new residents annually, continuous public transportation expansion, and other factors... things like these contribute to the growing and expanding urbanity and vibrancy of the city. One thing that kind of hinders Toronto's vibrancy is the winters and even during winters there are still a lot of people. Just not as much as in the summer when the weather is much better and there is much more going on. And just as I mentioned before there are different lifestyles in each city so it will be different.

Anyways, to answer the thread title (lots of off topic posts in here), Toronto best compares to Chicago (geographically at least).

Both: are situated along a Great Lake, population near the 3 million mark city population, near 10 million mark metro population, have big skylines, have a grid layout, have similar climates, have big city living/lifestyle while not being expensive like SF or NYC, similar infrastructures similar densities, very similar amount of land area etc.

The Twin Cities is city and easily is one of my fav US metros (in my top 5), but it's not exactly similar to Toronto. Maybe a couple things like winter weather, the lower crime/homicide rate, and the people, but that may be about it.
As Atticman mentioned, you quoted and bolded his post where he said that "Toronto is also at least among the top three most most vibrant and bustling cities on the continent with an urban vibe and streetlife that blows away all but a few other cities in the U.S. and Canada. Period."

I completely understand what you are saying and I agree with some points. As I mentioned above I spent almost 3 weeks back in Toronto September. Weather was nice enough for people to enjoy outside, so the weather was not a factor. I was impressed by the amount of construction going on and what has been completed, I took time to admire what is being built and what it may mean to the city in the near and distant future. The thing that I noticed was that the vibrancy has still not turned up a notch due to this development. I was out quite a few weekday nights and noticed alot of empty restaurants, bars and streets. I expected Toronto to bustle day and night, weekday and weekend. You cant fault me for noticing that it unfortunately did not.

You see it differently and that is fine, there is room for disagreement on this forum.

As far as your comparison is concerned, Chicago always comes to mind first when people are looking for a US comparison to Toronto. Minneapolis is a place I have only visited once briefly and that is hardly enough time to understand a city enough to make a fair comparison, so I will take your word for it.
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Old 10-20-2014, 06:54 AM
 
Location: Cambridge, MA/London, UK
3,847 posts, read 5,247,088 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Atticman View Post
^ He got that from my post that you quoted, but I never even said that Toronto blows away all but a few cities in North America in regards to urban vibe/streetlife, I said that it blows away all but a few other cities in the U.S. and Canada.
Point taken, but I still do not agree. What is your definition of a "few"? Personally the following cities I would put either ahead, equal or close to Toronto when it comes to street level vibrancy and urban vibe: NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, Boston, Montreal, Philly, NOLA and DC.

Keep in mind that you know and understand Toronto more intimately than other cities. You know where to go and all the fun hidden spots that being a resident of a city awards you the privilege of knowing. Possibly you think the way you do because you dont quite understand the other cities you are visiting, that is a trap we all fall into when comparing on this forum. I am guilty of the same myself at times.
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Old 10-20-2014, 08:29 AM
 
10,839 posts, read 14,630,126 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mrjun18 View Post
Well, Toronto feels like a city of 2-3M because.... it is? About 2.8M or so to be exact.
And the streets you are naming are not lined up with patios because of the way they were built over time. Jarvis is mainly a residential street for the most part. Why would there be patio restaurants lined along a mainly residential street like Jarvis?
University is mainly a commercial/business throughfare.
If you are looking for patios lined up on certain streets during a Toronto summer, you are definitely looking at the wrong streets.

And how is downtown Toronto not walkable???? Because lots of cars drive on dt Toronto streets (the second largest downtown population wise in Canada/America) Are you familiar with the term walkable and what it means?

Man, some the things I've read in this thread...I can't. lol
yeah, if Toronto's population of 2.8M, then San Francisco is about a quarter of out size? And Hamilton is bigger than Vancouver? Or you think Toronto as a city got 3 times bigger in 1998 overnight? Everyone on this forum has the basic understanding that what matters is metro population before engaging in any such discussion.

I see you are one of those who desperately try to defend Toronto. Jarvis is mainly a residential street... that doesn't answer the question. That IS the question. The fact that downtown Toronto has so many *pure* residential streets, many are wide and long, devoid of any decent street life, is what's the wrong with it and what makes it NOT that vibrant. The fact Jarvis and Bathurst are pure residential is embarrassing. Real vibrant cities don't dedicate an entire main streets covering the entire downtown to residential houses and nothing else. Of course you don't see it as an issue, limited by your highly myopic "North American" viewpoint according to which having a few commercial streets such as Queen and Yonge is already something worth boasting about. In reality, Queen and Yonge are pathetic in both scale and quality. People keep talking about Ossington. I checked it out Saturday nights and it is underwhelming and maybe impressive for something from Vaughan.

Streets lined up with patios, do you care giving some examples that's remotely comparable to what you witness in the Latin district in Montreal?

I am not talking about "lots of cars on Toronto streets". I was talking about so many streets dominated by cars to the point there is no pedestrian only streets to speak of - which is very rare among large urban centres, do you agree with that?

I know exactly what "Walkable" means, and I know for sure Toronto in general is NOT a walkable city. The fact that 90% of the city is not walkable proves that. The only walkable areas are the downtown core, some areas close to Bloor/Danforth/Queen/Yonge, which covers a small percentage of our population, the reason precisely being the vast majority of Toronto's streets are residential *only* and doesn't have any urban amenities. You can't even start to compare with the most vibrant/walkable cities in the world.
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