How is Toronto compared to Vancouver? (best neighborhoods, neighborhood, tenants)
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Again, it's about your preference and opinion. If you think Toronto downtown is nicer then fine. But don't tell people who prefer Montreal downtown that they are wrong when it's their opinion.
Thank you.
And most of the pics you posted are skyline photos, which always look better for Toronto.
What about street level architecture? Urban continuity of midrise businesses and residentials? Rapid transit coverage? Toronto scores at best an average when it comes to that compared with Montreal and other NE cities like Boston, Brooklyn, DC. Just take a stroll along the likes of Bay Street, Jarvis, and Church and it becomes crystal clear.
And most of the pics you posted are skyline photos, which always look better for Toronto.
What about street level architecture? Urban continuity of midrise businesses and residentials? Rapid transit coverage? Toronto scores at best an average when it comes to that compared with Montreal and other NE cities like Boston, Brooklyn, DC. Just take a stroll along the likes of Bay Street, Jarvis, and Church and it becomes crystal clear.
This only applies to the financial core, where First Canadian Place, Commerce Court, Scotia Plaza etc... are located. These make up a very small part of the downtown core:
the bulk of the buildings north of First Canadian Place are residential/commercial, which is most of downtown.
This directly translates to more residents living downtown, which brings the city to life. The city has regulations for how new condos can be designed, and most adopt the Tower and Podium design, where street level is reserved for retail and pedestrian interaction.
You don't go down Bay street, you go down Bloor street, Yonge street and countless other streets in and around downtown that are residential/commercial mix.
There are also tons of eccentric low/mid rise buildings and neighbourhoods in and around downtown. Toronto has the most buildings of any city in North America outside of NYC.
The Toronto of yore filled with parking lots, high rises purely for offices and banks, and pollution from coal power plants:
...is long gone.
It is becoming the most Manhattan-ized city in North America west of Manhattan.
Chicago won't keep up, and Vancouver is too stuck up its own ass and knee deep in corrupted Chinese money to even notice, let alone compete.
Last edited by Mr. Burns; 09-30-2016 at 12:16 AM..
The reason I post all this is to ensure when people are talking about and comparing Toronto, they are talking about TODAY's Toronto.
Toronto is changing fast.
Most people who don't live in Toronto haven't been to Toronto very recently have an outdated perspective. That's all gone!
"Well when I visited Toronto in 2001..." Nope, long gone!
"I was in Toronto in 2004 and it..." Gone!
"I went to Toronto in 2008 and saw..." Gone! You wouldn't recognize it!
And by the end of this year when the Harbour Center towers, 88 Scott, Ten York, EY Tower, Index and many other U/C skyscrapers that will noticeably impact the skyline in that 2014 shot are complete:
"I was just there in 2014, it was..." will be gone!
The reason I post all this is to ensure when people are talking about and comparing Toronto, they are talking about TODAY's Toronto.
Toronto is changing fast.
Most people who don't live in Toronto haven't been to Toronto very recently have an outdated perspective. That's all gone!
"Well when I visited Toronto in 2001..." Nope, long gone!
"I was in Toronto in 2004 and it..." Gone!
"I went to Toronto in 2008 and saw..." Gone! You wouldn't recognize it!
And by the end of this year when the Harbour Center towers, 88 Scott, Ten York, EY Tower, Index and many other U/C skyscrapers that will noticeably impact the skyline in that 2014 shot are complete:
"I was just there in 2014, it was..." will be gone!
There are indeed impressive changes in Toronto, but you make it sound like it's the only city that's changing. It's likely one of the western world's leaders in terms of the intensity of the changes, but that doesn't mean that many other big cities are not undergoing significant transformations as well.
There is also the question of: "changing into what?" that some might legitimately ask. All those towers are definitely increasing the skyline heft of Toronto but what the architectural or even street-level value added of them?
I am not passing judgement on them personally, BTW. Just repeating a question if often hear. Including from many Torontonians themselves.
And most of the pics you posted are skyline photos, which always look better for Toronto.
What about street level architecture? Urban continuity of midrise businesses and residentials? Rapid transit coverage? Toronto scores at best an average when it comes to that compared with Montreal and other NE cities like Boston, Brooklyn, DC. Just take a stroll along the likes of Bay Street, Jarvis, and Church and it becomes crystal clear.
Yeah, he's definitely mixing up "skyline" and "downtown". In many cases, even a great skyline doesn't do anything for the atmosphere at street level. Sometimes it even detracts from it.
Many of the world's greatest cities don't have much of a skyline to speak of.
I actually like Vancouver's policies for land management downtown and I wouldn't want it to look like Toronto. Mega cities with skyscrapers as far as the eye can see aren't attractive to me. I prefer Vancouver's mountains and ocean and forest right on the city's doorstep.
I grew up (till I was 12) in what was then the sticks but now is almost I gather in the downtown core of Toronto - Willowdale. I was there during Hurricane Hazel (so that tells you a bit about how long ago). My father worked downtown and I at one point also went to school downtown - and had to take public transportation (of several sorts) to get to school each day. I was allowed to travel to the Ex as well with friends (but no parents) in the last couple of years I lived there. Over the years I have had to travel back to Toronto on business from time to time. Yes, things have changed. I hope never to have to ever visit there again. I certainly would never want to raise a family there these days.
I have also lived in Vancouver ... I went to UBC. I prefer YVR over YYZ ... but it is also not the same as it used to be either, in different ways.
But the pictures are pretty. And I guess if you think that crammed into high rises is the best way to live, then you will love it in either place. Some seem to thrive on that sort of city core 'vibrancy' - and I guess to some extent I did too when I was young and naïve. I still like being able to 'people watch' in an anonymous world sometimes - and a bustling city is definitely a good place for that. I still like the 'availability' and variety of 'stuff' (and in particular for me .. ethnic food ingredients) one can buy or just window shop for in a large city. But the drawbacks - the hassles of getting from here to there, the crowding, the noise, the lack of light in some cases and no 'views' unless you are rich or travel a way to get to the shore, etc. .. don't appeal to me these days - too stressful.
If I had to live in a large city again though I would choose YVR though over YYZ mostly because the mountains are more visible in my opinion from just about everywhere (because they tower over things) than the water of Lake Ontario (which is low down on the horizon) is for most Torontonians - and mountains relieve my stress for some reason.
The reason I post all this is to ensure when people are talking about and comparing Toronto, they are talking about TODAY's Toronto.
Toronto is changing fast.
Most people who don't live in Toronto haven't been to Toronto very recently have an outdated perspective. That's all gone!
"Well when I visited Toronto in 2001..." Nope, long gone!
"I was in Toronto in 2004 and it..." Gone!
"I went to Toronto in 2008 and saw..." Gone! You wouldn't recognize it!
And by the end of this year when the Harbour Center towers, 88 Scott, Ten York, EY Tower, Index and many other U/C skyscrapers that will noticeably impact the skyline in that 2014 shot are complete:
"I was just there in 2014, it was..." will be gone!
Your image about parks is terribly flawed. Vancouver's biggest park is 874 hectares Pacific Spirit Park and is missing from the equation.
It also includes Rouge Park, a Parks Canada run park, an hour away from downtown, but in the GTA, yet it doesn't include any parks in the Greater Vancouver Area of which there are many.
Cypress Provincial Park is not in any way an urban park like Rouge, it's basically a forest beyond the edge of the north shore. Everything is a forest beyond the edge of the North Shore.
The illustrations are not intended to show every park, only the most significant ones. It's diagrammatic.
The numbers take into account all of the urban parks within each city's limits.
The forests beyond the edge of the north shore to a ways back are part of Metro Vancouver and are inside the city limits.
Cypress Provincial Park is not in any way an urban park like Rouge, it's basically a forest beyond the edge of the north shore. Everything is a forest beyond the edge of the North Shore.
The illustrations are not intended to show every park, only the most significant ones. It's diagrammatic.
The numbers take into account all of the urban parks within each city's limits.
The numbers are wrong. As I mentioned, they missed out Pacific Spirit Park, the largest park in Vancouver.
Also it's not really a fair comparison when they include parks in the GTA and not the Greater Vancouver Area.
The North Shore is filled with hiking trails as part of the parks system. Just because it is mountainous doesn't disqualify it from being a park.
If you were to apply the same criteria as they did for the GTA, to the Greater Vancouver Area, you have to include ALL parks that urbanites have easy access to.
The whole point of this chart was to show how much parkland people in those urban areas have access to. Cypress park is a lot closer to downtown Vancouver, than Rouge Park is to downtown Toronto, yet like Pacific Sprit Park is left out.
Makes no sense.
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