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.
Eh... the thing is Toronto is (mostly) the only game in town for a pretty attractive country. I do commend my native country for being (reasonably) welcome to immigration however. We're messing up pretty bad down here, and actively poisoning our golden egg laying goose.
GTA has not only grown in population but immensely sprawled as well. The town in the York Region where my uncle lives used to be nothing but woods and farmland 30 years ago but now is immensely built up. The whole metro area is probably going to spread all the way north to Lake Simcoe, all the way east to Guelph and Hamilton, and all the way west to Bowmanville if unchecked. There is plenty of space to build upon but the infrastructure sure will not keep up.
GTA has not only grown in population but immensely sprawled as well. The town in the York Region where my uncle lives used to be nothing but woods and farmland 30 years ago but now is immensely built up. The whole metro area is probably going to spread all the way north to Lake Simcoe, all the way east to Guelph and Hamilton, and all the way west to Bowmanville if unchecked. There is plenty of space to build upon but the infrastructure sure will not keep up.
You're correct on the surrounding areas where Toronto is expanding, just not the directions. Bowmanville is East, Hamilton/Guelph is West. Having a lake on one side of it limits expansion options. As for infrastructure not keeping up, that's a definite problem with highway systems, but also inside the city itself - neighbourhoods like Liberty Village that sprang up out of nowhere and have probably more than 100-200K residents with limited transit options.
GTA has not only grown in population but immensely sprawled as well. The town in the York Region where my uncle lives used to be nothing but woods and farmland 30 years ago but now is immensely built up. The whole metro area is probably going to spread all the way north to Lake Simcoe, all the way east to Guelph and Hamilton, and all the way west to Bowmanville if unchecked. There is plenty of space to build upon but the infrastructure sure will not keep up.
Not likely. In fact, legislation has already been enacted as of 2005 and 2015 to specifically limit sprawl in the GTA. It's called "The Greenbelt Act of 2005" - and is very strictly enforced by the provincial government to ensure development does not spread beyond the Greenbelt that is bordering GTA municipalities.
This is one of the primary reasons why you see real estate costs skyrocketing (along with immigration), and why you see such a heavy focus on condo and higher density living in the GTA by local developers, even in far-flung suburbs like Brampton, Ajax, and Mississauga where you are seeing condo booms around GO Transit stations: because they can't build further out due to the Greenbelt Act and it doesn't make financial sense to build large suburban communities like you see in many U.S. metros. It's one of the few NA cities that have placed a hard physical limit on how much a metro can expand.
The area highlighted in dark green is the Greenbelt region, which only allows "protected country land or natural systems" and covers a huge land area (nearly 1,000,000 hectares of protected natural land) - anything within the dark green area is off limits to residential, industrial, and commercial development:
Ontario's greenbelt was not established merely to prevent sprawl and unchecked urban development, it is chiefly to protect Ontario's prime agricultural land which is a major source of Canada's crop diversity.
In a country that is less than 5% arable land, with most of that land is only suitable for grain crops, the ability for the green belt to grow diverse fruit and vegetable crops is gold.
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.