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Location: East Central Pennsylvania/ Chicago for 6yrs.
2,535 posts, read 3,281,063 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fusion2
What is a world class park on a lakefront? Is it because it has nicely manicured parks on its lakefront that somehow the parks are world class.. Am I the only person who thinks a worldclass lakefront and parks in or close to it is a big snore... Its nice don't get me wrong but the whole world class thing is kind of silly. Chicago is a world class city and so is Toronto each for similar and different reasons. They're doing things with T.O waterfront btw to improve it.
I never put down Toronto in my post. Millennium Park has gotten World recognition. I feel like I am in a PAASIVE AGGRESSIVE SCENE with this thread. Stab first..... then oh but it is ......
Grant Park downtown is Chicago's Front Lawn as to the palace, because it has that look. Millemmium Park is a tourist Mecca downtown . Lincoln Park is at the northern reach of one posters 5 mile downtown population comparison.(in my previous picture) Where Chicago lost?
Great Toronto's waterfront is doing great things. But no need to lambast Chicago for what it has already.
Millennium Park is full of people in the picture on a average summer day
I'm not just showing Toronto's most pristine parts. Here's Mount Dennis and Weston, an older industrial area now referred to as Toronto's "rust belt" and one of the most struggling areas of the city. Lots of low income high rise housing projects as well.
Nope you won't see hordes of tourists. You will actually see hordes of normal residents going about their daily lives on a normal day. Not sure why you would bring up "tourist activity" as the underlying assumption for street activity in any given city. Tourists make up a tiny proportion of the population and pedestrian activity in large cities like Toronto and Chicago.
You objected to the word "quieter" when comparing street level activities between Toronto and Chicago. Normal residents in Toronto and Chicago are usually in cars/buses commuting to work ...
Tourists may make up a "tiny" proportion of the population ... but their presence in areas around downtown bring in a lot of activity and business. If you don't get that ... not sure what else to say to you. The majority of the people on Michigan Ave. in Chicago (Mag Mile) are tourists. There are 100s of hotels in that area alone. The vibrancy of that entire section of Chicago is probably >60% dependent on tourists.
And this topic was about differences/similarities between Toronto and Chicago. You may not think that tourist activity is important. But clearly, it is one big difference between the two cities.
I don't know about "hordes" but there are plenty of tourists and tour groups to be seen around Yonge-Dundas Square, the Distillery District, the CN Tower/Entertainment District, and around the Royal Ontario Museum.
It is not the same. I just said in a previous post that tourist activity in Chicago is far greater than in Toronto. So clearly in terms of tourist level activity, Chicago and Toronto are NOT even close. And tourism is a great effect on the vibrancy of the city, number of hotels, restaurants, activities, etc. So I ask again, how are Chicago and Toronto similar?
Chicago got 46 Million visitors in 2012 (and more in 2013);
while Toronto got 14 million tourists in 2013.
It is not the same. I just said in a previous post that tourist activity in Chicago is far greater than in Toronto. So clearly in terms of tourist level activity, Chicago and Toronto are NOT even close. And tourism is a great effect on the vibrancy of the city, number of hotels, restaurants, activities, etc. So I ask again, how are Chicago and Toronto similar?
Chicago got 46 Million visitors in 2012 (and more in 2013);
while Toronto got 14 million tourists in 2013.
You always get your back up when Toronto's skyline comes into the picture.. Nobody said (and it wasn't my intent to state) that Toronto has a more impressive one, just that it is a pretty big darn DT core. We all know that Chicago has better scraper architecture.. With that said, T.O's skyline and core is growing gangbusters so one of these days someone is going to bust out the figures for number of highrises and height of those in each core and what is everybody in Chicago or its boosters going to do when T.O comes out on top - its going to be a nightmare for them.. Don't worry Sandman - it'll take T.O time to reach the height of Chicago - as for density well I don't really think they are far off in terms of core highrise density already. Everybody will or should agree Chicago will always have the better scraper architecture - its growth took place at a time when where we all look back with nostalgia - its classic but they simply don't build em like that anymore. As far as Chicago having ownership of more highrises and a bigger core than Toronto - I think people need to seriously look at what is going on in Toronto and just accept what is probable and that is if T.O continues to boom/grow in its core area the way it has been and Chicago's core growth continues to be muted in comparison - T.O will have the bigger/denser and maybe even taller core... Its no big deal..
These are just skylines too - there are far more important things about a vibrant city than that and other posters in here have eluded to it.
Haha! Me and Toronto's skyline have a long history. Firstly, I saw it develop around the Roger's Center (then Skydome) ever since I was a kid watching the Blue Jays lose year after year. We (family, friends) always felt that the development around the Roger's Center was "ugly".
Then, during my days at UofT, I used to sail on Lake Ontario - and over the years we would see the skyline change rapidly. And all we could think was --- damn .. that's ugly. Especially because the nicer looking building were being overshadowed by the new condos.
I hope this post doesn't anger you. But me and my friends always felt that the Toronto skyline and architecture were not pleasing to the eye. Anthony Bourdain called Toronto at street level - "ugly" in one of his episodes. So clearly, I'm not alone in all this...
So, in general I dislike comparisons of Toronto's skyline or architecture to that of Chicago. Big Developments does not equal beautiful.
Re: part of your post underlined -
I am not worried. Why would I be?
I love Toronto. But I would never say that Toronto and Chicago are similar cities. Toronto has many things going for it, but constant comparisons to Chicago irk me ...
Not sure this is an apples to apples comparison though.
Tourism numbers are notoriously difficult to compare and are a fudged about as often as.... hmm... a chocolate factory.
One easy thing to do would be to compare the number of hotels in downtown Toronto to downtown Chicago. That would be a good estimation of "outside activity".
I don't doubt that Chicago gets a lot more tourists than Toronto, but like fusion said, most of Chicago's tourists are Americans from around the greater Midwest area (which is more populous than all of Canada), while Toronto actually gets more international tourists from overseas than Chicago does.
Even with all that extra tourist activity in Chicago, downtown Toronto and its adjacent neighbourhoods still manages to match or exceed Chicago in terms of vibrancy and pedestrian activity.
I don't doubt that Chicago gets a lot more tourists than Toronto, but like fusion said, most of Chicago's tourists are Americans from around the greater Midwest area (which is more populous than all of Canada), while Toronto actually gets more international tourists from overseas than Chicago does.
I doubt your claim about Toronto receiving more international tourists.
But we are not comparing the type of tourists are we? If Chicago has significantly more tourist activity (hotels, restaurants, activities, stores) than Toronto, then clearly they are NOT SIMILAR cities.
It's sometimes hard to draw conclusions about which cities between places like Toronto and Chicago are more popular with tourists.
Chicago for example is the top convention, meeting and event city in the U.S. All of these people count as tourists/visitors.
Toronto is the main business centre for all of Canada. Business travellers also count as tourists/visitors.
Toronto's foreign-born population is twice the percentage of Chicago's. This means more people from Mumbai and Moscow are coming to Toronto to visit relatives, check the place out, attend weddings, etc. because the family ties are more recent.
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