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Take Mississauga, 27 km from Central Toronto and the second city in the Toronoto Metro Area
Sydney is laid out very differently to most cities on North America, the metro area is actually a collection of 32 different local and city governments, of which "The City of Sydney" is the 6th Largest by population. As such when most people say Sydney, they refer to the entire Metropolitan Area.
Mississauga's core may not be the best representation of a city in the Greater Toronto Area in terms of 'open car' spaces in others. The DT core if you will, was built around a shopping mall essentially - the largest mall in Ontario. It is certainly its own anomaly. I'm not trying to outright discredit what you are saying here, it appears there is generalized truth to it based on what I am seeing with Paramatta, but I know the GTA and even surrounding urban areas around its gravitational pull, and they are not all constructed like Mississauga city centre, which is an extreme. If anything good out of it though, Mississauga is filling in quite rapidly with development. It is still a rather newish city which has had tremendous population growth over the last few decades but the core is still not completed.
Although not part of the GTA - the City of Hamilton is contiguous to it and is part of the Golden Horseshoe. Regional rail actually connects it to Toronto. If you drove from Dt Toronto to Hamilton it would feel like you are in one giant urbanized area.
Mississauga's core may not be the best representation of a city in the Greater Toronto Area in terms of 'open car' spaces in others. That city was built around a shopping mall essentially - the largest mall in Ontario. It is certainly its own anomaly. I'm not trying to outright discredit what you are saying here, but I know the GTA and even surrounding urban areas around its gravitation pull and they are not all constructed like Mississauga city centre.
I will take you word for that I just knew Mississauga was Toronto's second city, I don't much about the rest of the GTA, most of Sydney's sub cities are set out pretty much like Parramatta, built around the rail stations, with the car parks either been underground or on the roofs of buildings.
I will take you word for that I just knew Mississauga was Toronto's second city, I don't much about the rest of the GTA, most of Sydney's sub cities are set out pretty much like Parramatta, built around the rail stations, with the car parks either been underground or on the roofs of buildings.
I was still editing my post (I have a habit of posting then thinking and adding on) but I included a short video on Hamilton you might want to check out. Hamilton has its blights, but its core at least is a better representation of one that isn't dominated by parking lots lol. That said, I would actually generally accept what you said, but just wanted to nuance it a bit to include the fact that Missisauga's core, is probably the most extreme example of open car parks. I'm first to admit, Mississauga's core is NOT ped friendly! There are actually other parts of Mississauga like Streetsville and Port Credit that are more human scale.
Paramatta's core however, certainly is more appealing and urban than Mississauga's. I wish the cities surrounding Toronto were constructed in the same manner as Sydney's actually in terms of around rail stations in the core area's. Toronto's regional rail system seems to place stations away from the core with my frequent smaller stations and more stops. There are some in the core like Toronto's union station itself, but i mean in smaller satellite cities these stations are not in the core with rail stations behaving as the gravitation anchor.
I was still editing my post (I have a habit of posting then thinking and adding on) but I included a short video on Hamilton you might want to check out. Hamilton has its blights, but its core at least is a better representation of one that isn't dominated by parking lots lol. That said, I would actually generally accept what you said, but just wanted to nuance it a bit to include the fact that Missisauga's core, is probably the most extreme example of open car parks. I'm first to admit, Mississauga's core is NOT ped friendly! There are actually other parts of Mississauga like Streetsville and Port Credit that are more human scale.
Paramatta's core however, certainly is more appealing and urban than Mississauga's. I wish the cities surrounding Toronto were constructed in the same manner as Sydney's actually in terms of around rail stations in the core area's. Toronto's regional rail system seems to place stations away from the cor with my frequent smaller stations and more stops.
I'm not trying to outright discredit what you are saying here, it appears there is generalized truth to it based on what I am seeing with Paramatta
The thing with Sydney's suburbs is that its commercial areas are fundamentally different to what you have in North America. In NA when you think suburbs you probably think auto centric development, strip malls, surface parking, stroads eg.
In Sydney you still get all the low density SFH residential areas familiar to North Americans. But rather than having strip malls distributed evenly everywhere, you'll find that within each suburb ("neighbourhood" in NA talk) there's usually a tight, pedestrian and transport oriented town centre of some sort, built around a train station, that acts as the central hub for the area. Think of them as mini downtowns dotted all around the metro. The NA style strip mall - big box - carpark is something you won't really find unless you head to the more remote parts 30kms+ out.
Take for example this little section of suburban Sydney called Eastwood about 15kms out:
And that's where people from that area go to shop and spend their days. Yes there's no high rises, but the built form is just different to suburban NA. And 3kms down that train line you see running down the middle, there's another similar area at a suburb called Epping. And it's the same story along pretty much every other train line in Sydney.
Another point of difference is with the suburban shopping malls. In NA it usually means freestanding malls separated from its surroundings by moats of parking. Sydney's however are mostly built and integrated into mini downtowns with active street frontages and forms a cohesive precinct. Like this one at Chatswood. https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.796...7i16384!8i8192
Last edited by ciTydude123; 07-17-2022 at 07:10 AM..
Thanks for the information. Again I think in a generalized sense you are correct. Particularly with the fact that suburban towns/cities in Sydney are built around a Rail hub with commerce around it as a central node. Certainly that is not the case in most N.A cities but at the same time, there are also structural differences around how N.A cities are built with a mix of such centralization and decentralization. In the GTA, you do have a mix of suburban commercial areas that are urban and have street frontages and high walk scores - even in suburbia just not necessarily linked to rail. You also have large shopping malls surrounded by parking lots so it isn't a clean generalization.
Within the city of Toronto which is 3 million people alone, you do get much more commercial areas linked to the Subway, so a bit more like your suburbs, but replacing rail stations with Subway stations. From a residential standpoint, you get a mix of highrise, midrise and SFH development all around these stations.
Question regarding transit in these suburban cities in Sydney. How do people get from the rail station hub to their suburban homes via transit. Is there like a bus system with decent coverage? In Toronto and the GTA, The subway and train stations have quite few bus bays for a slew of bus lines linked to them.
Thanks for the information. Again I think in a generalized sense you are correct. Particularly with the fact that suburban towns/cities in Sydney are built around a Rail hub with commerce around it as a central node. Certainly that is not the case in most N.A cities but at the same time, there are also structural differences around how N.A cities are built with a mix of such centralization and decentralization. In the GTA, you do have a mix of suburban commercial areas that are urban and have street frontages and high walk scores - even in suburbia just not necessarily linked to rail. You also have large shopping malls surrounded by parking lots so it isn't a clean generalization.
Within the city of Toronto which is 3 million people alone, you do get much more commercial areas linked to the Subway, so a bit more like your suburbs, but replacing rail stations with Subway stations. From a residential standpoint, you get a mix of highrise, midrise and SFH development all around these stations.
Yeah it's a generalisation I admit. Not every place in Sydney is what I described just as not every place in NA is what I described for that. I know there's some areas around the GTA that are more walkable like downtown Brampton or Port Credit, and the beast is that stretch on Yonge Street up to North York. At the same time I meant for that generalisation to be taken for what it is, because even in very urban cities like London you'll find examples of car centric development.
The difference is with the prevalence of one type of urban design in one city vs the other (you can say the same with shopping malls). Look around Sydney on maps and street view, compare the prevalence of those walkable town centres to big box, strip malls and surface carparks, then look at the NA cities in discussion here and do the same. My observation is that in the vast majority of metro Sydney those town centres are the norm, whereas with the NA cities outside the core they're more of an exception where they exist, and also where they do exist they aren't nearly as dominant within its area as the ones in Sydney.
Toronto does have its merits though. Its central core is definitely larger and more contiguous than Sydney's with the streets there lined with retail stretching for kilometres. You could walk forever in just that core alone. And the combo of more and taller high rises + long straight streets would make it feel bigger as well. But one thing with Sydney is that over the last 10 years there's been a lot of improvements to its public realm, and pretty much all the major areas in the downtown now like George Street, Martin Place, Pitt street mall, Chinatown, Darling Harbour eg - they're all car free and pedestrianised. The public realm is something I think Toronto could work on though it's not hard if the city puts its mind to it.
So when it comes to the subject of this thread it just comes down to the matter of one having one (or several) large central cores, and the other having a smaller core but with more little pockets of urbanity dotted everywhere else. Take in that observation and my feeling is they're actually quite comparable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fusion2
Question regarding transit in these suburban cities in Sydney. How do people get from the rail station hub to their suburban homes via transit. Is there like a bus system with decent coverage? In Toronto and the GTA, The subway and train stations have quite few bus bays for a slew of bus lines linked to them.
That's one thing Toronto and Canada does better. Bus network designed to complement the rail system and feed the stations. Sydney's railway stations usually have bus stops or shelters right next to them but the issue is more with the bus network design. It's very extensive in terms of coverage but frequencies vary, and there's bus lines that are more like they're competing with the trains for ridership rather than complementing it. It comes down to Sydney's traditional preference for one seat journeys over transfers and we didn't even have an integrated fare system until 10 or 12 years ago. But since the introduction of that integrated system transport ridership was surging higher every year until the pandemic hit. And at least with the bus routes that pass through railway lines it usually links up with a few stations.
I will take you word for that I just knew Mississauga was Toronto's second city, I don't much about the rest of the GTA, most of Sydney's sub cities are set out pretty much like Parramatta, built around the rail stations, with the car parks either been underground or on the roofs of buildings.
I'd say that Toronto's second "city", in the (North) American meaning of "downtown', would be North York Centre.
It's actually part of the City of Toronto, though prior to the megacity merger two decades ago North York was its own independent municipality. Mississauga is still a municipality independent of Toronto.
I'd say that Toronto's second "city", in the (North) American meaning of "downtown', would be North York Centre.
It's actually part of the City of Toronto, though prior to the megacity merger two decades ago North York was its own independent municipality. Mississauga is still a municipality independent of Toronto.
I understand, I was trying to use a more like for like Comparison given the distance, their are many of those paramatta type developments in Sydney Metro Area. The thing that divides paramatta from the eastern part of Sydney is that its at the end of the harbor, and is more considered the major city of "West Sydney", this is east Sydney Looking north looking to south. I am not a local however I believe the photo is of 4 separate "cities" Willoughby at the front, Lane Cove the Smaller one in the Middle, North Sydney and then Sydney.
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