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Canada is one sprawly country

these are always distorted numbers. stouffville only had a population of around 15,000 15 years ago.. so it experiences massive growth percentages when it grows by 20,000 people. but the city of toronto, home to over 2 and a half million people, adds 150,000 people and grows only 6=7%. more people are certainly moving to the 905 than the 416, but we have much more of a reign over sprawl than the country directly to the south of us. mind you, the greenbelt is doing miracles in the terms of reigning in sprawl.
 
Canada's per-capita consumption of resources is one of the highest in the world, a statistic that is partly a by-product of this sprawl. Higher even than the US.
 
A lot of these census numbers aren't presented in the most meaningful way by journalists... for instance I could say that Toronto is the city (municipality) that saw the greatest net growth, and it would be true.

Toronto: +111,779
Calgary: +108,021
Brampton: +90,105
Edmonton: +81,829
Surrey: +73,275
...
Milton: +30,423
...
Whitchurch-Stouffville: +13,238
...
Martensville, Sask: +2,748

Although most of the population increase has been at the edge of urban areas, it makes more sense to examine the explosive growth in Castlemore and Springdale in Brampton, or Vellore and Maple in Vaughan, or the outskirts of Calgary, than looking at Sainte-Brigitte-de-Laval.

In fact, the net increase for these 10 communities combined is only 88,178, less than either Toronto, Calgary or Brampton.
 
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I lived in both Toronto and LA, and all I can say is that in terms of urban sprawl, Toronto does no better than LA whatsoever, despite LA's bad reputation.
 
Once again kkgg7 you are talking nonsense.

I lived in Miami and it does much much worse than Toronto.

In Toronto you can live downtown and almost never ever need to board a car to accomplish anything. Employment, retail, groceries, parks, and even the Toronto islands should you want to go for a swim are all accessible very easily through public transit and/or walking. The area where you can live and walk everywhere is huge, whereas in the likes of LA and Miami it's almost non-existent.
 
Once again kkgg7 you are talking nonsense.

I lived in Miami and it does much much worse than Toronto.

In Toronto you can live downtown and almost never ever need to board a car to accomplish anything. Employment, retail, groceries, parks, and even the Toronto islands should you want to go for a swim are all accessible very easily through public transit and/or walking. The area where you can live and walk everywhere is huge, whereas in the likes of LA and Miami it's almost non-existent.

First, i never mentioned Miami. Never lived there.
Second, why would you compare downtowns? not many people live in downtown LA to start with. LA's most walkable neighbourhoods are probably Korean town, Fairfax, west Hollywood among many others. Have you lived in any of them? Koreantown for example has more than 120K residents on 3 square miles. downtown Toronto is roughly the same size (Bathurst-Parliament), I don't think more than 120K people live here.

Yes, Toronto's downtown is very walkable, but that's about it. what about the rest of the city? Scarborough, Etobicoke and most part of North York are even worse than most LA neighbourhoods. LA doesn't have a very big and livable downtown, true, but its multiple centers and near suburbs are in fact more dense than the majority of Toronto, believe it or not.

Trust me, despite the common belief, LA is no more sprawling than Toronto.
 
Densities:

Toronto (including suburbs): 4,149/km2

Toronto (inner city): 7,583.9/km2 (NOTE: Expanding for 97.15 km2)

Greater Toronto Area: 850/km2

Los Angeles: 3,124.45/km2

Greater Los Angeles: 203.3/km2

Tokyo (proper): 6,000/km2

Tokyo (metro): 2,629/km2

Miami (proper): 4,687.1/km2

Miami (metro): 315/km²

------------------------------


I think it's pretty obvious Toronto is less sprawly than LA. So is Miami, which is in turn more sprawly than Toronto.

Toronto is pretty decent sized not-so-sprawly city surrounded by sprawly municipalities. I believe that LA does have non sprawly areas (as does Miami), but those areas are usually not self-contained cities fully independent cities, whereas Toronto's inner city is.
 
Densities:

Toronto (including suburbs): 4,149/km2

Toronto (inner city): 7,583.9/km2 (NOTE: Expanding for 97.15 km2)

Greater Toronto Area: 850/km2

Los Angeles: 3,124.45/km2

Greater Los Angeles: 203.3/km2

Tokyo (proper): 6,000/km2

Tokyo (metro): 2,629/km2

Miami (proper): 4,687.1/km2

Miami (metro): 315/km²

------------------------------


I think it's pretty obvious Toronto is less sprawly than LA. So is Miami, which is in turn more sprawly than Toronto.

Toronto is pretty decent sized not-so-sprawly city surrounded by sprawly municipalities. I believe that LA does have non sprawly areas (as does Miami), but those areas are usually not self-contained cities fully independent cities, whereas Toronto's inner city is.

no, your average calculation is misleading. People tend to think density as people per square mile, but it is hardly the real picture.
Do me a favour and take a look at Los Angeles' map, a sizable portion in the northwest is forest and mountains. Vew few people live there. simply take the mathamatical average of people/land is far from the whole story. For example, city A has 1 million people living on 100km sq, evenly spread, city B has 750K people living on 100km sq, but 99% of them live on 30% of the area in the west, while the rest is mostly mountains and lakes. A looks more dense by calculation while B is actually more compact and less sprawling.

Additionally, contrary to what you said, most of LA's inner cities are self-contained, very much so. West Hollywood, Pasadena, Westwood, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Glendale, Monterey Park etc are all incredibly self-sufficient cities. Residents seldom have to go to downtown for shopping, work and entertainment because each of these communities have everything you need. That's why LA is a multi-center city, unlike Toronto. Is Scarborough self-sufficient? Is East York self-sufficient? Not at all. People there always come to downtown for everything. LA has a huge advantage over Toronto in this aspect.

please read this
http://www.uctc.net/access/37/access37_sprawl.shtml
LA has very dense suburbs, and if considered, it is denser than New York and San Fran, which have much sprawling suburbs than LA.
 
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The different between LA and Toronto/NYC/San Fran is that the latter have a very dense core, and then very sparsely populated suburbs. On the other hand, LA doesn't have a hugely dense core, but has multiple medium to high density centers around the city in every corner. People go to different directions throughout the day, instead of always into downtown in the morning and out of in the afternoon.

In Los Angeles, 40 percent of the population live on the most densely settled 10 percent of land. By way of comparison, 66% for New York, 67% for San Francisco's
25 percent of the population in Los Angeles lives on the densest 5 percent of the land. By contrast, 46% for San Francisco, and more than 50 percent for New York.

Yes, New York and Toronto etc will be a lot denser than LA if they don't have their suburbs, but they do, huge ones, which makes them less dense. What percentage of Torontonians live downtown? I didn't find the exact number, but old Toronto has about 800K, and the real downtown possible have 10% of that. I am one of them and I enjoy my walking to everything life, but outside downtown and away from the Yonge subway line, it is pretty much all sparse suburbs.

Is Toronto denser than LA in general? Not at all.
 
Urban areas are a better measurement than Metropolitan areas which include tons of rural land, and city boundaries are arbitrary

Urban area densities:

Toronto: 2734.7/km2
Toronto+Hamilton+Oshawa: 2665.9/km2
Los Angeles: 2702.4/km2
Los Angeles+Riverside: 2424.7/km2
Miami: 1715.2/km2

In terms of overall density, Toronto is a bit denser than LA, but not by much, they're pretty similar.

@kkgg7: but I don't think those statistics look at just the densest 5%/10% surrounding downtown, they probably also include any high density areas in Long Beach, Koreatown or North Hollywood.

Toronto's density is actually not that spiky like NYC or SF though, it's pretty similar to LA. Still despite having a bit more high density (in percentage terms), Toronto's low density suburbs don't lower the overall urban area density below that of LA. NY and SF's urban areas have their overall density reduced to below that of LA due to their low density suburbs but not Toronto.

So now matter how you look at it, Toronto is denser, if only by a little.

Also, the population of Toronto's downtown is quite high. Around 20% of Old Toronto:
According to my calculations (assuming I didn't leave out or double count any census tracts), the following roughly 4.5 square miles of downtown Toronto increased from 132,434 in 2006 to 175,064 in 2011. That is a whopping 32.2% increase over 5 years.

dttoronto.jpg
 
Once again kkgg7 you are talking nonsense.

I lived in Miami and it does much much worse than Toronto.

In Toronto you can live downtown and almost never ever need to board a car to accomplish anything. Employment, retail, groceries, parks, and even the Toronto islands should you want to go for a swim are all accessible very easily through public transit and/or walking. The area where you can live and walk everywhere is huge, whereas in the likes of LA and Miami it's almost non-existent.

LA fine but miami? Miami is small, it is easy to get around.
 
Urban areas are a better measurement than Metropolitan areas which include tons of rural land, and city boundaries are arbitrary

Urban area densities:

Toronto: 2734.7/km2
Toronto+Hamilton+Oshawa: 2665.9/km2
Los Angeles: 2702.4/km2
Los Angeles+Riverside: 2424.7/km2
Miami: 1715.2/km2

In terms of overall density, Toronto is a bit denser than LA, but not by much, they're pretty similar.

@kkgg7: but I don't think those statistics look at just the densest 5%/10% surrounding downtown, they probably also include any high density areas in Long Beach, Koreatown or North Hollywood.

Toronto's density is actually not that spiky like NYC or SF though, it's pretty similar to LA. Still despite having a bit more high density (in percentage terms), Toronto's low density suburbs don't lower the overall urban area density below that of LA. NY and SF's urban areas have their overall density reduced to below that of LA due to their low density suburbs but not Toronto.

So now matter how you look at it, Toronto is denser, if only by a little.

Also, the population of Toronto's downtown is quite high. Around 20% of Old Toronto:



Fine, that's a fair assessment.
I am just sick people saying "LA is vast blindly sprawling land that is totally unlivable with the world's biggest traffic jams" while "Toronto is so walkable and livable with so many charming neighbourhoods". I have lived in both cities for a considerable perid of time, and like your said, the density is similar. LA has a less busy downtown core but it has many vibrant non-mall like urban centers outside downtown. Toronto has a sizable downtown, but outside it (and Yonge St), it is pretty much all suburbs (what I hate most about this city). Does Toronto have something similar to West Hollywood in the north, Santa Monica in the west, Korean Town in the central, Pasadena in the east, where people congregate on weekends to shop, dine, and entertain? I can't think of any. Woodbine beach is OK but the commerical activity can't compare to Santa Monica.

In terms of sprawl and traffic jam, Toronto is no better than Los Angeles.
 

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