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Toronto 2030

Fortunately, that is not entirely true. Subways in particular were generally built in areas that were already among the wealthiest in the city - North Toronto wasn't exactly hurting before the Yonge line was built. Certain stations are in historically lower income areas, and it would be correct to say that that land values haven't exactly skyrocketed around Victoria Park station and points east.

Similarly, streetcars are so widespread in Toronto that the streetcar itself will not automatically result in raised land values. Regent Park has excellent streetcar service but was historically a rough neighbourhood. The same might have been said about Parkdale, pockets of St. Clair West, Chinatown, etc only a few years ago.

Consider New York, which has more subways than we can even hope for. In that city, it is so normal and natural to have subway service at your door that the subway is no longer effective at raising land values. Brooklyn and The Bronx are served by hundreds of subway stations, but they aren't exactly wealthy neighbourhoods.

Bottom line: If Toronto ever built enough new subway lines and streetcar lines to adequately serve the city, it would be so common to have a subway station in your neighbourhood that new lines would no longer drive up land values over the long term, save for a small blip immediately upon completion.

I think there is a little more to it than you are accounting for.

Regent Park was a centrally planned community that served low income residents. If market forces were allowed to dictate development, this neighborhood would probably have the same very wealthy residents that live just a few blocks west and north in the same style of houses that were bulldozed over. LRT and subways do impact property values, but macro-economic forces and central planning decisions often counter that.

Regarding your New York example, there are hundreds of subway stations in The Bronx and Brooklyn, but you also need to account for what service do they have? Some stations have trains every 30 minutes, which isn't much of an incentive to locate there. I have heard that service is also unreliable on many lines in Brooklyn. If you have a job where you earn a high income, you need a dependable commute. Having a long wait for a train with unpredictable headways doesn't lend itself to that. The parts of Brooklyn today that are wealthy areas are the closest to Lower Manhattan. There is no rush to build condos in Far Rockaway.

I don't think transit is a large factor on property values, but it does change things. Whether on Manhattan or here in Toronto, there is a premium for being right, directly on a reliable subway or surface transit line versus being even 5 minutes walk away. I think even with an elaborate subway network there would still be an allocation of wealth as close to the network as possible.
 
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Fortunately, that is not entirely true. Subways in particular were generally built in areas that were already among the wealthiest in the city - North Toronto wasn't exactly hurting before the Yonge line was built. Certain stations are in historically lower income areas, and it would be correct to say that that land values haven't exactly skyrocketed around Victoria Park station and points east.

Similarly, streetcars are so widespread in Toronto that the streetcar itself will not automatically result in raised land values. Regent Park has excellent streetcar service but was historically a rough neighbourhood. The same might have been said about Parkdale, pockets of St. Clair West, Chinatown, etc only a few years ago.

Consider New York, which has more subways than we can even hope for. In that city, it is so normal and natural to have subway service at your door that the subway is no longer effective at raising land values. Brooklyn and The Bronx are served by hundreds of subway stations, but they aren't exactly wealthy neighbourhoods.

Bottom line: If Toronto ever built enough new subway lines and streetcar lines to adequately serve the city, it would be so common to have a subway station in your neighbourhood that new lines would no longer drive up land values over the long term, save for a small blip immediately upon completion.

Oh, access to a subway definitely raises property values. There's no question of it. If I may say so, you are confusing whether or not there is a price effect with whether or not it is easy to see. If Toronto had subway stations everywhere downtown then it (like New York) would have higher property prices everywhere. So you couldn't see the effect of subways by comparing neighbourhoods with subway to those without. But the effect is still there.

All the evidence for the US says being near a HRT stations raises your house price by about 10%. It is probably higher in Toronto, where the costs of car commuting are pretty high due to congestion.

There is even one study of what happened after the Spadina line opened. Property prices around stations rose by about what you'd expect, given what people were saving in commuting costs.

http://usj.sagepub.com/content/20/2/147.abstract
 
Toronto in 2030. An Interesting Topic, especially with what modern Toronto has come to be as a result of the action and inaction of the last 30 years or so.

First thing to consider is outside conditions. Anyone who says "manufacturing jobs are not ever coming back" is forgetting two problems - first is rising energy prices, the second economic nationalism. The first problem we have seen some inkling of, but that's going to get bigger as economic growth makes oil and the fuels made from crude oil more expensive. It costs twice as much to ship something from China as it did ten years ago. That does hurt, especially in tight markets. It is also why transit in North America is going to swell, because as others have pointed out, it is going to get more expensive to live in the boonies, especially if you drive a large car, truck, SUV or minivan, none of which get particularly good fuel economy. Now, cars will get more efficient and easier on the environment as time goes on, and while I think pure electric cars are unlikely, series hybrids like the Chevrolet Volt, efficient turbodiesels like those so common in Europe and growing use of fuel from alcohol (not the E85 ethanol scam going on right now - that only works because of massive subsidies to it from national governments - but cellulosic ethanol, produced by microorganisms turning cellulose in plant matter into sugars, and then fermenting it in a process similar to how one makes beer) will make the world's fuel supply much bigger. Adding to that, unconventional sources of oil such as oil shale, tar sands and synthetic crude will mean the supply is around for a long, long time yet - but none of these can be as easily pumped out of the ground and refined, as such it will cost more.

The economic nationalism part is trickier. The world's economy, not just the US and Europe but China and India too, is going to take a giant dump at some point in the late 2010s or 2020s. Canada has in this world a strong hand - moderate industrial capacity, tons of natural resources, well-established and strong financial and engineering sectors and plenty of human capital. This economic crash, which I figure is most likely to happen by 2020, is gonna mean a rough time for Canada in the short term and a downright ugly one in the United States, as America's idiotic and insular politicians, who are corrupt on a level thousands of times greater than even corporatist butt-kissers like PM Harper, will undoubtedly force "austerity measures" on their populace and in the process cause giant civil unrest in the United States. With that and the failings of Europe (which may start or be a consequence of this - which it is doesn't matter much, its the same result in the end) will force Canada into a huge recession, and all of the talk of globalization in the world won't save it there. Governments will be FORCED to rebuild industrial capacity to put Canadians back to work, and FORCED to put an end to free trade deals, particularly with nations that play the field for their own benefit, China being the biggest example of such nations. In the short term after that crash, however, Toronto's problems with income inequality and unemployment will go absolutely ballistic.

Assuming that happens about 2020, the city's inner suburbs are gonna in the short term gonna get hit hard, but those problems with economic issues will also send real estate prices into the basement, hard - a loss in the value of most properties of at least 30-40%. Those who had bought the properties at a high level will take a bath on them, unfortunately - but as the problems with subprime aren't as bad here, there won't be the huge wave of foreclosures as what happened in the United States. When combined with higher energy prices, population will start gravitating back to the cities. Governments forcing a major rebuild of industrial capacity will add to this, as there will plenty of brownfield sites to be use for these in the GTA. Forget cheap products from Wal-Mart - that company, with its huge overhead due to its size, may well face the same fate as Sears Roebuck did in the United States, major contractors or perhaps even bankruptcy.

Transit will have to be built to stop communities from starting to crumble, and so light rail lines and bus lines are built in numbers. With the need to get the city's economy and unemployment situation straightened out, I think Toronto will go on a major construction binge as the governments at all levels try to fix the problems. Eglinton is either built as a Subway or rebuilt as one. The DRL is built, GO Transit expands operations in both its bus and train divisions, Sheppard is stretched to provide the Loop Ford wants and goes out into the suburbs into Missassauga, Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Pickering. Light rail fills in gaps where appropriate. The new manufacturing places in the city also lead to CNR and CPR working to get freight service active on a greater scale into the city core, which helps jobs. Toronto will almost certainly have some additional air and water pollution from this, though the fewer or more efficient cars will offset this somewhat.

By 2025, Toronto's unemployment is still high but not anywhere it had been as before. The light rail lines in the plan are built or nearly done by now. By now, transit planning is having to consider people who commute into the GTA as well, which means Transit planning is going to include busways and light rail in the 905 where appropriate - Missassauga, Brampton, Markham and some places in Vaughan and Oshawa get light rail. In the city of Toronto, growing population densities and industrial growth will make for the system of subways, light rail, streetcars and buses to be mostly interlocking - by now, the transit authorities will be trying to get the fare card systems worked out, if that is not already done. Cars will still be crossing into the city in huge numbers, of course, but with the problems in the United States almost certainly causing a considerable number of people from south of the border coming up here looking for work and natural population growth (with the baby boomers fading away slowly by 2030) the population of Toronto will probably grow considerably, with some newcomers landing in the suburbs but the majority landing in developed neighborhoods within the city.

By 2030, as the world begins to open up its trade after a decade all trying to localize and get as much advantage as possible, the industrial sectors of Canada will be back to a size not seen since the 1960s or 1970s, which has many effects. The higher levels of air and water pollution I mentioned earlier will be one, but manufacturing jobs in higher-wage countries tend to also be fairly well-paying ones, and physical jobs in such environments will also reduce (but not eliminate by any means) the problems of poor health conditions, and while cases of generational unemployment are possible, I think once the problems with the world's economy in the 2020s are seen, I think these cases will be avoided by governments as much as possible.

I think people are being far too pessimistic about what Toronto will look like in the future. I'm not sure if that's a natural reaction to His Fatass and his dumbass brother or what, but let's be a little more positive. Ford got elected because of Miller's excesses, and no matter how often the right-wing goon newspaper of this city likes to say it, this city leans to the left, towards greater levels of social justice, and Ford is gonna have to acquiesce to that. Karen Stintz has recently led that charge for a shift in actions to a more moderate position. She isn't gonna be pushed to a Miller position, and guys like Adam Vaughan had better figure that out PDQ. If the moderate left and moderate right of council can get work done, the others will have to follow along, whether Ford and the Toronto Scum like it or not. If Ford is smart, he'll toss his brother and idiots like Mammoliti to the curb pronto and start playing ball, and maybe then he'll get re-elected in 2014.

Let's think positive, guys. :D
 
Beautiful post!

Thank you. I'm someone who believes that the technological development that will allow us to keep a high standard of living is inevitable, and that even troubles like global warming and increasing energy costs, while major problems that they are, won't end the world. I think the next 20 years to come are gonna be some unhappy times for a great many people. But those times, like the Depression and WWII that followed it, will breed new understanding of the importance of self-reliance for both individuals and nations. Compared to 50 years ago (or even 20 years ago), we live in a different world in many regards. Think about it - the internet was in its infancy in 1992, cell phones were heavy buggers where calls cost 50 cents a minute. Cars today are more technologically advanced, and the development of series hybrids in cars (a technology that has been proven for 75 years in diesel locomotives) will lead to greater efficiency. Canada has in good times and bad made itself an island of common sense that even the occasional, massive brainfarts like Rob Ford and Mike Harris cannot stop. Canada will in the long run benefit from when the United States' economic, societal and political problems come to roost (assuming they don't get a Gingrich-type in power who decides to invade us, of course, but that option is fairly remote) in the form of us getting many of the people who are victims of American problems.

My view is that the 21st Century will see Toronto rise into the first ranks of world cities, with Vancouver and Montreal following close behind and Calgary, Edmonton amd Ottawa moving strongly into the second rank. My view is that Toronto in 2030 will be a city of about 8 million (that's counting all of the GTA, of course) that will be in the midst of a manufacturing revival and a rearrangement of the idea of city living. Transit will be built to deal with the problems of higher energy costs and traffic congestion, and tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of Americans will have come here for a better life, and these people will be quite happy to add to the mosaic. I anticipate by then that the Condo towers will have long jumped the Don River into Riverdale and Greektown, be built well into Mimico and have stretched up Yonge and Avenue Roads all the way up to the edge of the city of Toronto. Gentification will be restoring some neighborhoods. The demands to put people back to work and provide housing for low-income people (of which there will be many in the late 2010s and 2020s) will mean thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of new units of affordable housing. One of my hopes is that the Get Toronto Moving plans of Highways 400 to downtown along the Kitchener Line Rail corridor and the building of the highway along the Scarborough power line corridor get built - the former relieves congestion on the 427 and some parts of the 401 and 404/DVP, the latter will be a major congestion remover along the 401 out of Durham and York Regions and in Scarborough. (The GTM plan calls for the 400 extension being built as a cut-and-cover tunnel under the Georgetown Corridor down to meet the Gardiner at Strachan Avenue, going underground at Eglinton. It's rather better than Rocco Rossi's Toronto Tunnel idea, and a helluva lot more workable.) Any planning for the area will involve the need to have jobs, commerce and residents able to get where they need to go quickly and efficiently using transit.

It won't be the same city in many regards, but it'll be rather different than what people here are talking about, which sounds like New York in the 1970s or Los Angeles in the 1980s. We're better than that, and our people, governments and planners are all better than that.
 
Action Jackson, what you described should be Toronto's long term goal, I like your being positive, but it doesn't seem realist it would happen in a matter of 18 years.

Besides, what factors do you see now can bring Vancouver and Montreal into the first class city rank? I would say it is almost impossible.
 
What happens if the financial sector relocates to Calgary in search of significantly lower corporate and personal income taxes? Since the industry moved from Montreal to Toronto in the 60's and 70's, it's clearly footloose, and let's face it - Ontario is in for major tax increases.
 
I disagree that plans like GTM are the way of the future. The idea of highway expansion to improve movement with an urban area, is more than 1/2 a century old and has been proven ineffective.

In my dreams:

Localized, self sufficient communities are going to come of age in the next few decades. The idea of moving more people and goods, the least amount of distance will take hold. Urban agricultural and vertical farming, will become important industries. New forms of energy production will revitalized manufacturing to support these communities and the building of a vast and integrated public transportation network, stretching from Windsor to Montreal.

In reality:

The status quo - Regional and municipal energy, transportation and business development policies, based on political will, not real need.
 
What happens if the financial sector relocates to Calgary in search of significantly lower corporate and personal income taxes? Since the industry moved from Montreal to Toronto in the 60's and 70's, it's clearly footloose, and let's face it - Ontario is in for major tax increases.

Which I find unfortunate, as we're building for tomorrow an economy based on resource extraction, not an economy based on manufacturing and the production of goods.
 
What happens if the financial sector relocates to Calgary in search of significantly lower corporate and personal income taxes? Since the industry moved from Montreal to Toronto in the 60's and 70's, it's clearly footloose, and let's face it - Ontario is in for major tax increases.

I doubt that will ever happen. Both Toronto and Montreal are close to the economic center of the US northeast. Calgary is close to nothing but Montana. Being the financial center requires a lot more than low tax.
In the US, Wyoming, Texas, Nevada and South Dakota have the lowest corporate tax rate, but didn't make any of them a financial center. On the other hand, New York, Massachusetts, and California have the countries' highest tax rates.
 
Which I find unfortunate, as we're building for tomorrow an economy based on resource extraction, not an economy based on manufacturing and the production of goods.

There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of what the country has. Plus, Canada can do a lot better by exporting processed high value added energy products, not just raw resources.
Speaking of manufacturing, maybe we should stop only focus on the US market. exporting 85% to one country is stupid and highly risky.
 
What happens if the financial sector relocates to Calgary in search of significantly lower corporate and personal income taxes? Since the industry moved from Montreal to Toronto in the 60's and 70's, it's clearly footloose, and let's face it - Ontario is in for major tax increases.

For the one millionth time, Ontario's income tax is lower than Alberta's. Alberta gets lower starting at the 90,000/year mark.
And Calgary has already tried to pursue one of the big banks. The mayor even admitted this. He also admitted that the bank outright refused. The financial industry will never leave downtown Toronto unless something catastrophic happens. Just like it will never leaver Manhattan, or Frankfurt, or Sydney, or London or Singapore.
 
There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of what the country has. Plus, Canada can do a lot better by exporting processed high value added energy products, not just raw resources.
Speaking of manufacturing, maybe we should stop only focus on the US market. exporting 85% to one country is stupid and highly risky.

Definitely so, but focusing a large part of the economy on one sector while neglecting others is only setting up the country for trouble.
 

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