King of Kensington
Senior Member
Yes, Cleveland has excellent cultural institutions.
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Toronto Urban Sprawl Compared to Other Cities
- Thread starter middeljohn
- Start date
Yes, Cleveland has excellent cultural institutions.
King of Kensington
Senior Member
L.A. is a very polycentric city and downtown plays less of a role elsewhere. A rich tourist won't stay downtown but rather in the West Side/Beverly Hills area.
doady
Senior Member
Code:
Urban Area Population Area_sqkm Density Boardings Per capita
New York-Newark (NY/NJ/CT) 18,361,295 8936.0 2055 3,806,892,800 207.3
Toronto (ON) 5,132,794 1751.5 2931 992,828,000 193.4
Vancouver (BC) 2,135,201 1150.4 1856 356,218,100 166.8
Calgary (AB) 1,095,404 704.5 1555 148,546,000 135.6
Winnipeg (MB) 671,551 449.8 1493 67,735,000 100.9
Washington (DC/MD/VI) 4,586,770 3423.3 1340 445,170,000 97.1
Victoria (BC) 316,327 277.1 1142 29,377,600 92.9
Boston (MA/NH/RI) 4,181,019 4852.2 862 373,315,000 89.3
Halifax (NS) 297,943 269.3 1106 26,484,200 88.9
Champaign (IL) 145,361 121.5 1196 10,555,900 72.6
Chicago (IL/IN) 8,608,208 6326.7 1361 624,061,500 72.5
Philadelphia (PA/NJ/DE) 5,441,567 5131.7 1060 366,040,700 67.3
Guelph (ON) 122,362 78.9 1552 7,245,000 59.2
Portland (OR/WA) 1,849,898 1358.1 1362 107,359,000 58.0
Seattle (WA) 3,059,393 2616.7 1169 165,639,000 54.1
LA-Long Beach-Anaheim (CA) 12,150,996 4496.3 2702 585,985,300 48.2
Thunder Bay (ON) 102,222 179.4 570 4,134,400 40.4
Pittsburgh (PA) 1,733,853 2344.4 740 65,116,300 37.6
Denver-Aurora (CO) 2,374,203 1730.0 1372 83,455,100 35.2
Atlanta (GA) 4,514,419 6851.4 659 147,862,600 32.8
Minneapolis-StPaul (MN/WI) 2,650,890 2646.5 1002 80,442,000 30.3
Buffalo (NY) 935,906 984.0 951 27,516,200 29.4
Miami (FL) 5,502,379 3208.0 1715 151,527,400 27.5
Austin (TX) 1,362,416 1354.7 1006 33,860,500 24.9edit: corrected New York and Toronto numbers
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W. K. Lis
Superstar
Montréal not part of Canada? Or, the survey request was in English only?
doady
Senior Member
Edmonton is not on there either, and its absence didn't have anything to do with Alberta separatism.
I will add some other cities (Halifax and Washington) to hopefully placate you.
If you can get the data for boardings (unlinked trips) for STM, RTL, STL, etc. then feel free to post them here. But even if you can understand French, that data might be very hard to find, considering Canadian systems count actually ridership using revenue riders (linked trips).
W. K. Lis
Superstar
Most likely, the French survey request was sent to Edmonton by mistake.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Atlanta has the same densify as Thunder Bay. I knew Atlanta was sprawling, but that's pretty bad for any large city.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Code:Urban Area Population Area_sqkm Density Boardings Per capita New York-Newark (NY/NJ/CT) 18,361,295 8936.0 2055 3,751,394,800 204.3 Toronto (ON) 5,132,794 1751.5 2931 985,203,000 191.9 Vancouver (BC) 2,135,201 1150.4 1856 356,218,100 166.8 Calgary (AB) 1,095,404 704.5 1555 148,546,000 135.6 Winnipeg (MB) 671,551 449.8 1493 67,735,000 100.9 Washington (DC/MD/VI) 4,586,770 3423.3 1340 445,170,000 97.1 Victoria (BC) 316,327 277.1 1142 29,377,600 92.9 Boston (MA/NH/RI) 4,181,019 4852.2 862 373,315,000 89.3 Halifax (NS) 297,943 269.3 1106 26,484,200 88.9 Champaign (IL) 145,361 121.5 1196 10,555,900 72.6 Chicago (IL/IN) 8,608,208 6326.7 1361 624,061,500 72.5 Philadelphia (PA/NJ/DE) 5,441,567 5131.7 1060 366,040,700 67.3 Guelph (ON) 122,362 78.9 1552 7,245,000 59.2 Portland (OR/WA) 1,849,898 1358.1 1362 107,359,000 58.0 Seattle (WA) 3,059,393 2616.7 1169 165,639,000 54.1 LA-Long Beach-Anaheim (CA) 12,150,996 4496.3 2702 585,985,300 48.2 Thunder Bay (ON) 102,222 179.4 570 4,134,400 40.4 Pittsburgh (PA) 1,733,853 2344.4 740 65,116,300 37.6 Denver-Aurora (CO) 2,374,203 1730.0 1372 83,455,100 35.2 Atlanta (GA) 4,514,419 6851.4 659 147,862,600 32.8 Minneapolis-StPaul (MN/WI) 2,650,890 2646.5 1002 80,442,000 30.3 Buffalo (NY) 935,906 984.0 951 27,516,200 29.4 Miami (FL) 5,502,379 3208.0 1715 151,527,400 27.5 Austin (TX) 1,362,416 1354.7 1006 33,860,500 24.9
Never would have guessed that Toronto was denser than the New York Tristate Area, or that Vancouver was less dense than LA
I'm curious how these municipal borders are defined. Is it Toronto proper, or the entire GTA? Intuitively, these numbers don't make sense to me.
doady
Senior Member
These are all urban areas, not municipalities. Starting with 2011 Census, larger urban areas are called "population centres" in Canada.
Urban is not rural, so an urban area only includes the built-up areas of a metropolitan area, and excludes the rural areas. If we want to measure urban sprawl and sustainable development, it doesn't make sense to include the non-urban, non-developed lands, right?
For example, here is the urban area of Toronto as defined by Stats Canada:
https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-...archPR=35&B1=All&Custom=&TABID=1&geocode=0944
Softee
Active Member
^ The Oshawa and Hamilton urban areas (or population centres) are contiguous with the Toronto urban area, but they are counted separately because they are different CMAs. Even so, all three are indeed a single urban area.
Memph
Active Member
There are similar cases in the USA too though. Riverside-San Bernardino isn't counted as part of the LA urban area; San Jose isn't counted as part of the SF-Oakland urban area. The New York urban area doesn't include anything in Connecticut, even though there is continuous (albeit much of it low density) development stretching across much of Connecticut and arguably even into Western Massachusetts. Trenton is separate from Philadelphia's urban area. Baltimore's is separate from DC's.
Memph
Active Member
Toronto's urban area is denser than New York's because New York has tons of ultra low density suburbs which have a relatively low proportion of the region's population but add a ton to the land area.
If you use weighted density, which break's down the urban area into neighbourhood sized pieces that are weighted by population, then you're looking at the density of that the average urban area resident lives in, and ultra low density areas that have few people living in them have little impact. The weighted density of New York's urban area is slightly more than double that of Toronto's.
As for LA vs Vancouver. LA still has a slightly higher weighted density than Vancouver's, LA is still a pretty dense city. LA and Vancouver both have a lot of single family style neighbourhoods - which in both cases are not necessarily occupied by a single nuclear family, extended family households and accessory units are common in both cities. LA also has a lot of low-rise apartment clusters, which might not be quite as dense as Vancouver's highrise neighbourhoods, but are still significantly dense than the typical single family style Vancouver neighbourhood. Vancouver has lowrise apartment (and townhouse) clusters too, but maybe LA has more, or maybe other subtle differences cause LA to have a slightly higher weighted density. In any case, the difference in weighted density is small, and I would expect the two urban areas to have pretty similar densities.
Vancouver's urban area is poorly defined though. I don't entirely understand why but certain tracts of rural land - which are at times quite large - are included in the urban area boundary. The entirety of North Vancouver and West Vancouver Districts, as well as Coquitlam's entire land area are included for example, which takes in probably a couple hundred square kilometers of forested mountains. The entirety of Richmond's land area is included too, which contains a fair bit of farmland, as well as a stretch of farmland between Cloverdale and Surrey, a stretch of farmland between Tsawwassen and Ladner, and a stretch of farmland between Pitt Meadows and Port Coquitlam.
I believe this mostly has to do with defining urban areas in a way that avoids violating people's privacy. So lets say there's a city that includes rural areas within the municipal boundaries. The rural portion only has a population of 15 with 4 households. If the urban area does not include the rural portion, you could compare the census data for the municipality and urban area and use the difference to figure out some personal information on those 4 households. So in some situations, to protect people's privacy, statscan would include rural areas within the urban area. However, I'm not sure if all those rural tracts in the Vancouver urban area meet statscan's requirements for that, or if they were included for other reasons.
Toronto has some similar cases with rural land being included ex the rural part of Scarborough, and farmland between King City and Oakridges section of Richmond Hill, and between Oak Ridges and highway 404. However, Toronto makes up for this by not including Brampton's Woodhill industrial area in the urban area, since the urban area is not based on land use but on population density.
I'm not sure how well defined American urban areas are by comparison. This is why I prefer to use weighted density though, since these rural areas will have relatively little impact that way, even if they are included.
doady
Senior Member
I don't understand why measure density by basically excluding the lowest density. If you talk about sprawl (i.e. this thread) you can't just ignore the shittiest sprawl. And NYC has a lot of really, really shitty sprawl.
By that standard, NYC and Philadelphia are one urban area. I don't agree.
I don't think the development of places like Hamilton Mountain or Courtice had much to do with Toronto. You really think that's all Toronto's sprawl?
Hamilton and Oshawa both are growing and developing slowly compared to Toronto, especially suburban Toronto. Their connections to Toronto aren't very strong. They are their own centres.
Toronto-Oshawa is not contiguously urban anyways. There is farmland between Ajax and Whitby. I would argue Milton should be included with Toronto, even though it's not contiguously urban. Most residents in Milton work in Toronto. It's growth is very fast and driven by Toronto. Same is not true of Hamilton and Oshawa.
By that standard, NYC and Philadelphia are one urban area. I don't agree.
I don't think the development of places like Hamilton Mountain or Courtice had much to do with Toronto. You really think that's all Toronto's sprawl?
Hamilton and Oshawa both are growing and developing slowly compared to Toronto, especially suburban Toronto. Their connections to Toronto aren't very strong. They are their own centres.
Toronto-Oshawa is not contiguously urban anyways. There is farmland between Ajax and Whitby. I would argue Milton should be included with Toronto, even though it's not contiguously urban. Most residents in Milton work in Toronto. It's growth is very fast and driven by Toronto. Same is not true of Hamilton and Oshawa.
Memph
Active Member
Depends why we're talking about sprawl. If we're talking about viability of transit, it's much better to have 10 million people living at Manhattan densities and 1 million living at ultra low suburban densities than 11 million living at Brampton densities, even though the average density is the same. Brampton has about 15-20% transit mode share? Even if the ultra-low density suburb has zero transit use, the Manhattan density city only needs 17-22% transit mode share for the overall region to outperform the Brampton style city in transit use, and I'm sure that with a 10x higher density, the Manhattan style city can easily achieve greater mode shares.
The same is true for many other purposes, where being 10x denser than Brampton (Manhattan) is a bigger difference than being 10x less dense than Brampton (ultra-low density sprawl). Ex if you have a 10x bigger yard, the amount of run-off doesn't increase 10x because yards don't generate run-off, only roofs, driveways and roads do. The run-off will probably be higher, but not 10x higher. However, if you take a unit, vs 10 units stacked on top of each other, the 10-fold increase in density will mean a 10-fold decrease in per capita run-off.
Actually's it's about 20.9% commuting to Toronto for Oshawa vs 18.5% for Milton. And it's 35.0% for Whitby which is not considered to be part of Toronto's CMA. Even Clarington comes in at 16.0%.
The suburbs with the highest percentages are
Pickering: 53.9%
Ajax: 51.5%
Markham: 50.5%
Vaughan: 46.1%
Richmond Hill: 44.4%
Mississauga: 30.0%
So more people commuting from Whitby to Toronto than from Mississauga, Brampton or Oakville. And more commuting from Clarington than from Stouffville, King and or Halton Hills. The Oshawa CMA definitely would qualify for being part of Toronto's, if not for the fact that Statscan has a rule about not combining formerly separate CMAs.
For Hamilton it's 4.5% so for Hamilton I agree it is definitely a lot more independent from Toronto.
doady
Senior Member
The transit ridership and transit mode share of the NYC urban area is about the same as the Toronto urban area. So I don't understand why you are arguing for weighted density on that basis.
Manhattan comprises less than 10% of the population of the NYC urban area. Your hypothetical urban area of 90% the population living at Manhattan-level densities would be a ridiculously, insanely dense urban area - far denser than your hypothetical 100% Brampton urban area, by any measure.
NYC is not 90% Manhattan density, and Toronto is not 100% Brampton density. I don't see the point in comparing them. Manhattan is the centre, Brampton is the fringe. I don't see how Toronto would be better off if its suburbs were lower density and had less transit. That's basically what you are arguing with "weighted density" - to ignore the suburban parts of Toronto, which comprise over 4/5 of the population and over 1/2 of the transit ridership of the Toronto area:
TTC heavy rail : 306,032,200
TTC light rail: 99,819,700
GO Transit total: 62,428,900
Total: 468,280,800
vs.
TTC bus: 400,562,400
TTC intermediate rail: 15,519,400
Mississauga Transit: 49,300,000
Brampton Transit: 25,460,000
York Region Transit: 27,439,000
Oakville Transit: 3,421,400
Total: 521,702,200
Compare that to NYC:
MTA NYC Transit total: 3,237,320,200
MTA Bus: 21,578,000
MTA Long Island Rail Road total: 95,011,000
MTA Metro-North Railroad total: 81,245,600
MTA Staten Island Railway: 4,370,500
NJ Transit commuter rail: 74,503,510
Total: 3,514,028,800
vs.
MTA Long Island Bus: 31,192,500
Bee Line Bus: 32,300,000
Suffolk County Transit: 6,054,500
NJ Transit buses and light rail: 146,094,500
Port Authority of NY and NJ total: 77,222,500
Total: 292,862,000
NYC proper has lots of transit, but that's cancelled out by the lack of transit in its suburbs. The overall ridership ends up being similar to Toronto. So I don't see how you can ignore the impact of the ultra-low density suburbs in NYC, or the impact of high density suburbs in Toronto.
Almost every resident of the Milton urban area works in Mississauga or Oakville, in the Toronto urban area. But most residents of the Oshawa urban area work in the Oshawa urban area.