Toronto's "urban myths"

[MisterF]

Highway 11 was Yonge Street until the downloading from the province in the late 90s. That's why if you get off at Yonge St from the 407, you'll still see the Highway 11 Yonge Street instead of Highway 1 numerical designation. So the two are the same in some respects, but even shorter than it was before. Still, your right, it not the longest road, that title has gone to the Pan-American Highway.

Most (but not all) of Yonge Street was Highway 11 but only a small portion of Highway 11 was Yonge Street. That Spacing article is interesting. Basically Yonge Street was built to the Holland River and Highway 11 came over a century later, using most of Yonge for part of its route.

 

[ShonTron]

Does Rochester count?

Given that Rochester's streetcar subway was abandoned in the 1950s, I don't think it counts! Nor Newark, which also had a 1920s streetcar subway, which still exists today.

 

[wild goose chase]

It's always quite striking to see how much of a contrast other Great Lakes cities in the US had in terms of leading Toronto early on in the 20th century in infrastructure and size, but then declining in population seemingly as Toronto was growing. Right now, Chicago's the only city in the region bigger than Toronto.

What was the reason why so many Great Lakes cities did poorly and declined while Toronto saw growth? Was it mainly that Toronto proportionally received more migration (immigration plus influx of Canadians from other provinces), or that those other cities depended a lot more on manufacturing that went overseas, while Toronto had a greater range of economic activities?

 

[King of Kensington]

We don't have an equivalent of the Sunbelt in Canada to draw people away, and Toronto has never been an economy based on heavy industry like other Great Lakes cities.

 

[wild goose chase]

I don't know if this would qualify as a myth or contain some grain of truth -- how about the claim that Toronto only surpassed Montreal in population, economic importance and overall eminence as the biggest Canadian city because of fears of Quebec separatism in the 1970s, leading to an exodus of Anglo-Montrealers and businesses.

In reality, Toronto was growing anyways. There was a general trend for a westward movement of the center of population in North America more broadly.

 

[howl]

Toronto also got a huge boost from Vietnam draft dodgers in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Many draft dodger's were university educated lads who ended up living in the Annex or Cabbagetown, and got many jobs teaching at the UofT and York, or the being administrators at City Hall.

 

[junctionist]

Toronto probably would have overtaken Montreal without the separatist movement. The city was growing at a very rapid pace after WWII.

 

[King of Kensington]

I don't know if this would qualify as a myth or contain some grain of truth -- how about the claim that Toronto only surpassed Montreal in population, economic importance and overall eminence as the biggest Canadian city because of fears of Quebec separatism in the 1970s, leading to an exodus of Anglo-Montrealers and businesses.

In reality, Toronto was growing anyways. There was a general trend for a westward movement of the center of population in North America more broadly.

Yes, the trend was evident for decades.

 

[Ladies Mile]

Great idea for a thread!

One thing commonly said of Toronto and specifically Cabbagetown is that it contains the largest intact Victorian neighbourhood in North America. I have never been able to find any actual factual support for this claim, which would appear on the face of it to be untrue when one considers the vast swathes of 19th Century buildings that remain in New York (Brooklyn specifically), Boston, Philadelphia and Montreal. Similar claims are made in Australia for Melbourne - which seem even more unlikely.

 

[animatronic]

The PATH is the world's largest / longest underground shopping mall.

 

[animatronic]

The film crew that dressed Toronto to look like New York and a cleaning crew came in and picked up all the garbage while everyone was on lunch break

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The PATH is the world's largest / longest underground shopping mall.

Of course the countermyth is that the one in Montreal is the largest.

AoD

 

[wild goose chase]

The PATH is the world's largest / longest underground shopping mall.

Oh, is this information not correct?

http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/c...nnel=04708b7a29891410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD

"According to Guinness World Records, PATH is the largest underground shopping complex with 30 km (19 miles) of shopping arcades. It has 371,600 square metres (4 million square feet) of retail space. In fact, the retail space connected to PATH rivals the West Edmonton Mall in size."

 

[animatronic]

Oh, is this information not correct?

http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/c...nnel=04708b7a29891410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD

"According to Guinness World Records, PATH is the largest underground shopping complex with 30 km (19 miles) of shopping arcades. It has 371,600 square metres (4 million square feet) of retail space. In fact, the retail space connected to PATH rivals the West Edmonton Mall in size."

Nobody has been able to come up with the 30km number independently. It's also not a standard unit of measuring retail.

 

[wild goose chase]

Nobody has been able to come up with the 30km number independently. It's also not a standard unit of measuring retail.

So, then is there a clear winner by any of the conventional metrics?
At first, I thought that maybe the PATH was surpassed by some other shopping complex overseas (the way West Edmonton Mall was surpassed by newly built malls in Asia) so that's why it's brought up as no longer true.