Which of the four regions in the GTA do you think has closer ties to Toronto itself?

[wild goose chase]

Never been.

I haven't visited the inside of Square One since the 2000s but I was going by their website's own claim. "The largest shopping centre in Ontario at 2.2 million square feet and one of Canada’s top ten malls, Square One is a designated tourist destination and is open on statutory holidays."

Is this incorrect?

 

[King of Kensington]

York Region was initially part of York County, as was Toronto. Toronto was still part of a York County juridical district until around 1980 or so.

Today, there is a Toronto and York Region Labour Council.

 

[jaycola]

I think this image clearly shows the transit connections running into York Region are much stronger than those into either Peel or Durham regions. The simple fact is that the street grid to the north continues across Steeles for virtually every major road while to the east the Rouge and to the west, the 427 separate Toronto from it's neighbours.

 

[King of Kensington]

So if York Region has closer ties over Peel, what about municipalities? Assuming Vaughan and Markham are the closest, how do Richmond Hill, Mississauga and Brampton compare?

 

[King of Kensington]

I think this image clearly shows the transit connections running into York Region are much stronger than those into either Peel or Durham regions. The simple fact is that the street grid to the north continues across Steeles for virtually every major road while to the east the Rouge and to the west, the 427 separate Toronto from it's neighbours.

Which makes sense, given that these were old concession roads built by York County.

 

[doady]

If you look at Mississauga, it has a lot of 50s/60s/70s neighbourhoods like Toronto. Lots and lots of old apartment buildings. It looks very similar to Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough.

In terms of actually being connected to Toronto though, Mississauga is much less connected than York is. Mississauga much more self-contained. I think if you look at the statistics they show this. I think Mississauga being self-contained is also the primary reason it has much higher transit ridership than the rest of the 905: a transit system is much more useful if it can serve both origin and destination of its users, especially if it means avoiding using the TTC, which has no fare integration with other systems, with really hurts YRT ridership.

But I don't you should at municipalities like this. If you look at individual neighbourhoods, Malton is obviously very connected to Rexdale. North Scarborough is obviously very connected to Markham. Yet there is the boundary acting as a major barrier. I have said before, I think this barrier is a major factor in the social problems of Malton, Rexdale, and other communities along the boundaries. And that where most of the problems are, along the boundary.

 

[wild goose chase]

If you look at Mississauga, it has a lot of 50s/60s/70s neighbourhoods like Toronto. Lots and lots of old apartment buildings. It looks very similar to Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough.

In terms of actually being connected to Toronto though, Mississauga is much less connected than York is. Mississauga much more self-contained. I think if you look at the statistics they show this. I think Mississauga being self-contained is also the primary reason it has much higher transit ridership than the rest of the 905: a transit system is much more useful if it can serve both origin and destination of its users, especially if it means avoiding using the TTC, which has no fare integration with other systems, with really hurts YRT ridership.

Mississauga, all in all, seems to be the "suburb" of the GTA that had transformed itself the most in this regard as an independent, self-contained city with its own downtown etc. and where its residents could work and find amenities without being dependent on leaving its boundaries. I'd imagine that prior to, and perhaps if not for, amalgamation, some of the old boroughs might have aspired to have gone in a similar direction (especially Mel Lastman's vision of North York centre, and to an extent some of the other centres). Perhaps in an alternate world, had history gone differently, you could have even had, say an independent, self-contained Mississauga-like Scarborough with a thriving city centre. But maybe not -- perhaps the airport as a hub of jobs and growth was an advantage no other suburb had?

 

[King of Kensington]

Mississauga, all in all, seems to be the "suburb" of the GTA that had transformed itself the most in this regard as an independent, self-contained city with its own downtown etc. and where its residents could work and find amenities without being dependent on leaving its boundaries. I'd imagine that prior to, and perhaps if not for, amalgamation, some of the old boroughs might have aspired to have gone in a similar direction (especially Mel Lastman's vision of North York centre, and to an extent some of the other centres). Perhaps in an alternate world, had history gone differently, you could have even had, say an independent, self-contained Mississauga-like Scarborough with a thriving city centre. But maybe not -- perhaps the airport as a hub of jobs and growth was an advantage no other suburb had?

Except North York was always more tied to Toronto as it was part of Metro.

 

[wild goose chase]

But would it have been possible for a city that was part of Metro to have developed as much as Mississauga did while remaining politically linked to Toronto? As a hypothetical, let's say Lastman's vision that his city centre could rival the actual city's downtown became true and additionally no amalgamation happened, and the "city with heart" really ended up as a second downtown where suburbanites lived and worked and saw as their city the way 'Sauga is. How far could a city remain city-like while still part of Metro?

I guess, like I asked about in the "what if amalgamation never happened" question thread some time back, to what extent were the political boundaries able to constrain and set in stone what the developments and trajectories of the suburbs would be like now and far into the future?

 

[King of Kensington]

But would it have been possible for a city that was part of Metro to have developed as much as Mississauga did while remaining politically linked to Toronto? As a hypothetical, let's say Lastman's vision that his city centre could rival the actual city's downtown became true and additionally no amalgamation happened, and the "city with heart" really ended up as a second downtown where suburbanites lived and worked and saw as their city the way 'Sauga is. How far could a city remain city-like while still part of Metro?

I guess, like I asked about in the "what if amalgamation never happened" question thread some time back, to what extent were the political boundaries able to constrain and set in stone what the developments and trajectories of the suburbs would be like now and far into the future?

Depends if you mean just the 1998 amalgamation or also the 1953 formation of Metropolitan Toronto. I think 1953 rather than 1998 was Toronto's "1898 moment" (formation of Greater NYC).

 

[Transportfan]

I think this image clearly shows the transit connections running into York Region are much stronger than those into either Peel or Durham regions. The simple fact is that the street grid to the north continues across Steeles for virtually every major road while to the east the Rouge and to the west, the 427 separate Toronto from it's neighbours.

It's not that the 427 (and the Etobicoke Creek) separates Toronto and Mississauga as roads still cross both, its that the street grid changes, with major concession roads in Toronto becoming non-concession streets in Mississauga (Bloor) and vice-versa (Burnhamthorpe). Eglinton is an exception.

 

[wild goose chase]

Depends if you mean just the 1998 amalgamation or also the 1953 formation of Metropolitan Toronto. I think 1953 rather than 1998 was Toronto's "1898 moment" (formation of Greater NYC).

So, to get a scenario with very different paths between Toronto's old city and the boroughs, the point of divergence would essentially have to start in the 1950s then?

So, some wildly speculative "alternate history (a genre of fiction I used to like to read)" scenarios here for Toronto's suburbs:

After Toronto stops annexing suburbs in the 20th century, with no Metro Toronto formed in the 1950s (or perhaps delayed so that the boroughs have times to develop a few generation(s) of identity and self-determination), the towns and townships surrounding the old city now are the captains of their own fates.

North York -- Mel Lastman's plan for the city with heart can go as planned, with a thought that it could rival downtown. If his plan succeeds, could we even have North York center's relationship to downtown itself what La Défense is to Paris. In this hypothetical, North York contains more of the shiny, tall skyscrapers while the Old city and downtown retains much more old, historical architecture, which then is also better preserved.

Scarborough-- The town hitches its wagon to heavy industry and manufacturing, as demonstrated by the Golden Mile of Industry. But deindustrialization hits hard and it turns Rust Belt. There isn't much growth, and Scarborough in addition to being the leafiest, greeniest part of the city then later becomes also the most sparsely populated. Perhaps the post 1970s wave of immigration bypasses it, and rather than being one of the more diverse, it's one of the least instead. Alternatively, it does receive lots of settlement and immigration while the going is still good in the 60s and 70s but then flips to a negative growth rate. It also still continues to get more ignored by the city and province (a more Staten-Island-like Scarborough in some ways). Could a similar thing happen with Etobicoke?

Also, if a Rust-belt Scarborough or Etobicoke borders a wealthier North York and Yonge Corridor all the way to Downtown, it would not be good for social and economic inequality. Perhaps in a more divided Toronto, there is higher crime?

Whither Greenbelt? Another scenario would be if Toronto and its suburbs had less coordination, we might just have southern Ontario's answer to California's Inland empire. The way those counties making up the Inland Empire contains LA's suburbs but also spreads into agricultural country and ultimately to wilderness and desert, likewise Toronto's suburbs reach into agricultural country and ultimately to wilderness and boreal forest, bordering central Ontario in a similar way.

 

[Johnny Au]

Continuing with the alternate history:

York would become a depopulated rust belt borough with the Spadina Expressway and the Highway 400 extension (which would also make High Park less desirable).

 

[King of Kensington]

Southern York Region very much feels like a suburban extension of North York, more than Mississauga does for Etobicoke or Ajax/Pickering for Scarborough IMO.

 

[wild goose chase]

Is there any good way to know or estimate the relative contribution that migration by former citizens of Toronto to the 'burbs, (as opposed to migration directly there from overseas or interprovincially etc.) provided to the growth in any of the regions (or particular towns, like Mississauga, Ajax etc.).

I know there is data for the extent that Toronto's CMA grew as an entire whole based on international vs. internal migration (both interprovincial and intraprovincial, which are both negative), but I don’t think there is more fine scale data that allows one to prove that say, Mississauga grew more from international and less from intercity migration than say Vaughan. This seems to be more indirectly inferred from the distribution of ethnic communities and their history or timing of arrival as mentioned earlier in this thread (eg. Italians or Chinese have a history running from downtown to the 905, compared to say Punjabis from the edge of the 416 to the 905 itself).