Ottawa reclaims top spot in MoneySense's 5th annual "Canada's Best Places to Live"

[Basshats]

Please do not feed us with that BS. I can count the number of arts and cultural activities available in ottawa on one hand.

That's one heck of a big hand. Off the top of my head, in July alone, major arts and cultural activities include the Blues Festival, Jazzfest, the Chamber Music Festival, Sound and Light, and the country's biggest Canada Day celebration. I'm assuming the permanent fixtures (NAC, dozen + museums, etc.) don't count, either?

 

[Fresh Start]

gee thanks old bag
If you actually knew anything you would know that Toronto has among the lowest residential property tax RATE. Rate is the key word here. Do some research it would help you evolve and get into the 21st century. It's only normal to pay a higher property tax compared to the suburbs when your house is valued higher. So basically you want to be able to sell your house at a higher price but pay less tax?

The low property tax myth has to end. By measuring property tax against assessment it looks like Toronto has low rates, but it doesn't. Because of the high cost of property the market value in Toronot is considerably higher than anywhere else in Ontario. There is only one base against which tax, any tax, should be meaused and that is income. On this measure Toronto doesn't come out so well.

 

[Glen]

The low property tax myth has to end. By measuring property tax against assessment it looks like Toronto has low rates, but it doesn't. Because of the high cost of property the market value in Toronot is considerably higher than anywhere else in Ontario. There is only one base against which tax, any tax, should be meaused and that is income. On this measure Toronto doesn't come out so well.

Wrong. The actual amount of taxes(residential) is lower in Toronto. Even more so if you account for municipal spending (even without downloaded costs). I gave you proof of that in another thread, which you seem to have ignored. Please show us how you came to your conclusion.

 

[TrickyRicky]

One of the great dilemmas of the modern metropolis is one of the relevant issues the ranking excercise points out: Great cities operate for the highs and lows but how do they accommodate the middle? It is the middle class in Toronto that are in danger. Despite the average values Glen is pointing out there is a tsunami of wealth and capital flooding into the central city; however, on the flip side other areas of the city are getting poorer. Where does this leave the middle class? Too competitive for the areas in decline, not competitive enough for central Toronto. The real question we need to ask ourselves is not how to make Toronto a great city of the future, it is how do we make Toronto a great city of the future for everyone? When people ask such a question they always think of the poor. If there is one immutable law of human settlement it is that there will always be rich and poor, but there is nothing saying that a large vibrant middle-class need exist.

 

[Glen]

TrickyRicky,

That is what I have been ranting about. Toronto tax climate, as it relates to employment, is tolerable for companies that are attached to the city. Companies that need to be located in the city, close to government offices, courts, UofT, the TSX etc can afford the tax premium. For all the rest, which is larger portion, the tax climate makes it difficult to justify. Even the back office functions of the attached firms, and many front office jobs have left for greener tax pastures.

What you said reconciles very well with the "Poverty by Postal Code' report, if one looks at it over a period of time. Toronto used to be a place to where immigrants, and the middle class, could find opportunity. That opportunity has now left for the outlying municipalities.

 

[TrickyRicky]

Glen, I agree with you accept that I think we need to update the 416 versus 905 paradigm. The story of our city is no longer a flight of middle-class from the 416 to the 905. The great recession of 2008, our contemporary position in 2010, and the great debt-unwinding we will need to plow through in the next decade is of most concequence to the outlying regions. Put simply it is the middle-class of the 905 which are and stand to get hammered. Without immigrant communities I think you would see a hollowing out of the 905 to more far-flung communities on the one hand and back to the inner city on the other. The trouble is, as you rightly lament the inner city is becoming a fortress of unaffordability and so is only available to those who can compete or are willing to alter their life-styles accordingly.