Population of Toronto (Including Census Counts)

[Dan416]

Wow! Most articulate condemnation of suburbs I've ever read.

There's some truth in it, but it's a rather cynical and biased account.

"Mausoleums for the walking dead"? Hyperbole much?

 

[Lenser]

Guess we agree to disagree then. I did say I'm in the minority. As for the mausoleums remark, I was having a little fun.

If you enjoy where you live, that's all that matters.

 

[hawc]

If you enjoy where you live, that's all that matters.

That's something I've always smiled at. I always found it amusing that if you've actually chosen to live where you want to live (not being forced by parents, job circumstances etc) you think that you live in the best place ever and everyone else is crazy. Like my buddy that lives in Oakville thinks I'm nuts for living in a tiny condo downtown. My parents at Yonge & Eglinton think he's nuts for commuting 100km each day and I think they're nuts for paying $900,000 for an old home. We all think we've done the smart thing and everyone else isn't quite as smart as us. I'm obviously exaggerating, but it's something that makes me laugh.

 

[Lenser]

+1000%, hawc.

 

[CDL.TO]

That's something I've always smiled at. I always found it amusing that if you've actually chosen to live where you want to live (not being forced by parents, job circumstances etc) you think that you live in the best place ever and everyone else is crazy. Like my buddy that lives in Oakville thinks I'm nuts for living in a tiny condo downtown. My parents at Yonge & Eglinton think he's nuts for commuting 100km each day and I think they're nuts for paying $900,000 for an old home. We all think we've done the smart thing and everyone else isn't quite as smart as us. I'm obviously exaggerating, but it's something that makes me laugh.

True for so many things in life.

 

[Jonny5]

Perhaps kids don't care about lifestyles, but teenagers do. As someone who grew up in the suburbs of Ottawa and then Misssissauga, I can tell you that there was a certain segment of us who couldn't get out of the burbs fast enough once we were in our teens. Boredom and isolation (and eternally, the crippling want for a car) were what I most keenly recalled. The action was always 'somewhere else' and as nice as the suburbs might have been for our folks, they were a cultural wasteland for us, a place where homogeneity was preferred over variety; where cookie cutter houses and instant subdivisions were linked up by low-rise strip malls and fast food joints - dubious pearls in rather ordinary necklace. As for the common perception that they're safer, I don't subscribe to that either. Lots of bored teens with predilections for drag racing, drug delinquincy, drinking and driving, b & e's for sport... I dunno how safe it all is.

I'm wondering how much of this is attributable to general coming of age angst vs. suburban life. Can't city kids wind up with the same experience? Isn't the action always "somewhere else" when you are a teenager? And aren't all teenage cliques all about homogenity, including, and possibly especially, the ones dedicated to being different.

I think peoples perceptions of suburban vs. urban teenage life has been distorted by film and TV. Suburban life is portrayed to be much worse than it is while urban teenage life is fetishized and made out to be far more glamorous than it is. They aren't that different. People seem to take these tropes and apply them to their own lives retroactively.

 

[Jonny5]

I never understood the obsession with having a private yard.

Flexible space. At various times it is a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, a rec room and a garage. Sometimes it is all of those things at once. You can also do things in a back yard that simply cannot happen indoors. You can turn it into a hockey rink in the winter. You can have a pool in it in the summer. You could have a trampoline, or a pet elephant, or a giant pile of sugar!

Having a backyard is a definite quality of life enhancement. Even though it was small, I miss the backyard I had when I lived in a house a few years ago.

 

[TrickyRicky]

Many of my cousins grew up downtown and they almost all live in the suburbs now. Their attitudes to downtown range from slightly negative to slightly hostile. Although, ironically they are also interested in investing in downtown because their children are generally to highly favourable to downtown.

Perhaps, we can see that maybe the health of a city region is not about it's suburbs or it's downtown core but the oscillating intergenerational integration of the two? The present trends where we see strength in the outer-ring and in the downtown core could from this perspective be seen as a failure because the blood flow of this pulse or oscillation is stagnating in certain areas of the GTA. The result, a head-rush for some, oxygen deprivation for others.

 

[adma]

Many of my cousins grew up downtown and they almost all live in the suburbs now. Their attitudes to downtown range from slightly negative to slightly hostile. Although, ironically they are also interested in investing in downtown because their children are generally to highly favourable to downtown.

Though, what kinds of suburbs--and for that matter, what kinds of "downtowners" were they?

For instance, and maybe echoing what originally triggered suburban-flight way back when (i.e. the idea of the city as a hellhole), I can imagine kids who grew up in Regent Park or St James Town or anyplace pre-gentrified and immigrant-y being more likely to move to the 905 than those who grew up in the Annex--the "Dufferin Mall" demographic, as opposed to the "Dufferin Grove" demographic...

 

[Lenser]

One of the ironies I've noted time and time again is people who grew up downtown (or who have lived there since young adults) moving to the 'burbs because they've starting families - all well and good, but in this town, with gridlock being what it is, mom and dad spend a good deal of their time trapped in the car. Ostensibly they moved to the 'burbs in the first place because they thought it offered a greater "quality of life" for their families - yet their "quality time" takes a kick in the teeth. I note in passing that this is equally true of people living downtown out of choice but working in an office park located in the burbs... let's face it, commuting is hellacious in this town. If you could reasonably calculate what the average Torontonian driver spends in a car... that would be a sombre revelation.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I think Rob Ford should organize a small military to invade and annex Vaughan (and maybe Richmond Hill). The two municipalities would make a nice addition to Toronto and it would allow more room for the city to grow.

But seriously, I want to see the city start taxing drivers and transit riders from outside of Toronto like mad to enter the city. They're costing Toronto allot of money and we can barely handle the additional cars. Either move here and pay our property taxes, or stay in the suburbs and don't come back.

 

[W. K. Lis]

I think Rob Ford should organize a small military to invade and annex Vaughan (and maybe Richmond Hill). The two municipalities would make a nice addition to Toronto and it would allow more room for the city to grow.

But seriously, I want to see the city start taxing drivers and transit riders from outside of Toronto like mad to enter the city. They're costing Toronto allot of money and we can barely handle the additional cars. Either move here and pay our property taxes, or stay in the suburbs and don't come back.

The boundary between Toronto and York Region runs down Steeles Avenue. Condos on the north side of Steeles Avenue (Vaughan?) pay a higher property tax than condos on the south side of Steeles Avenue (Toronto). Hummmm.

 

[jaycola]

I want to see the city start taxing drivers and transit riders from outside of Toronto like mad to enter the city. They're costing Toronto allot of money and we can barely handle the additional cars. Either move here and pay our property taxes, or stay in the suburbs and don't come back.

It's not like anyone who crosses into Toronto spends any money there. I imagine a lot of service people would lose their jobs due to lost business and and lots of businesses would lose valuable employees because it would be cost prohibitive to travel to work. I think the business owners north of Steeles would strenuously disagree with you on that point. It would be a great boon for suburban businesses and development.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

It's not like anyone who crosses into Toronto spends any money there. I imagine a lot of service people would lose their jobs due to lost business and and lots of businesses would lose valuable employees because it would be cost prohibitive to travel to work. I think the business owners north of Steeles would strenuously disagree with you on that point. It would be a great boon for suburban businesses and development.

There are already plenty of jobs in Toronto and people from the suburbs working in Toronto could be exempt from the tax. But either way, people from the suburbs who frequently enter Toronto MUST pay Torontonians for the money they cause the city to loose. Every year millions of them enter Toronto, use the infrastructure and cause congestion and yet they don't pay a dime for the bill. It angers me that Torontonians have to pick up the bill for these people.

 

[James]

I'm not sure that taxing 905ers when they enter the 416 is the right approach, but London adopted the downtown zone tariff almost 10 years ago and apparently it's been working well, both decreasing the number of cars in the downtown core and increasing city revenue.

I think a better transportation system connecting the suburbs to downtown Toronto could be a great source of revenue as well. The logistics and infrastructure will definitely need to be analyzed for feasibility in Toronto but the concept works in other cities around the world.