adma
Superstar
What does Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg have to do with this?
You're forgiven. (I've done it too.)
You're forgiven. (I've done it too.)
This is NOT a thread about the KPMB report.
AoD
Wow. So, posting a KPMB report that seems to indicate there are troubles in the city is NOT appropriate to this discussion, nor are personal anecdotes?
Toronto is expensive as hell to live in. Anyone who has lived ANYWHERE else can attest to that. We pay the highest car insurance in North America. Our gas prices are higher than out west or in the States.
You do know Toronto is in North America, don't you? Perhaps googlearth would be a good place to start.
I don't care if Africa is more expensive. Toronto competes with the likes of Chicago, Memphis, Seattle, Montreal and other cities for jobs and skills.
Well when you become the CEO of a major company you let us know lol. Of the 10 Fortune 500 companies in the GTA, 9 of them are in Toronto and 8 are downtown. But I guess they don't know anything, the business case isn't thereIf you were a CEO of a major company thinking about opening a head office in Canada, where would you go? I, for one, would not open in the core of this city. I might look at Mississauga or Oakville, but not Toronto. The business model just isn't there.
Well when you become the CEO of a major company you let us know lol. Of the 10 Fortune 500 companies in the GTA, 9 of them are in Toronto and 8 are downtown. But I guess they don't know anything, the business case isn't there
http://www.canadascities.ca/pdf/gta0502.pdfBetween 1986 and 2003, the number of head offices of companies in the Financial Post 500 in Toronto fell from 171 to 136, while the number in the rest of the Greater Toronto Area rose from 32 to 62.
Well when you become the CEO of a major company you let us know lol. Of the 10 Fortune 500 companies in the GTA, 9 of them are in Toronto and 8 are downtown. But I guess they don't know anything, the business case isn't there
There really isn't much in that TD report that anybody here wouldn't agree with. At the end of the day, municipalities are only responsible for 7% of taxation in this country. Ultimately, Toronto's economic fate is dictated more by federal and provincial fiscal policy than municipal policy. I don't like Miller, but I doubt much would change if Toronto elected Milton Friedman as mayor. Take Toronto's main industry, finance. Foreign banks aren't even permitted to operate in Canada in any meaningful sense, so how the hell can this sector realistically grow?
A trend that's common around the world. Even in Europe many, if not most, of the biggest companies are in suburban areas. Still, the biggest of the biggest GTA companies are overwhelmingly concentrated downtown, more so than almost anywhere in the world. Take a look at the Google map on the Fortune 500 website. Next to New York, downtown Toronto has by far the most Fortune 500 companies of any North American downtown. Even Chicago has only 3. Downtown Toronto has more than downtown Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, or Washington. Not only that, but it has more than downtown Zurich, Osaka, Sydney, Frankfurt, Milan, Amsterdam, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Madrid. In fact, I managed to find only four downtown areas with more Fortune 500 companies than downtown Toronto.Between 1986 and 2003, the number of head offices of companies in the Financial Post 500 in Toronto fell from 171 to 136, while the number in the rest of the Greater Toronto Area rose from 32 to 62.
The banks and financial companies need to be physically close to each other to do business. Downtown employment is on the rise. Plus with commercial taxes being gradually reduced in the city of Toronto, they're not going anywhere.And when did they open up here? In the past few years? Or decades ago? Are they going to stay? That is the key question.
That is the whole point of the TD paper. When Toronto was bleeding jobs and the areas surrounding it were booming it had nothing to do with the province or feds. It was due to Toronto policies.
Indeed. Perhaps you should read the TD report in a little bit more detail with regards to the role of province and feds in downloading infrastructure, social and settlement programs, which the report acknowledges have a disproportional impact on the City of Toronto. Considering the latter is legally binded to pay for a share of these programs, how do you suppose one can have a balanced budget as required by provincial laws? I know you're going to say budget cuts - but in the event of a strike and the matter ending up in arbitration, how much room does the City have to maneuver? And speaking of which, isn't labour law the purview of the province? Rapid transfer of the tax load to the residents? Like that would have no negative consequences of its' own.
Core-periphery disparity is a regional issue - there is no regional level of governance to deal with it systematically. What we do have, however, is various municipalities in the region cannibalizing each other through temporary fiscal advantages leveraged through greenfield developments. Mississauga, which for years have been held up as the model - is starting to experience that now (as the former inner suburban municipalities of Metro Toronto did).
AoD