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Toronto as a Global City? What's holding us back?

luxome

luxome

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I would like to hear what you guys think in terms of Toronto becoming a Global City and compete with others like New York, Tokyo, etc.

Do you guys think Toronto is on the right path towards becoming a Global City? Are the official plans (e.g., Intensification) pointing us in the right direction?

What do you guys think?

Let's hear some constructive discussions. GO! :D
 
Aren't we already a Global City? :confused:

As for being on the right track to becoming better, we definitely aren't. Well, we are, but we definitely aren't doing enough.
 
Of course we're a global city. We're a city. And we're listed on the globes being produced today. What more is there to it?
 
What's holding us back? The Aspers' financial troubles.

(Oops--not that "Global")
 
well I think it's obvious: we don't have a statue of liberty

in fact we have no liberty at all we are living in a soshalist state run by crazey mayar millar & his cronies who have a war on the car and gays are always getting married, what about us who rnt gay???!! and tax and spend fibberals!!! and we should be more lie chicaggo becaus in chicago there r no skyscrApers just beautiful houses with swimming pools everywhere!!! hopefully steven harpar will walk across laek ontaario and SAVE US!!!
 
As ladyscraper pointed out, Toronto is already considered a global city, just not necessarily a first tier one - and that's related to factors more complex than a city's official plans.

AoD
 
Were ranked higher than Chicago and Mexico City in that one. I wonder what that'll do to our inferiority complex.
 
IMO, Toronto isn't a destination city like London, New York, Paris, etc. If you lived outside North America, and had no relatives or close friends in Toronto, would you consider Toronto as a top vacation destination? No chance, IMO. Whereas Paris, New York, London, San Francisco, etc are cities that call out to the global populace to come visit. Toronto does not. It's a great place to live, perhaps the best, but that doesn't make it a global city.
 
I think once most of the central waterfront is fixed in the next 5-7 years, we may become a global destination.
 
Admiral Beez said:
IMO, Toronto isn't a destination city like London, New York, Paris, etc. If you lived outside North America, and had no relatives or close friends in Toronto, would you consider Toronto as a top vacation destination? No chance, IMO. Whereas Paris, New York, London, San Francisco, etc are cities that call out to the global populace to come visit. Toronto does not. It's a great place to live, perhaps the best, but that doesn't make it a global city.
Click to expand...

Well then Toronto must get some pretty good word of mouth, because according to the airport arrivals tourist/overnight numbers, we're right behind NYC (at about 7 million and Toronto with 6.5 million).

Putting us right in the top 10 with London and Paris. (above San Fran, in fact)
 
Here is the hard truth if this stuff is important to you, because of Toronto's geographic and geopolitical position it will never be in general competition with the most powerful urban centres in the world, never.

The good thing is, while this may impact your sense of self-worth if your identity is closely wrapped around where you live, it says nothing about the standard of living you have and the opportunities that are available to you where you live. There is nothing stopping us from having the highest living standards in the world and making this city open and filled with opportunity for all in all manner of human endeavour.
 
Admiral Beez said:
San Francisco
Click to expand...

Are you joking? Toronto is a much more global city than San Francisco. Look at any ranking done on it (like the 3 rankings in the link I posted above) and Toronto will be much higher than San Fran. You think a global city is solely based on whether tourists want to come there? It's based on many things such as political and business power and many other factors. Toronto is more important than San Francisco in almost every way possible.
 
I know a lot of people in central Europe who know of San Francisco but have it very low on their list of cities they'd like to visit. I bet Vancouver has a higher profile in various parts of the world.

Toronto is held back by a just average quality of at leadership at City Hall and among elites. Where's the passion to build the finest city we can and to spend more to get that extra five percent to make the city feel more remarkable? It's not evident with the limited subway network and a public realm that ranges from decent to embarrassing. The bureaucrat says "it's not worth the investment" to a variety of projects to polish and enhance the city like burying overheads wires and mediocrity continues into another era.
 
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