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Toronto/Chicago comparisons

salsa said:
I don't mind the ferry, but the terminal really needs a facelift.
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Never mind a face lift, we need a completely new terminal and I'd prefer they move it to a different location too. The terminal we have now is not only ugly but it's badly designed.
 
Torontovibe said:
Never mind a face lift, we need a completely new terminal and I'd prefer they move it to a different location too. The terminal we have now is not only ugly but it's badly designed.
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No kidding. The current one seems like an afterthought... easy to miss and leaves much to be desired.

The Islands should be a destination, and deserve a grand (or even just stand alone) terminal that tells everybody on the Waterfront what it is, instead of just a loading dock attached to a 70's hotel/condo.
 
The ferry ride during the summer months feels more like a cattle barge, the terminal is just an embarrassment. Toronto Island itself is actually quite beautiful, but Centre Island is looking run down these days. It needs some TLC. Go there on a busy summer day and you will see overflowing trash cans, and garbage left on the grounds, cracked pavement, and rundown washrooms.

IMO Chicago's Lincoln Park is the perfect big city park. It's large open fields, ponds, gardens, conservatory, trails, free museums and free Zoo are all immaculate kept. It's located in a great neighborhood with lots of restaurants and shops near by.



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^^ The zoo is also pretty impressive, considering the fact that it's FREE! I thought it would be a cheapie High Park type deal but it was a full fledged zoo with nice, charming buildings and the full range of zoo animals.


Ah but Toronto has Pandas! (for a few years anyway)
 
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Personally, I'd be outraged if the city decided to run a free zoo in an affluent neighborhood when it can't afford a proper police force and has infrastructure that is literally falling apart. Frankly, I'm glad that subsidizing the lunch hour activities of the wealthy isn't our city's top priority.
 
Do they ban children from other neighbourhoods? Do they ask to see mommy and daddy's income statement before allowing anyone in?

This absurd notion that no area of the city can look nice all the while there is somebody needing welfare somewhere goes a long way to explaining why Toronto looks the way it does.
 
^I often argue against equitable distribution of resources but fundamentally shouldn't the government be at least one force comitted to such a cause? Wealthy areas will find ways of sucking in and leveraging resources naturally. Over time central districts will naturally find ways of sucking in and leveraging resources naturally.

This argument may be one of the central issues and central questions one might pose regarding how Chicago and Toronto function. Chicago may be more of a city of extremes, the extreme positives being much admired by many people on this forum. The grey averageness of Toronto is criticised by comparison but isn't this averageness something to admire?

People fear how not up to par our high end district or top end streetscaping are. My fear is not this. Over time I'm almost certain we will catch up in this regard. My fear is at what cost or what will this say about how the city is changing at a deeper more fundamental level below the shallow surface? We are seeing that the exceptional averageness of Toronto may well be unsustainable. It is this failure to be average sustainably that is something to fear in my opinion.
 
tiffer24 said:
Chicago's upscale area of a beautiful public realm is really just a temporary illusion. Severe financial pressures and the slow drain of population losses on the city will put an end to that in the next five to ten years. Even Detroit once had beautiful public spaces...
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Not going to happen in the Gold Coast. Chicago will always be a city of super rich and super poor. Detroit never had the wealth Chicago has.
 
tiffer24 said:
Chicago's upscale area of a beautiful public realm is really just a temporary illusion. Severe financial pressures and the slow drain of population losses on the city will put an end to that in the next five to ten years. Even Detroit once had beautiful public spaces...
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Not necessarily disagreeing, but the north half of the city isn't really losing population and is as rich as it ever was. It's all part of the city proper too, unlike Detroit where the money crossed the 8 Mile. Still the south will increasingly be a drain and could indeed change things further.
 
Johnny Au said:
Chicago has two MLB franchises: the Cubs on the north side and the White Sox on the south side.

I wonder if Chicago can still be viable to hold two such franchises within city limits.
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If New York did it with the Yankees in the Bronx during the "Drop Dead" era of the 1970s, then Chicago certainly can.
 
fiendishlibrarian said:
If New York did it with the Yankees in the Bronx during the "Drop Dead" era of the 1970s, then Chicago certainly can.
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...and yet Toronto does not have two NHL franchises within its municipal boundaries as of this post (despite the fact that Toronto can clearly hold three NHL franchises within municipal boundaries (plus one or two in the 905) with all of them being profitable).
 
Johnny Au said:
...and yet Toronto does not have two NHL franchises within its municipal boundaries as of this post (despite the fact that Toronto can clearly hold three NHL franchises within municipal boundaries (plus one or two in the 905) with all of them being profitable).
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Thank Gary Bettman for that.
 
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