Toronto in the World

[TonyV]

TonyV:

Yeah, though London is of a different context as well - 10M in the metropolitian area with a smaller footprint = higher density, which is much more amendable to (if not downright necessitate) a good subway network. We don't have that pattern of urban form here. I don't think a broad based congestion tax is useful in our context, vs. selected tolling during rush hour.

AoD

I agree with you on this, but a serious look at other transit solutions is still an excellent use of time, and is warranted, because we've let transit slip so badly here. I'm unmoved by skyscraper comparisons.

And it is agreed that a broad based congestion tax is not yet warranted here, although it may be in our future.

Rest assured I won't be setting up a Toronto vs London thread. There is no real point to that.

 

[Tewder]

To be fair the original topic of comparison between Chicago and Toronto is not that off the wall, providing it is respectful and thoughtful. There is one individual here who insists on pushing this thread out of context in a rather disingenuous way by forcing Asian cities into the discussion and labelling posters here as arrogant and delusional for not agreeing that this is appropriate.

 

[kkgg7]

Liveability, diversity and culture are unimportant to you... but super-sized tall buildings are? So for you Paris must pale in comparison to cultural centres like Shenzen? Dude, your time here is up...

I have never said livability is unimportant (diversity matters little to me), however, if I am not mistaken, this particular post is about buildings/construction, not which city offers high quality of life. I don't see the point of bringing out livability everytime Toronto seems to lose to another city in a certain aspect. We can talk about livablity in another post, but in this one, livability has little to do with what is being discussed here.

 

[steveve]

Tallest buildings recently completed:
http://www.ctbuh.org/TallBuildings/...Review/tabid/1352/language/en-US/Default.aspx

i just saw this now, thanks for posting it! this is some incredible info!

 

[kkgg7]

To be fair the original topic of comparison between Chicago and Toronto is not that off the wall, providing it is respectful and thoughtful. There is one individual here who insists on pushing this thread out of context in a rather disingenuous way by forcing Asian cities into the discussion and labelling posters here as arrogant and delusional for not agreeing that this is appropriate.

You are wrong. This post is about "Toronto in the world", not Toronto vs Chicago. I don't see why it is inappropriate to bring Asian cities into discussion, as they belong to the world. My argument is, in terms of buildings and construction boom, Toronto is doing well in North America, or maybe the developed world, but in the entire world, not that impressive at all.

I don't want to belittle Toronto - it is the city I am living in - however, when talking about the "world", we need to be more informed of what is happening outside our familiar North America and west Europe and form a realistic opinion of Toronto , that it is neither one of largest or most important cities, nor one of the fastest growing ones, and that nothing particularly spectacular is happening here either statistically when compared with real global stars. It is Canada's biggest city, globally a medium sized city not many people outside Canada will pay much attention to, with a relatively high quality of life and some sort of a small contruction boom happening compared with the rest of the develpped world.
I think I am being purely objective here. We see nice things, but don't exaggerate it, because the world is big and we have seen only a small part of it.

 

[Tacoma]

Jesus this is getting annoying.

Who cares if Toronto isn't Shanghai or Guangzhou? I don't want Toronto to be like any of them.
They may have buildings, but the culture and diversity in Toronto is miles ahead of those cities. There is a reason Toronto consistently ranks in the top 10 for most liveable cities in the world, ranking right up alongside Scandinavia, Switzerland and Austria. Where is Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen, etc on those lists? That's what I thought.

No, Toronto is not building as tall as some of these overpopulated countries or economies run amok. We are building the most in North America, most in the Western Hemisphere, and here's a thought, our buildings are actually occupied (looking at you, Dubai). Despite the fact that a large city in a country of 30 million is not as big as a large city in a communist country of 1.6 billion, we are doing very well globally.

Do we really do not need to put down other cities to prop up Toronto? In addition to being Top 10 in livability, we must also be on a Top 10 on inferiority complex list.

 

[RC8]

You are wrong. This post is about "Toronto in the world", not Toronto vs Chicago. I don't see why it is inappropriate to bring Asian cities into discussion, as they belong to the world. My argument is, in terms of buildings and construction boom, Toronto is doing well in North America, or maybe the developed world, but in the entire world, not that impressive at all.

I don't want to belittle Toronto - it is the city I am living in - however, when talking about the "world", we need to be more informed of what is happening outside our familiar North America and west Europe and form a realistic opinion of Toronto , that it is neither one of largest or most important cities, nor one of the fastest growing ones, and that nothing particularly spectacular is happening here either statistically when compared with real global stars. It is Canada's biggest city, globally a medium sized city not many people outside Canada will pay much attention to, with a relatively high quality of life and some sort of a small contruction boom happening compared with the rest of the develpped world.
I think I am being purely objective here. We see nice things, but don't exaggerate it, because the world is big and we have seen only a small part of it.

There is more to cities than tall buildings.

Toronto's social and cultural scene is world class, Toronto's University is world class and is very involved with the city.

All in all, Toronto scores very well on culture/arts/sports, education, healthcare, research, crime (lack of), finance, and even public transit (the GTA however does not).

The city still has to mature a lot, as people get used to living downtown and develop a greater appreciation for urban aesthetics, and such. Also, the quality of retail is hit and miss unless you are on the very wealthy side of the spectrum.

The cities you continuously bring up have a lot more maturation to go through in both regards.

 

[Marko]

There is more to cities than tall buildings.

Thing is - the thread is specifically about tall buildings, isn't it? Kkgg7 has pissed on a lot of corn flakes in this thread, but he's not wrong. Bringing up things like livability and culture are "yeah, but" diversions that derail the thread as much or more than his comments about Asian super cities.

 

[adma]

I have never said livability is unimportant (diversity matters little to me), however, if I am not mistaken, this particular post is about buildings/construction, not which city offers high quality of life. I don't see the point of bringing out livability everytime Toronto seems to lose to another city in a certain aspect. We can talk about livablity in another post, but in this one, livability has little to do with what is being discussed here.

Sounds kinda sociopathic, if you ask me.

 

[TonyV]

Thing is - the thread is specifically about tall buildings, isn't it? Kkgg7 has pissed on a lot of corn flakes in this thread, but he's not wrong. Bringing up things like livability and culture are "yeah, but" diversions that derail the thread as much or more than his comments about Asian super cities.

This thread needs a more accurate title, perhaps something like "Toronto and its lack of supertalls".

Anyone that I know who discusses a city does not generally refer to the number of supertalls there, but then, that's my crowd. Chicago, for example, has the best symphony orchestra in the western hemisphere, and that is what I think of when anyone mentions Chicago. If someone asks for my take on Toronto in the world, I may get carried away about the vast music scene here (second largest music scene on the continent), cultural life in general, a fantastically tolerant way of life, perhaps one of the most comfortable big cities on earth. I wouldn't care about the city's supertalls (or lack of).

More to the point - I believe that everyone in this thread knows that supertall developments are almost exclusively in Asia these days. So what is the point? The only point is that there are some people here who are thirsting for some of that action. I know of two or three sites downtown where some majestic structure might add to the scenery, but other than that, count me out of the height-obsessed crowd. I look for other exciting developments.

Honestly, if I ever return to Chicago, it will only be to hear the CSO again, not to stare up at some 'scraper.

 

[adma]

More to the point - I believe that everyone in this thread knows that supertall developments are almost exclusively in Asia these days. So what is the point? The only point is that there are some people here who are thirsting for some of that action. I know of two or three sites downtown where some majestic structure might add to the scenery, but other than that, count me out of the height-obsessed crowd. I look for other exciting developments.

And to be doubly honest: it's fairly easy to conclude that the general genesis of said Asian supertall developments came out of a pidgin, "Chinglish" misconstruing of North American high-rise urbanism. For better or worse, it wound up "working" for their cultures, a lot of it for long-term sociological reasons that transcend (yet compliment) built form. But that is there; this is here. (And given all of that, maybe the more logical locale for superdupertallapaloozas in the GTA would be ethnoburbia: North York Centre or Downtown Markham or Mississauga City Centre, etc)

 

[adma]

Honestly, if I ever return to Chicago, it will only be to hear the CSO again, not to stare up at some 'scraper.

And remember that Chicago's architecture fans are at least as likely to stare up at *these* kinds of glassy 'scrapers

...which the kkgg7's of the world would likely be ironically ignorant of, since they're the supertalls of 115 years ago, not now.

 

[MisterF]

The same goes with Chinese megacities, which are breeding grounds for the future of Asia, at least. Hopefully we will never have the density that in my opinion plagues them, but the way they build their cities will mark humanity forever - an experiment in living untried anywhere in the West but NYC.

I'd add Sao Paolo and Buenos Aires to that list, and Mexico City if that country ever gets its act together. Even London is bigger than all but a few Chinese cities. The West is bigger than people think.

 

[Marko]

This thread needs a more accurate title, perhaps something like "Toronto and its lack of supertalls".

If you go back and read the first couple of pages, you'll see that the intention wasn't to discuss symphonies, culture or tolerance. It was to discuss the amount of buildings going up in relation to other cities. Everyone has been getting on Kkgg7's case, but are themselves hijacking the topic worse than they accuse him of doing - who cares if you ever decide to visit Chicago to see the CSO.

 

[vz64]

You are wrong. This post is about "Toronto in the world", not Toronto vs Chicago. I don't see why it is inappropriate to bring Asian cities into discussion, as they belong to the world. My argument is, in terms of buildings and construction boom, Toronto is doing well in North America, or maybe the developed world, but in the entire world, not that impressive at all.

I don't want to belittle Toronto - it is the city I am living in - however, when talking about the "world", we need to be more informed of what is happening outside our familiar North America and west Europe and form a realistic opinion of Toronto , that it is neither one of largest or most important cities, nor one of the fastest growing ones, and that nothing particularly spectacular is happening here either statistically when compared with real global stars. It is Canada's biggest city, globally a medium sized city not many people outside Canada will pay much attention to, with a relatively high quality of life and some sort of a small contruction boom happening compared with the rest of the develpped world.
I think I am being purely objective here. We see nice things, but don't exaggerate it, because the world is big and we have seen only a small part of it.

kk, you had a point when your argument was clear and focused--Toronto is not the fastest growing city in the world and its skyline is not among the tallest in the world. Your mistake was to generalize from the rate of growth in Toronto to its being mediocre/unimportant city in the context of Big World... Then, not surprisingly, you provoked references to quality of life, vibrancy, cultural, and other aspects of everyday life that people think are important too... Talking about world influence, Toronto is rated as Alpha city, with only few cities in the world rated higher... Just some thoughts.

PS CN tower was the WORLD highest for 34 years... and as far as I know Burj Khalifa is not built in your favourite Shanghai, Shenzhen, or Guangzhou.