Toronto Urban Sprawl Compared to Other Cities

[salsa]

I'm shocked that a city as big as Atlanta would have most of its shops closed on the weekends. In every major city I've been in, the weekends are pretty big shopping days. Especially in Toronto, where on the weekends the streets are overflowing with pedestrian traffic.

It's shocking until you visit a number of different cities, and soon enough you realize that that's the norm in America. My dad was in Dallas a few years ago for a business conference, and he said the downtown completely shuts down as soon as everyone drives home after work to the suburbs where they live. He described it as if a nuclear bomb went off and killed all the people. After hours he was the only pedestrian left on the street, aside from maybe two other people he saw. The reason for that is simple: no one lives in downtown. America's idea of a downtown is a lot different than ours. Instead of it being the centre of culture and entertainment as well as a place to live and work, it's just a central business district with maybe a couple of tourist attractions thrown in. In other words, downtown Dallas (like so many others) is basically just a vertical business park. There is nothing to do there and no reason to be there unless it's for work or there's a game happening. Therefore the place behaves exactly like any business park you see in Vaughan or Mississauga: plenty of people during the day, then they all disappear by evening, nothing happens on weekends. All the shopping and entertainment you describe is done in the suburbs inside shopping malls such as this one:

In Atlanta's case, Buckhead is the real downtown. "You want something to do, just drive to Buckhead" as they say. Although that name sounds more like an Ohio hick town to me.

Amazingly, even the streetlife in downtown Los Angeles (a much bigger city than Toronto) was unimpressive. I visited on a Monday afternoon - a time when plenty of people should have been there - and here's what it looked like:

I felt the city was heavily racially segregated when I visited a few years ago. This definitely manifests itself on the MARTA. It made me quite a bit uncomfortable.

MARTA is really self segregated. My friend who lives there (well, just outside the city now) was shocked when his coworkers were shocked when he took MARTA when he first moved there.

There's a well known acronym for MARTA: Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta

 

[AndreaPalladio]

Yes, I've heard that.

 

[SunriseChampion]

Better or worse than Niagara Falls (Ontario)?

Worse, if even only because of geography.

 

[WrightofWay]

Makes you truly appreciate how great our city is in comparison.

Reminds me of the quote: "The United States has only three great cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland."

Oh?

The Cleveland Museum of Art, 45,000 works in the permanent collection

http://www.clevelandart.org/

The Cleveland Symphony, one of the “Big Five”

http://www.clevelandorchestra.com/

Severance Hall, the Orchestra’s home

http://www.clevelandorchestra.com/plan-your-visit/severance-hall/

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

http://www.rockhall.com/

The West Side Market

http://westsidemarket.org/

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland

http://mocacleveland.org/

The Cleveland Arcade, being redeveloped as luxury shops and a hotel

http://www.theclevelandarcade.com/gallery.htm

Playhouse Square, the largest theatrical center in the US outside of New York City and incorporating five grand historic theaters and ten performance spaces

http://www.playhousesquare.org/about-playhousesquare-main/take-a-tour

Cleveland Mall, which includes the City Hall, Library, Auditorium and Courthouse and is the largest “City Beautiful” plan completed in the US outside of Washington DC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mall_(Cleveland)

And of course, the Terminal Tower

http://www.forestcity.net/properties/work/office_buildings/Pages/terminal_tower.aspx

I’d say that if everything not New York, New Orleans and San Francisco is Cleveland…then they’re doing pretty well.

 

[WrightofWay]

In any case, using Atlanta, Houston and LA as stand-ins for "The American City" is a bit erroneous - all of them are perceived as sui generis by Americans. Atlanta in particular is seen as something of an odd man out in terms of East Coast cities. Compare it to Savannah, say, or even Mobile.

 

[Johnny Au]

The movie Ant-Man is set in San Francisco, but is actually filmed in Atlanta.

 

[Memph]

One of the things I've found looking at Las Vegas in street view is that the residential streets are very wide, probably a good 10ft wider than in, say, Brampton. You'd think a more intense heat island is the last thing they need. And it's not like they have the excuse of needing somewhere to put the snow like with Montreal. Interestingly, perhaps the widest side streets of any American city are in San Francisco, especially the more outlying neighbourhoods like Richmond and Sunset.

 

[doady]

It's hard to expect much of Atlanta's downtown considering the city's size. It's even smaller than Brampton, and Brampton's downtown is not too impressive either.

 

[Skeezix]

It's hard to expect much of Atlanta's downtown considering the city's size. It's even smaller than Brampton, and Brampton's downtown is not too impressive either.

That's not really a valid comparison (maybe you were being tongue-in-cheek?). If you completely ignore context, then sure -- Brampton is actually slightly larger than the city of Atlanta population-wise. But Atlanta is the core of a metropolitan area with 5,500,000+ people, while Brampton does not play that same role in the GTA.

 

[ShonTron]

All the weekend activity in LA (aside from Disney Hall or Staples Center for special events) is on Broadway. In 2007, I spent a Saturday midday walking up Broadway, a vibrant shopping street most popular with the Hispanic communities. I had a great lunch at a busy Broadway Market before heading up to Union Station.

There are some new residential buildings downtown, but the expanding LA Metro rail network's hub is there; that is improving its vibrancy. All the big money will stay on Wilshire and in Beverley Hills though.

 

[Transportfan]

The movie Ant-Man is set in San Francisco, but is actually filmed in Atlanta.

When I read...set in XXX, but is actually filmed in...I expect to see "Toronto" or "Vancouver". Kind of strange they chose Atlanta over Canada, considering the tendencies to film here when choosing filming locations in places other then where a film is set.

 

[Skeezix]

Georgia has been going big on the tax credits and incentives for filming and tv production.

 

[salsa]

http://urbanedge.blogs.rice.edu/201...e-the-sun-belt-growth-narrative/#.V5eWtq5mznZ

While many Sun Belt cities have increased their population substantially since 1960, that growth has mostly not happened in urban neighborhoods that existed in 1960. Growth has instead relied on annexation and horizontal, suburban sprawl.

• On average, 100 largest cities in 1960 have grown 48 percent since then. But at the same time, those cities saw a nearly 30 percent reduction in residents who live in the neighborhoods that were already built in 1960.
• Houston has added more than 1.2 million people since 1960. But its urban core is home to nearly 120,000 fewer people now than it had back then.
• San Antonio grew by nearly 800,000 people since 1960 while its urban neighborhoods lost more than 100,000 residents.
• Phoenix has grown by 1 million people since 1960 while its existing neighborhoods grew by only 9,000 people during that time.

I'd be interested to see the numbers as to how Toronto's growth compares to these cities.

 

[Memph]

http://urbanedge.blogs.rice.edu/201...e-the-sun-belt-growth-narrative/#.V5eWtq5mznZ




View attachment 82111

• On average, 100 largest cities in 1960 have grown 48 percent since then. But at the same time, those cities saw a nearly 30 percent reduction in residents who live in the neighborhoods that were already built in 1960.
• Houston has added more than 1.2 million people since 1960. But its urban core is home to nearly 120,000 fewer people now than it had back then.
• San Antonio grew by nearly 800,000 people since 1960 while its urban neighborhoods lost more than 100,000 residents.
• Phoenix has grown by 1 million people since 1960 while its existing neighborhoods grew by only 9,000 people during that time.

I'd be interested to see the numbers as to how Toronto's growth compares to these cities.

I think this is population within the 1960 city limits (Old Toronto for Toronto).

Year Montreal Ottawa Toronto Vancouver
1891 217,000 44,000 181,000 19,000
1911 471,000 87,000 377,000 100,000
1921 619,000 107,000 522,000 117,000
1931 819,000 ??????? 631,000 308,000
1941 875,000 142,000 645,000 253,000
1951 1,021,000 202,000 676,000 344,000
1961 1,191,000 268,000 672,000 385,000
1971 1,214,000 302,000 713,000 426,000
1981 980,000 295,000 599,000 426,000
1991 1,018,000 314,000 634,000 471,000
1996 1,016,000 323,000 653,000 514,000
2001 1,040,000 337,031 676,000 546,000

http://www.demographia.com/db-cancityhist.htm

Toronto is up by about 100,000 residents from 2001 to 2011 though.

Maps showing population change (in %) in several of these cities since 1950.

New Orleans

Atlanta

Nashville

Houston

Dallas

Miami

http://swontariourbanist.blogspot.ca/2014/08/southern-us-cities-1950-2010-population.html

And Toronto (from 1956 though, not 1950)

http://swontariourbanist.blogspot.ca/2014/04/ontario-urban-cores-1956-2011.html

 

[W. K. Lis]

Employees at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, have to accumulate 13 years of service time before they get an on-site parking permit. To get a sense of how much employees become invested in this system, check out this YouTube video of one man’s elation the day he gets his parking privileges (and notice how towering parking garages dominate the landscape).

From link.