[kool maudit]

The thing with Toronto is that its rapid postwar growth had an effect on the "outer-inner" city that obscures a bit of its newness, particularly given the postwar decline and more clearly delineated suburban growth focus of certain older US cities in that period.

Let's imagine two streets in 1935: one of them, on the edge of old Toronto, has a few old houses and small businesses intermingled with vacant lots and perhaps some lingering agricultural or rural industry uses. The other, slightly in from the edge of old Baltimore, is more developed, with rows of houses and mixed-use buildings following a traditional streetcar-suburban pattern. Maybe there is even a streetcar.

Now let's say that, between 1935 and 2020, the Toronto street holds on to its small assortment of older structures, while newer ones fill in the spaces held by rural light industry and vacant lots in '35. The new structures are of course unlovely, but they are lively enough, animated as they are by the underlying growth of the city.

The result is a street that lacks the charm of its 1935 Baltimore equivalent, but that is nonetheless full of life and commerce, with a few remaining prewar details at certain intersections. Given Toronto, it likely now features a bus line with relatively high stop frequencies as well.

In Baltimore, meanwhile, let's say that about 50-65% of the old structures are lost to urban decay, and the streetcar line is removed. The vacant lots created by the disappeared structures are only partially filled by newer, lower-level structures.

The result would be that the Toronto street remains somewhat contiguous with the overall use-patterns of the old city, even if it is fairly ugly and utilitarian compared to the Baltimore 1935 street. In Baltimore, however, the area is no longer a part of the "streetcars and storefronts" world that it once was, and while testaments to its former life remain, it is not the same entity it was once, in terms of function.

I am not referring to a specific place and have never been to Baltimore -- it's only an example. But I am describing a process that did occur, however, and that worked to make some of these demarcation lines less obvious.