When did Toronto pass Montreal?

[kool maudit]

Chicago might be a bit of a phantom anyhow. NYC, LA, DC and the Bay Area and the US' true power centres at this moment in time.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Anglosphere Canadian cities generally punch underweight with traditional cultural signifiers like art museums and symphony orchestras. Maybe Protestant parsimony, the way Copenhagen and Glasgow didn't develop cultural institutions on par with their southern neighbors.

I think the US might be overweight in this regard. Its early commercial fortunes, occurring as they did when Europe remained the unquestioned seat of Western culture, led to some legendary buying sprees than can still be enjoyed, as you note, in cities as unlikely as Buffalo and Toledo...



...which were in style at the time.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by Doady

Trust me, as boring as the buildings along the waterfront are, the typical residential high-rise architecture of Toronto is actually generally much, much worse. Toronto had a residential high-rise building boom in the 60s and 70s...

I was actually kind of surprised (Though I shouldn’t have been. It’s happening everywhere) by all the luxury high rise condos now in Toronto. I remember in the early 70s when high rise apartments in Toronto were for people who couldn’t afford houses. North York was full of UGLY high rises.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by park123

But is it just me, or does the Toronto skyline increasingly look like a super sized version of Vancouver? A lot of green-blue glass condo towers. It’s definitely very different than NY and Chicago in the condo vs office mix.

It’s not just you. I’ve thought the same for a while now. The green-glass condos remind me a bit of what’s being built in Miami. LA, SF and Seattle have their share now, as well.

[kool maudit]

1920: "We need a lot of apartments, the city is growing very quickly!"



2010: "We need a lot of apartments, the city is growing very quickly!"








Bit unfortunate really.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

I was actually kind of surprised (Though I shouldn’t have been. It’s happening everywhere) by all the luxury high rise condos now in Toronto. I remember in the early 70s when high rise apartments in Toronto were for people who couldn’t afford houses. North York was full of UGLY high rises.

Tower blocks used to be for the working classes but now they're for everyone. SFHs are unattainable for the vast majority of the population.

As far as Toronto has come, it's going to be many more decades before all that 'ugly' gets stripped away. People seem to forget that for most of Toronto's history it was a blue collar industrial city. Luxury, design, refinement were a rarity. Even though Toronto has transformed into a largely white collar cosmopolitan place the culture hasn't caught up to that shift.

There's still a large swath of the population that view museums, galleries, luxury, embellishment to be frivolous and a waste of money. Many Torontonians cried bloody murder when the city spent a little extra on the Yonge subway extension to make the subway stations something more than utilitarian. They have no appreciation for good design and are infuriated that money was spent on it.

2005-2015 Toronto built a ton of new condo towers. They were shiny and new but in 90% of cases, the architecture was a total after thought. Once again, it was a product of the city's culture (pragmatic). People now had money but design wasn't something they'd ever thought about before. When they did, it invariably turned out crude, gaudy, or both. The culture is slowly catching up to the type of city Toronto is today. There's been a gradual uptick in standards, quality, and attention to architecture. So things are heading in the right direction.

It's been an exhilarating but frustrating journey with many more battles to be won. Don't get me stated on Toronto's public realm.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

When I see crazy construction growth like this, or frankly, like what’s happening in New York, I can’t help but feel the unease that comes from witnessing a real estate bubble about to pop. I’ve seen it before. It looks more and more like I’m seeing it again.

People have been warning about the impending Toronto real estate bubble since I joined SSP 12 years ago. While it's rightfully something that needs to be carefully watched/managed a high level of construction doesn't necessarily mean that a bubble exists.

Due to the Green Belt and a shift in urban planning policies, Toronto isn't building subdivisions like it used to. In other words, the city's geographic footprint isn't expanding much. Rather than building out, Toronto is building up (vertically). Is 116 buildings 100m+ under construction too much? It's not if they're being filled with owners or renters. New Toronto condo towers aren't going empty and the office vacancy rate in Toronto is worryingly low. Toronto is building at a frenetic pace because it has to. It's being built to satisfy demand.

Toronto builds far more than most cities because it's adding far more people than most cities. Dallas adds a lot of people too but their urban planning policies are vastly different than ours. For the most part they don't build condo towers, they mid-rise, low-rise, and SFHs. Is Dallas in a real estate bubble?

[Nite]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

When I see crazy construction growth like this, or frankly, like what’s happening in New York, I can’t help but feel the unease that comes from witnessing a real estate bubble about to pop. I’ve seen it before. It looks more and more like I’m seeing it again.

People have been predicting that the Toronto market would crash for the last 15 years but it still going strong. When i hear such predictions I assume they are made by people who don't know that the GTA has a greenbelt and can not sprawl anymore so growth most be vertical

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

1920: "We need a lot of apartments, the city is growing very quickly!"



2010: "We need a lot of apartments, the city is growing very quickly!"








Bit unfortunate really.

Love this!

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by isaidso

People have been warning about the impending Toronto real estate bubble since I joined SSP 12 years ago. While it's rightfully something that needs to be carefully watched/managed a high level of construction doesn't necessarily mean that a bubble exists.

Due to the Green Belt and a shift in urban planning policies, Toronto isn't building subdivisions like it used to. In other words, the city's geographic footprint isn't expanding much. Rather than building out, Toronto is building up (vertically). Is 116 buildings 100m+ under construction too much? It's not if they're being filled with owners or renters. New Toronto condo towers aren't going empty and the office vacancy rate in Toronto is worryingly low. Toronto is building at a frenetic pace because it has to. It's being built to satisfy demand.

Toronto builds far more than most cities because it's adding far more people than most cities. Dallas adds a lot of people too but their urban planning policies are vastly different than ours. For the most part they don't build condo towers, they mid-rise, low-rise, and SFHs. Is Dallas in a real estate bubble?

Dallas, the city, isn't really growing all that much. The metro on the other hand is an American standard for growth.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I would go so far to say Cleveland has a much better art museum than LA. The Getty and LACMA aren't close, really. I think it's just that cities that had tons of new manufacturing money and corporate expansion around 100 years ago tended to develop impressive collections.

Hm, not so sure I agree with that. When you look at the collections of LACMA, the Getty, and the Norton Simon, you have a pretty damn impressive collection of master painters and Asian arts. Cleveland Museum of Art has a fantastic collection, but I don't think it eclipses the LA institutions. I'd put it about equal with LACMA, maybe just a touch better.

When you look at cultural institutions, Ohio cities do tend to vastly over perform relative to their size and current importance. Cleveland's art museum and symphony are first rate, Cincinnati's symphony, opera, ballet, zoo, art museum(s) are all pretty highly thought of, Toledo and Cincy have first rate zoos...Columbus is really the only city in the state that lacks a marquis cultural attraction.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by edale

Columbus is really the only city in the state that lacks a marquis cultural attraction.

wait, OSU football isn't a marquis cultural attraction?

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

When I see crazy construction growth like this, or frankly, like what’s happening in New York, I can’t help but feel the unease that comes from witnessing a real estate bubble about to pop. I’ve seen it before. It looks more and more like I’m seeing it again.

Funny, a lot of locals would be cheering for that bubble to burst. There's also a thread on the Canada board that gets revived every now and then called "Experts warn Canada's housing bubble about to burst" or something along those lines. The first article is from 2011 I think...

I remember reading that in my first year of university thinking "perfect! A correction could come soon after I graduate." I'm still waiting, hoping to buy a nice centrally located house for less than $2 million someday.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

wait, OSU football isn't a marquis cultural attraction?

And what the hell is a marquis cultural attraction? Is that like a bougie version of a marquee cultural attraction?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by badrunner

And what the hell is a marquis cultural attraction? Is that like a bougie version of a marquee cultural attraction?

Talking about OSU just makes everyone dumber.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by badrunner

And what the hell is a marquis cultural attraction? Is that like a bougie version of a marquee cultural attraction?

LOL!

i didn't even notice that; i just copy pasted from edale's message.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Funny, a lot of locals would be cheering for that bubble to burst. There's also a thread on the Canada board that gets revived every now and then called "Experts warn Canada's housing bubble about to burst" or something along those lines. The first article is from 2011 I think...

I remember reading that in my first year of university thinking "perfect! A correction could come soon after I graduate." I'm still waiting, hoping to buy a nice centrally located house for less than $2 million someday.

I suppose as long as there are foreign criminal types with large sums of money to launder, or just offshore wealth needing a place to be parked, there will be a robust market for real estate in Toronto.

[mousquet]

By the way, I'd rather be more accurate than these pronouns following the comma, that might be misleading.

Voltaire and some others told us about the Americas very long ago, because they were nasty and took advantage of them.

Voltaire was actually a disgusting hypocrite. Obviously, he took advantage of the Americas back then, not the other way round.
For example, he pretended denouncing and blaming on slavery in his writings that sold very well, to seduce the people here in France, but was nonetheless involved in transatlantic slave trade to some extent once you would have turned your back, because that guy was a money worshiper.
I heard of that a couple of times.

Rousseau himself, who pretended to be shocked by all the social unfairness of his time actually abandoned his wife and his kids overnight, just like that, and wouldn't care.

You see how hypocritical so-called brilliant minds can be? It's simply disgusting.
I just wanted it to be clear. Of course, the Americas never made any nasty profit of those old French-speaking intellectuals.
It was all the opposite.

[Buckeye Native 001]

I'd argue the Columbus Zoo punches above it's weight. As much as Ohio State is shit on for being a football factory first and a university second, it's still one hell of a research institution (as are all the Big Ten schools)

[shappy]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

1920: "We need a lot of apartments, the city is growing very quickly!"



2010: "We need a lot of apartments, the city is growing very quickly!"








Bit unfortunate really.

Of course I get the sentiment, but not quite the same thing. Those 1920 apartments did not replace brown fields. Lots of infill and intensification happening on downtown streets that align with classic urban form. But sure, megaprojects like CityPlace are very unfortunate.