Quote:
Originally Posted by ue
I agree broadly, though the idea of Toronto not being historic is dependent on context. From Western Canada, Toronto does feel old -- not quite Montreal old -- but still fairly old. I'd imagine Toronto would also have this impression to someone from Arizona or Texas or Utah.
Interestingly, you omitted the one NE city that I think could compare to Toronto -- Washington. They're both around the same population (6 million+) and while they do have notable pre-WWII urban fabric, they overwhelmingly grew after WWII. But, their suburbs are more transit-oriented. Toronto's more so, but in US contexts, DC has strong transit into suburban areas with notable TODs. So while they're both newer, they retain some oldness, and that which is newer isn't exactly like Phoenix or Jacksonville.
Even Montreal, which feels older than Toronto by a considerable margin, really wasn't all that big until the early 20th century. American cities were considerably larger during the Victorian era. Canada's first big urbanization push was 1900-1930, as the country industrialized later, and never had the railway suburbs of the UK or US. They went from having everything in walking distance of work (thus smaller footprints) right into streetcar suburbia and then automobiles. But with car ownership being lower, Canadian cities remained more amenable to transit.
Los Angeles and Toronto also feel like they're of a similar age.
|
I keep forgetting about Washington. It's impressive what it is has achieved growing mostly in the post-war and automobile era. But no one ever talks about that. It is such an anomaly in the USA, especially the northeastern USA.
I don't want to emphasize the post-war/suburban nature of Toronto too much, but at the time I think people emphasize the pre-war Toronto too much also. Toronto is old compared to Western Canadian cities (except maybe Winnipeg...), but the pre-war core is tiny compared to those US cities, representing a small part of even the central city, let alone the whole urban area. The maps I drew probably not 100% accurate, as Crawford pointed out, but hopefully it gives at least some idea how new Toronto is.
Non-Canadians may not know, but for most of Canadian history, the #1 city in Canada was actually Montreal. Toronto being #1 is just a recent thing. Montreal is older, and certainly it feels older.
Of course, many cities have old, abandoned industrial areas in the core that are being reclaimed for big box development, as iheartthed gave an example of.
Toronto is no different from Chicago in that respect. But a central city that was mostly built from the ground up for the automobile, within an urban area that only started booming in the post-war era, I think that is more comparable to a Sunbelt city than to a Rustbelt/Snowbelt city.