Downtown Toronto not a significant employment zone for 905ers

[miketoronto]

I had to crunch some numbers for a school project, and here is one interesting stat.

As of 2001(that is the most up to date info the city has), only

109,930 residents of Halton, Peel, York, and Durham Regions(905ers) worked in downtown Toronto.

Less than 10% of the 905 region workers.

Toronto is approaching American style decentralization pretty fast and this will have interesting impacts on transit ridership, sprawl, and access to jobs.

[WhipperSnapper]

Another month; another miketoronto post. Please explain to me in your infinite wisdom why in a city as populated and as vast as Toronto should employment be more centralized on the edge of the lake? I just don't see the appeal as you apparently do of an hour long commute via some sort of express transit.

Now, what might be interesting is to discuss improving 905 land use bearing in mind that car culture will continue to persist as well as cheap and quick construction.

[vid]

I bet 62,649 of them are male, too. Obviously sexism is a big problem. We should have more government subsidies for women, and create initiatives to encourage commuters to use women more often.

[niwell]

This might have more to do with the fact it takes an hour (driving) to get from say, Oakville to downtown. Close to 1.5 hours on transit.

And of course doesn't account for those workers in location based industries. You know, service, manufacturing, institutional etc? There are reasons for things to be located in the 905 too. Maybe we should transplant the several thousand municipal/regional government workers in Halton downtown though, because CLEARLY they shouldn't have offices in the SUBURBS. I can get on board with that, it would certainly make my commute easier.

[waterloowarrior]

Your lamentations should be more focused on commercial office space. Some of the GTA's largest suburban employers like hospitals, schools, amusement parks, municipalities, factories, auto plants, transportation companies...basically any space-extensive or location-based industry won't be moving downtown anytime soon. Also not everyone wants to eat and shop downtown.

[miketoronto]

I am not saying I am worried about these stats. I just thought it was an interesting number and much lower than expected.

All you ever here about is packed GO Trains, and people needing access to the city. But really, a very very tiny amount of 905ers actually access the city on a daily basis. One has to wonder if all the new home ads which mention being close to the GO Train station even matters to 905 buyers, as so few go into the city on a daily basis?

We also hear endlessly from planners who are into the decentralization fad, that we need to continue decentralizing the GTA, because much too many people go into Toronto each day and it unbalances things. However this stat shows that not that many people actually are going into Toronto.

We have pretty much decentralized everything, and have what provincial planners want, jobs and residents all spread out. And what do we have to show for it? More traffic, pollution, and sprawl.

I wish I had this stat last semester when a planner in one of my classes was blaming traffic congestion in the GTA on not having enough jobs in the suburbs and people commuting.
I almost had to laugh when he said "Why does York Region have so much traffic, when they have an almost equal balance of jobs to residents".

So you can take this stat to be either good or bad.

My prediction is that the decentralization fad is going to be seen in 50 years to be just like public housing all in one spot is seen today. A bad idea and that planners took the idea way way way too far.

I know you guys think I am weird for standing up for downtown Toronto. However I don't really see why this is considered so out there.

People always go on about having to be like Europe. Well if Toronto was in Europe, our downtown would have over a million jobs in it, and be much more centralized than we are. And yes 905ers would be coming downtown to do their major shopping. Ohh and our GO Trains would also be carrying like 4 million people a day.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by niwell

This might have more to do with the fact it takes an hour (driving) to get from say, Oakville to downtown. Close to 1.5 hours on transit.

Actually 905ers have some of the best transit access to the core. Most can get downtown faster than people who live within Toronto and use the TTC.

Most of the 905 is within a 30-45 minute GO Train ride from downtown.

And almost the entire GTA is within an hour of downtown by GO Train.
If the trains were electrified, than the commutes would be even faster.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

People always go on about having to be like Europe. Well if Toronto was in Europe, our downtown would have over a million jobs in it, and be much more centralized than we are. And yes 905ers would be coming downtown to do their major shopping. Ohh and our GO Trains would also be carrying like 4 million people a day.

That is one of the most bizarre and inaccurate statements ever made on this site. Really, just baffling.

[vid]

Are there even any European downtowns with a million jobs in them?

[MolsonExport]

Not having access to the raw statistics, I will have to guess that the concentration is probably much lower (than Toronto) in all North American cities except MAYBE for New York City. Definitely so for Vancouver and Montreal. Throughout history, and up until the present day, jobs have ALWAYS mostly been local, whether in the country, suburbs, or city. I doubt very highly that Central Paris/Central London have a million jobs (and yes, I have been to both on several occassions).

[Gdoggy]

how many 416'ers work in downtown Toronto ?

how does 110,000 905'ers working downtown compare to the total ?

how many 905'ers work in the rest of the 416 ?

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by vid

Are there even any European downtowns with a million jobs in them?

I doubt it. The only cities in the world that MIGHT have 1 million downtown workers are New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

[Doady]

There are a lot of types of employment: government, retail, office, industrial...

It is economically not feasible for GTA retail and industrial to be concentrated in downtown Toronto, so that's a significant proportion of jobs right there. That just leaves government and office jobs.

And no, 905ers should be forced to go all the way to downtown Toronto to do their shopping. That's just inefficient and foolish (especially for transportation), even if it was economically feasible for all retailers to locate downtown.

Considering the structure of GO and its high ridership, I would say employment in GTA is plenty concentrated anyway.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by vid

Are there even any European downtowns with a million jobs in them?

You bet there are.

London has over a million jobs in Central London. And they are planning on adding hundreds of thousands more.

The Paris CBD has over one million jobs, and the figure is higher when you include other areas which comprise the extended CBD like La Defense, which actually is not that far from Central Paris.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by niwell

That is one of the most bizarre and inaccurate statements ever made on this site. Really, just baffling.

It is not really inaccurate. If Toronto was in Europe, our regional rail system would be much more frequent, and it of course would be carrying at least a couple million people a day, just like Paris' RER or London's suburban rail network, etc.

Secondly the other statements are true. Europeans even in the suburbs, rely on the central city to a much higher degree for major shopping(not to get milk, but for your major shopping like clothing and gifts, etc), and also for employment. That is just how it is.

Bari, Italy for example is not building a regional rail network centred on downtown Bari, because no one works there. They are building it, because they already have people working there who live in the surrounding region, and they are expecting even more.

So it really is not inaccurate. European CBD's are much more part of the daily lives of a larger amount of suburbanites than in North America. People still use the city to much higher degrees than here.

[miketoronto]

You know there is a whole group of us who believe in downtowns


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1evjv...layer_embedded


Anyway it is no use debating with you guys, because you totally take my comments out of context and think I want 100% of everything downtown, etc. When that is not true.
I was just stating an interesting fact, and for a major city I thought the stat was pretty low.

But like I said no use debating with you guys over this issue, as we are going to not agree on the continued need to grow the downtown core.

[niwell]

If Toronto was in Europe it would be a veritable Shangri-la. A city fit for the Sun King himself. Mere celestials would tremble before it's gilded subways and high levels of downtown employment.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Anyway it is no use debating with you guys, because you totally take my comments out of context and think I want 100% of everything downtown, etc. When that is not true.

I think it's already obvious to everyone that you don't want 100% of everything downtown, based on your suggestions in other threads that there should be a moratorium on new condos in downtown Toronto.

[Wharn]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

And almost the entire GTA is within an hour of downtown by GO Train.
If the trains were electrified, than the commutes would be even faster.

You realize the trains are subject to speed limits, right? Because they have to pass through residential areas on what is essentially freight track, they won't be running much faster than they already are.

Originally Posted by niwell

If Toronto was in Europe it would be a veritable Shangri-la. A city fit for the Sun King himself. Mere celestials would tremble before it's gilded subways and high levels of downtown employment.

Oh god, I had a good laugh at that one.

[vid]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

You bet there are.

London has over a million jobs in Central London. And they are planning on adding hundreds of thousands more.

The Paris CBD has over one million jobs, and the figure is higher when you include other areas which comprise the extended CBD like La Defense, which actually is not that far from Central Paris.

If you superimpose onto Toronto the size of Central London or Paris' CBD and La Defense which "aren't that far from each other" (so I guess we're including what's between them? Or are you willing to include NYCC and Scarborough Centre in your definition of downtown?), you're probably going to find at least a 700,000 jobs, and Toronto is just over half the size of London and a bit more than a third of the size of Paris.