Why Do Canadian Skylines Overperform Relative To Their Metro Populations? - Page 11

memph · #**201** Posted **May 4, 2020, 1:05 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Oakville seems a bit more high end than Plano . Plano is like a Vaughn or Brampton but more corporate middle manager type

That sounds more like Mississauga tbh. Or at least Mississauga outside of the lower income neighbourhoods like Cooksville and Malton.

Docere · #**202** Posted **May 4, 2020, 1:17 AM**

Some Toronto suburbs compared.

Average individual income

Oakville $76,541
Vaughan $53,441
Richmond Hill $52,189
Mississauga $45,267
Brampton $37,647

Median HH income

Oakville $113,666
Vaughan $105,351
Richmond Hill $88,353
Brampton $87,290
Mississauga $83,018

Average HH income

Oakville $169,786
Vaughan $133,095
Richmond Hill $115,526
Mississauga $105,462
Brampton $98,855

Top Decile

Oakville 27.8%
Vaughan 16.4%
Richmond Hill 15.6%
Mississauga 11.2%
Brampton 5.6%

Bachelor's degree or higher

Oakville 53%
Richmond Hill 51.1%
Mississauga 41.6%
Vaughan 40.7%
Brampton 30.2%

pip · #**203** Posted **May 4, 2020, 1:19 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Slightly so, but not 2-5x more dense. How about this, not a major difference in the built environment.

suburban Detroit

I would contend that the difference in commercial built environment, and not the residential built environment, is a much bigger driver of suburban transit utilization across the two countries.

In Canada, Warren Avenue would probably have 3x more frequent bus service- also services , malls, big box, not just jobs but also small manufacturing, logistics, etc would likely be more concentrated in places like this:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Br...!4d-79.7624177

whereas in the US you might find this stuff on arterial roads.

Your Detroit Ariel. Slide over a bit and you get country almost except this is the City. The left is Detroit and to the right is the suburbs
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gr...!4d-82.9118591

memph · #**204** Posted **May 4, 2020, 2:45 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Well this is why it’s hard to compare a low growth metro like Detroit..there is little post 1990 growth in Detroit outside of some exurban developments like the one you posted of Indianapolis. Most of the metro was built out pre 1980 with relatively small lot suburbs with much higher densities . You need to compare Macomb county, Livonia etc with Brampton and Vaughn , not some random exurban development

A better comparison would be Vegas , Dallas etc where post 1990 suburban growth has been broadly similar to that in Toronto , tightly packed single family homes. I’m sure you could find multifamily tracts in either city with high densities to mirror zone 2 of that Brampton image .

The core issue here is the difference in density and built environment is proportionally much smaller than the difference in transit ridership.

The Italian neighborhood does seem a bit denser than what you would find in the us new sfh areas , it must be said . However I see Some low density sfh areas close by as well

If you compare Toronto to Midwestern cities, I'd say there's basically 3 different reasons why the densities are different.

1. Inner City - The pre-WWII areas of most Midwestern cities lost around 30-70% of their population due to a combination of decreasing household sizes and abandonment/urban renewal. A lot of Southern cities experienced significant losses as well, it's just their cores were much smaller.

Toronto experienced a similar decrease in household sizes, but highrise construction offset much of those losses, so its inner city population only decreased by about 12% from 1951 to 1981, the regained that 12% by 2001. It has since grown an additional 18% thanks to the condo boom.

Toronto was also the second densest city in the Midwest/Great Lakes in 1950. St Louis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Detroit had higher density peaks, but they also had more expansive upscale streetcar and early auto suburbs that had lower densities than Toronto's streetcar suburbs. These were the weighted densities of Midwestern/Great Lakes urban areas in 1950

Chicago: 27100 ppsm
Toronto: 21200 ppsm
Milwaukee: 18000 ppsm
Buffalo: 16700 ppsm
Pittsburgh: 16100 ppsm
Detroit: 15900 ppsm
St. Louis: 15700 ppsm
Cincinnati: 15500 ppsm (Ohio side only)
Cleveland: 15500 ppsm
Rochester: 14900 ppsm
Louisville: 14000 ppsm
Kansas City: 13800 ppsm
Columbus: 13300 ppsm
Minneapolis-St Paul: 11200 ppsm
Indianapolis: 10500 ppsm

earlier post-war suburbs (up to 1980 or so) - Toronto seems to have maintained that pattern of moderately higher densities compared to its Great Lake peers during its post-war boom. I don't think you'd have much tightly packed semi-detached housing like this in the suburbs of Detroit, Cleveland or Buffalo.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.73497...7i16384!8i8192
Probably part of that was also due to lower levels of social conflict, which meant that there was less fear of more modest or higher density housing bringing undesirable elements into the community. Canada being less wealthy back then was probably a factor too.

The ultimate manifestation of that difference came with Toronto's tower-in-the-park boom in the late 60s to early 80s, but I'd argue the SFH areas were denser too.

post 1990 suburban boom - Unlike most other Midwestern cities, Toronto continued having a great deal of demand for new housing, increasing its population by over 60% in the last 3 decades. I continue to maintain that even compared to suburban Dallas and Vegas, Toronto's lowrise sprawl is significantly denser. Vegas comes closest. SoCal and the Bay Area might be building at similar densities, but they're building less of it since they're lower growth regions.

memph · #**205** Posted **May 4, 2020, 3:40 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Well this is why it’s hard to compare a low growth metro like Detroit..there is little post 1990 growth in Detroit outside of some exurban developments like the one you posted of Indianapolis. Most of the metro was built out pre 1980 with relatively small lot suburbs with much higher densities . You need to compare Macomb county, Livonia etc with Brampton and Vaughn , not some random exurban development

A better comparison would be Vegas , Dallas etc where post 1990 suburban growth has been broadly similar to that in Toronto , tightly packed single family homes. I’m sure you could find multifamily tracts in either city with high densities to mirror zone 2 of that Brampton image .

The core issue here is the difference in density and built environment is proportionally much smaller than the difference in transit ridership.

The Italian neighborhood does seem a bit denser than what you would find in the us new sfh areas , it must be said . However I see Some low density sfh areas close by as well

You're talking about these area near Vellore?
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.83042...7i16384!8i8192
Not really representative of the kind of neighbourhood the average suburbanite lives in... the homes are about 2x bigger and 2-3x more expensive.
Or maybe this area? It's even more expensive and anomalous.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.81455...7i16384!8i8192

Las Vegas is an interesting comparison though. It grew about 3.1-fold since 1990, compared to 2.9-fold for Brampton, however, in per capita terms, Las Vegas' bus system has only half as many users as Brampton's. It serves about 3.5x more people but only has about 1.75x more users. And this is just looking at Brampton's local bus system, which serves Brampton and also has a few routes going to major destinations and transit hubs in adjacent suburbs, but doesn't have any commuter service to downtown Toronto.

However, I'd argue that even looking at Brampton vs Las Vegas (not just Vegas suburbs but its "inner city" as well), Brampton is denser by a non-trivial amount.

memph · #**206** Posted **May 4, 2020, 4:35 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Well this is why it’s hard to compare a low growth metro like Detroit..there is little post 1990 growth in Detroit outside of some exurban developments like the one you posted of Indianapolis. Most of the metro was built out pre 1980 with relatively small lot suburbs with much higher densities . You need to compare Macomb county, Livonia etc with Brampton and Vaughn , not some random exurban development

This is the densest census tract in Livonia.

2806 people in 0.497 square miles
5646 ppsm

Peel Village in Brampton was at 7457 ppsm and that was when you excluded the multi-family strip along Kennedy Road.

The lots in Peel Village seem to be a bit smaller, more like 0.12 acre vs 0.15 acres in Livonia, and household sizes are a bit bigger, 2.75 in Peel Village vs 2.5 in Livonia, and it also has a few smaller apartment buildings that weren't excluded, which more than accounts for the density difference (but Peel Village has a bit more commercial properties and 5 schools to reduce the density a bit). The larger household size is probably in part due to Metro Detroit having fewer apartments for its small households to live in, so a lot of them end up just living in SFHs, causing Metro Detroit SFH neighbourhoods to have smaller household sizes.

But again, this is the bottom 5-10% least dense parts of Brampton vs the densest part of Livonia, and the Brampton neighbourhood is still 32% denser.

memph · #**207** Posted **May 4, 2020, 4:50 AM**

This is the densest part of Macomb County, MI. It's in Eastpointe, right on the border of Detroit, along Kelly Road between 8 Mile and 9 Mile.

4412 people in 0.574 square miles
7683 ppsm.

Still only about the same density as one of the least dense parts of Brampton.

memph · #**208** Posted **May 4, 2020, 5:31 AM**

Now lets look at what a typical Brampton neighbourhood actually looks like.

Brampton has 97 census tracts. Of those, 20 have over half the land dedicated to industrial parks, farmland, large conservation areas and other non-neighbourhood uses.

Out of the remaining 77 census tracts, 69, or 90% of them, are denser than that neighbourhood that's the densest in all of Macomb County.

The densest of those doesn't even have a single highrise.

6039 people in 0.292 square miles
20680 ppsm

That's 2.7x denser than the densest part of Macomb County, and 3.7x denser than the densest part of Livonia.

And they're all census tracts where the majority of the land is dedicated to residential uses, so pretty apples to apples.

This is what much of the housing in the high density Brampton neighbourhood looks like.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.71147...7i16384!8i8192

The lots are small, but the houses are not, they're bigger than the ones in Eastpointe or Livonia, typically with garage, living, dining and kitchen on the main floor, 3-4 bedrooms on the 2nd floor, 3-4 bathrooms, and a rec room and an additional bedroom in the basement. A lot of them convert the basement rec-room into a kitchen/living/dining area so that they can have an accessory dwelling in the basement.

This house in the neighbourhood, one of the bigger ones, actually seems to have been converted into two large duplex units, one of with 3 bedrooms on the top floor, and one with 4 bedrooms on the main floor and basement.
https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/2...etchers-meadow
With houses that size, it makes sense that they'd hold quite a lot of people. But that big house sits on only 3100 sf of land, less than half the typical lot size in Livonia. So basically a Bayonne Box on Toronto's suburban outskirts.

memph · #**209** Posted **May 4, 2020, 12:12 PM**

Forget suburbs... lets compare urban core densities to Brampton instead.

Brampton has 348,045 people living in census tracts with densities of over 10,000 ppsm. That's 58.6% of Brampton's population.

Most of the rest of Brampton's population lives in census tracts that would have densities of over 10,000 ppsm if their census tracts didn't also include large areas of farmland, industrial parks and/or conservation areas.

Of those, 348,045 people, 149,108 live in census tracts with densities of over 15,000 ppsm. BTW about 85% of those 15k+ ppsm census tracts have zero highrises.

The entire Metro Detroit area has 14,254 people living in census tracts of >15,000 ppsm (10.5x less than Brampton). It has 97,417 people living in census tracts of >10,000 ppsm (3.6x less than Brampton). Mostly in Downtown/Midtown, Hamtrack, Dearborn and SW Detroit.

Pittsburgh MSA
>15,000 ppsm CTs: 37,522 people (4.0x less than Brampton)
>10,000 ppsm CTs: 97,391 people (3.6x less than Brampton)

St Louis MSA
>15,000 ppsm CTs: 0 people
>10,000 ppsm CTs: 64,309 people (5.4x less than Brampton)

Portland MSA
>15,000 ppsm CTs: 34,423 people (4.3x less than Brampton)
>10,000 ppsm CTs: 165,678 people (2.1x less than Brampton)

Las Vegas MSA
>15,000 ppsm CTs: 65,173 people (2.3x less than Brampton)
>10,000 ppsm CTs: 392,304 people (1.1x more than Brampton)

ok that's something I suppose. Except that the Vegas MSA has about 3.7x more people than Brampton, and the high density development in Vegas is scattered all over the place, so there's still a lot of low density in between the dense clusters. If you compare weighted densities, Brampton is still about 80% denser, which should be enough to make a difference in what kind of transit you can provide.

Dallas-FW MSA
>15,000 ppsm CTs: 148,285 people (same as Brampton)
>10,000 ppsm CTs: 351,675 people (same as Brampton)

Except that DFW has more than 10x Brampton's population, which means that its high(ish) density multi-family clusters are separated by oceans of sprawl.

Brampton:

(map comes from a different website, this is the closest I could get the colours to be, the breaks between each density category are the same though).

Crawford · #**210** Posted **May 4, 2020, 12:30 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by memph

The lots are small, but the houses are not, they're bigger than the ones in Eastpointe or Livonia, typically with garage, living, dining and kitchen on the main floor, 3-4 bedrooms on the 2nd floor, 3-4 bathrooms, and a rec room and an additional bedroom in the basement. A lot of them convert the basement rec-room into a kitchen/living/dining area so that they can have an accessory dwelling in the basement.

Brampton isn't really like Eastpointe or Livonia. Actually Eastpointe isn't anything like Livonia. IMO we're getting caught up on finding like-to-like neighborhoods based on density similarities, rather than cultural or demographic similarities.

Metro Detroit doesn't have remotely similar densities, for a variety of obvious reasons, but mostly because there are no housing space pressures. The "Bramptons" of Metro Detroit would be immigrant-heavy newer but less desirable outer suburbs. Places like Sterling Heights, Madison Heights, North Warren, the eastern half of Canton.

Eastpointe is basically a postwar extension of the East Side of Detroit. It's an undesirable, heavily black working class suburb, or at least transitioning there, and almost entirely made up of immediate postwar bungalows. Schools are terrible, crime is high, the near-future is bleak.

Livonia is really two cities. The portion south of the Jeffries freeway is very working class and postwar bungalow-ish, and north of the Jeffries more middle to upper middle class. Livonia is extremely white, older, and conservative-leaning, even today. I'm kind of surprised it's held up well, given it's entirely soulless, housing/commercial is really out of date, and it borders rougher areas. But schools are still above average and services are good. It even has a semi-upscale mall.

DZH22 · #**211** Posted **May 4, 2020, 1:42 PM**

Why are there like 10 pages comparing Toronto to Detroit? That's your best city vs one of our worst cities. Maybe we should compare NYC to Windsor. NYC is denser and has a better skyline. The end.

Crawford · #**212** Posted **May 4, 2020, 2:25 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by DZH22

Why are there like 10 pages comparing Toronto to Detroit? That's your best city vs one of our worst cities. Maybe we should compare NYC to Windsor. NYC is denser and has a better skyline. The end.

We're comparing metros and residential patterns. The relative size or your subjective views of "best and worst" is irrelevant.

MolsonExport · #**213** Posted **May 4, 2020, 2:33 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by DZH22

Why are there like 10 pages comparing Toronto to Detroit? That's your best city vs one of our worst cities. Maybe we should compare NYC to Windsor. NYC is denser and has a better skyline. The end.

We compare Toronto to Jacksonville all of the time.

Metro-One · #**214** Posted **May 4, 2020, 2:52 PM**

Just to interrupt this thread about Toronto, here are some recent pics of a seldom seen Canadian skyline, Victoria BC.

Metro population 403 000.

It’s not the tallest due to height restrictions but it has great density for a city it’s size.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Great Scaper

I bought a new camera in January and a new laptop in February. I have been enjoying taking new photos and getting back into photography. I will post some of my recent Victoria city photos. I hope I haven't posted too many.

Victoria B.C. Canada by thegreatscaper, on Flickr

Victoria B.C. by thegreatscaper, on Flickr

memph · #**215** Posted **May 4, 2020, 4:31 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crawford

Brampton isn't really like Eastpointe or Livonia. Actually Eastpointe isn't anything like Livonia. IMO we're getting caught up on finding like-to-like neighborhoods based on density similarities, rather than cultural or demographic similarities.

Metro Detroit doesn't have remotely similar densities, for a variety of obvious reasons, but mostly because there are no housing space pressures. The "Bramptons" of Metro Detroit would be immigrant-heavy newer but less desirable outer suburbs. Places like Sterling Heights, Madison Heights, North Warren, the eastern half of Canton.

Eastpointe is basically a postwar extension of the East Side of Detroit. It's an undesirable, heavily black working class suburb, or at least transitioning there, and almost entirely made up of immediate postwar bungalows. Schools are terrible, crime is high, the near-future is bleak.

Livonia is really two cities. The portion south of the Jeffries freeway is very working class and postwar bungalow-ish, and north of the Jeffries more middle to upper middle class. Livonia is extremely white, older, and conservative-leaning, even today. I'm kind of surprised it's held up well, given it's entirely soulless, housing/commercial is really out of date, and it borders rougher areas. But schools are still above average and services are good. It even has a semi-upscale mall.

My goal with that post wasn't to find out which part of Metro Detroit was most like Brampton, it was to show just how much denser Brampton neighbourhoods are compared to Detroit suburbs. And Brampton is about 2.5-3x denser.

Anyways, I'm not convinced it's just income because Brampton Transit's bus ridership outperforms the transit systems of mid-sized American cities.

Ex Oklahoma City, Memphis, Jackson MS, Columbia SC, Mobile, Jacksonville, Indianapolis, Kansas City, San Antonio, Buffalo, Birmingham...

When you look at annual trips vs population of the service area, Brampton outperforms some of those cities by about 50%, others, it's more like outperforming by 500%+.

The only cities that outperform Brampton are New Orleans and Milwaukee (by a little) and Honolulu (by a fair bit). Of those, Honolulu is the wealthiest by far, and yet, it still has the best transit performance... but it's also the densest.

Milwaukee and New Orleans are next densest. They're probably aided by having a proper walkable downtown, whereas Brampton only has a very small historic centre.

Buffalo still has a bit of moderate density left, and it does a bit better than those other small cities, but is still less dense than Brampton.

The rest of those cities do very poorly, and are 3-6x less dense than Brampton. And it's not like they have a shortage of working class and poor people.

mhays · #**216** Posted **May 4, 2020, 6:39 PM**

The only certainty is that causes are complex.

I'd assume several factors play big roles:
--Bus service is better
--Density is higher
--Walking infrastructure is greater
--The culture is more favorable to transit
--A better mental health system means fewer wierd people
--Higher use means wierd people are diluted
--Driving is more expensive
--Parking is expensive in key employment areas, and isn't free in broader areas
--Car traffic is heavier in some key employment areas

Some of those are guesses but some are givens. It's certainly a mix of more carrot and stick.

iheartthed · #**217** Posted **May 4, 2020, 6:43 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by memph

Anyways, I'm not convinced it's just income because Brampton Transit's bus ridership outperforms the transit systems of mid-sized American cities.

Of course it's not income. It's policy. American metros have poor transit stats because of deliberate policy decisions.

Docere · #**218** Posted **May 4, 2020, 6:50 PM**

Brampton is the most working class of the 905 suburbs (see stats I posted above), but transit use isn't particularly exceptional by GTA standards. Vaughan for example is middle to higher income (with some rich pockets - though I suspect transit use is much lower in those sections), is mostly white and heavily Italian Canadian, and has similar transit usage.

Crawford · #**219** Posted **May 4, 2020, 7:00 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Of course it's not income. It's policy. American metros have poor transit stats because of deliberate policy decisions.

Certainly it isn't only income, or policy, or any one thing. It's a variety of trans-national differences.

Crawford · #**220** Posted **May 4, 2020, 7:04 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Docere

Brampton is the most working class of the 905 suburbs (see stats I posted above), but transit use isn't particularly exceptional by GTA standards. Vaughan for example is middle to higher-middle income (with some rich pockets - though I suspect transit use is much lower in those sections), is mostly white and heavily Italian Canadian, and has similar transit usage.

Vaughan has subway service, though. If I ran a subway through Brampton, I can't imagine transit share would be unaffected.

Did Vaughan have similar bus share as Brampton prior to subway opening? Is there an easy link for Canadian modal share by jurisdiction?