Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
It is kind of interesting though that the Chicago-Toronto thing feels real enough that people are making threads about it now. Chicagoans who entertain this comparison are implicitly accepting a change in relative stature between the two cities compared to where they were a few decades ago.
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Torontonians started making threads about whether we could usurp Chicago 10 years ago, but they're becoming less common. Our insecurities have vanished and we almost have this unswerving faith that it's a fait accompli. Time to move on to the next target (New York) although that city will be a monumental challenge. It won't happen in my life time.
By the time some Chicagoans entertain the Chicago-Toronto comparison, the comparison will be largely pointless. It might put some people's nose out of joint, but a significant number of people have already looked beyond Chicago. Chicago still holds the lead in size, but by most other measures Toronto has already passed it. Even in some of those metrics that deal with scale, Toronto has quietly moved ahead. Which city is home to the larger transportation hub, Chicago or Toronto? If you answered Chicago (O'Hare), you'd be wrong. It's Union Station in Toronto. There are many other examples like this.
Chicago will remain a large financial centre, but it speaks volumes that Chicago's days as a global financial centre are behind it. I believe it was Foreign Policy and AT Kearney who made that point last year. A re-jigging of the pecking order is a difficult transition for any city to go through. No city is immune from it although London does seem to re-invent itself over and over and over.