Is Toronto more similar to Los Angeles than to Northeastern and Midwestern US cities?

[Docere]

Some say it is because it grew fast after WWII, it's filled with ethnoburbs and it has more densely populated suburbs than the eastern half of the US.

The problem of course is its Great Lakes location and strong downtown/core.

[thurmas]

Toronto is like Atlanta or Frankfurt a business hub but you don't go there for its history and historical architecture as it barely has any at all compared to a Chicago Montreal or Boston.

[kool maudit]

No, it's more like DC if anything.

[kool maudit]

Although St. Clair has its Wilshire moments.

[Docere]

Wanted to put this in City Discussions. Oh well.

[Capsicum]

Is the film industry or movie focus another sort-of similarity, if you stretch it a little? Toronto has some clout with TIFF, being part of Canadian mass media, even if it doesn't compare to LA itself.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

No, it's more like DC if anything.

DC and Toronto have similar populations and rather similar growth trajectories in the postwar period (both were around 900,000 in 1940).

[MonkeyRonin]

What's with SSP's unending obsession with matching our cities to an American equivalent? Funny how it never seems to work in reverse - there's never a "is Des Moines the Toronto of Iowa?" thread.

The usual gist of it is that there is never really a singular equivalent because each city in Canada tends to fulfil more roles within the country. Toronto is Canada's New York + Los Angeles + Chicago; just like Vancouver is our Los Angeles + San Francisco + Seattle, etc.

Just as far as urban development goes, Toronto historically most closely mirrors the second-wave inland cities like Pittsburgh, and the other nearby Great Lakes cities like Detroit and Cleveland - but took a very different direction post-war (something more in line with LA, sure, but also more distinctly Canadian); while in more recent years has diverged from the American models even further. The closest equivalents to Toronto's modern development are cities like Montreal and Vancouver moreso than anywhere in the US.

[urbandreamer]

Seattle reminds me of Toronto, although instead of suburban towers they're mid-rise apartment blocks spread out more.

Edmonton is a bigger Winnipeg or Toronto c.1965. Calgary is a bigger London, Ontario.

What I found interesting about South Shore/Eastern Townships towns and cities is how they reminded me of English market towns, probably because the New England Empire Loyalists laid them out.

[harls]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

What's with SSP's unending obsession with matching our cities to an American equivalent? Funny how it never seems to work in reverse - there's never a "is Des Moines the Toronto of Iowa?" thread.

I think Docere is just bored.

[Docere]

One could argue that "our" NYC and "our" L.A. are NYC and L.A. themselves. Since lots of Canadians who have "made it" in the fields those great American cities flourish in are there.

I didn't actually ask whether Toronto was "our" L.A. or not though.

[Luisito]

Toronto is more like London.

[savevp]

Is Ontario more similar to Belize City or the Sultanate of Oman?

This is asanine. But yes, Toronto is far more similar to London than LA, New York, or Gaylick Gulch Mississippi.

[yaletown_fella]

Originally Posted by savevp

Is Ontario more similar to Belize City or the Sultanate of Oman?

This is asanine. But yes, Toronto is far more similar to London than LA, New York, or Gaylick Gulch Mississippi.

Far more similar to Vancouver than London. It's not even close. Look at all the nodes of 30 story residential towers around malls surrounded by a sea of SFH. London may have historic rowhouses like old Toronto but London has very little in the way of private gardens (the front is often a brick wall with a place to park the car in front of the house, nothing like youd find in the US or Canada)

The main difference between Toronto and Vancouver is scale and substantially more brick (or brick veneer in the 905) and stone/precast instead of wood and shingles as a cladding.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Docere

I didn't actually ask whether Toronto was "our" L.A. or not though.

The point though, is that Toronto's similarities to Los Angeles are because it fulfills many of the same roles for Canada that LA does for the US. We didn't have a sunbelt to siphon off prosperity from the old Eastern/Great Lakes industrial cities - the post-war suburban boom, the ethnoburbs, and all the other features that it shares with LA came to Toronto (and the few other Canadian cities) because there wasn't really a Canadian equivalent.

By extension, if there were no Los Angeles or Sunbelt in general, the post-war experience of Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, et all would have looked a lot more like Toronto's.

That Toronto has similarities - cultural, historical, built, or otherwise - to Chicago, or similarities to Los Angeles, or to New York, is because it's our Great Lakes industrial city, and our post-war boomtown, and our primate metropolis, and so on. What defines the characteristics of these individual US cities is that they tend to "specialize" in something more specific; and are often shaped by distinct boom-bust growth cycles, whereas growth has been distributed more evenly through time here. This is why we always get a half-dozen different answers on the "what American city is most similar or equivalent to Canadian city X?"

[Nouvellecosse]

It's hard to compare cities "overall" since there are so many different possible ways to compare them. Architecture, density, street layout, economy, skyline, transit, number/types of immigrants, number of trees, natural setting, climate, crime, sports, politics, history... and probably a few dozen not listed. I find cities seem the most similar when there's a high degree of similarity in a few such domains. Like, their housing stock and street layout has a similar style.

But the actual greatest similarity would be cities that are most similar on average. Like if you took all the possible categories and scored other cities on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being most similar to the city you're comparing them with, the most similar city might only get an average score of 5 or 6. But since it didn't get a 9 or 10 on any individual category, it wouldn't seem that similar to people intuitively even though it also didn't get a 1 or 2 on any. Especially since people view some categories as being more fundamental to a city's essence than others. But not everyone agrees on which categories those are.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Just as far as urban development goes, Toronto historically most closely mirrors the second-wave inland cities like Pittsburgh, and the other nearby Great Lakes cities like Detroit and Cleveland - but took a very different direction post-war (something more in line with LA, sure, but also more distinctly Canadian); while in more recent years has diverged from the American models even further. The closest equivalents to Toronto's modern development are cities like Montreal and Vancouver moreso than anywhere in the US.

Both Toronto and LA reached the 500,000 mark around 1920 - a reasonable marker for when "big city" status was reached. Of course LA was a smaller city in the 19th century. LA's urban typology - very unique for the time - was already in place in the early 20th century. Toronto at that time was still following the Great Lakes/second inland pattern, and probably did until 1950 or so. So obviously the cities developed very differently.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by urbandreamer

Seattle reminds me of Toronto, although instead of suburban towers they're mid-rise apartment blocks spread out more.

Edmonton is a bigger Winnipeg or Toronto c.1965. Calgary is a bigger London, Ontario.

What I found interesting about South Shore/Eastern Townships towns and cities is how they reminded me of English market towns, probably because the New England Empire Loyalists laid them out.

I found that Calgary feels quite a bit like Mississauga.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Loco101

I found that Calgary feels quite a bit like Mississauga.

That makes sense as they were largely built up around the same time. In Calgary, there isn't much of an inner city at all, you go from downtown to "Mississauga" pretty quickly.

[TorontoDrew]

What the Hell? Lol comparing Toronto to L.A is just absurd. L.A has a lack luster downtown core tjat pretty much is a dead zone weeknights and weekends. It's surrounded by satellite cores that offer a more urban experience but most people need cars to get to them. No Canadian city resembles L.A in any aspect.