3 ms·
A city can be in 'perpetual rapid development' if they are constantly tearing down the old and building the new. Toronto was reasonably spread out. The Canadi
by alexasmyths 9y ago
A city can be in 'perpetual rapid development' if they are constantly tearing down the old and building the new.
Toronto was reasonably spread out.
The Canadian economy is addicted to 'new construction' as a form of growth + plus mass-scale immigration. Without it, the GDP numbers would not be good. Granted - the GDP/capita numbers would be just fine, so the choice is ideological.
Toronto opened up it's downtown to residential construction and that has been most of the change: massive residential towers (or even smaller ones) closer to downtown.
Of course - the endless construction of identical looking homes for 100Km in all direction continues unabated.
Driving North out of Toronto now - it goes on forever: identical homes, a Timmies, a Starbucks, a Home Depot, a TD Bank, another batch of the same homes, a Timmies, a Starbucks, a TD Bank - reapeat ad nauseum.
I think the expansion has largely been a disaster and we'll look back on it mostly as an economic trick to fill as many homes as possible in a short period of time.
- Apocryphon 9y agoWell, at least it sounds like the opposite problem that the Bay Area has! And yet the real estate in Toronto is just as expensive?
- alexasmyths 9y agoReal Estate in TO is expensive, but nowhere near SF. SF has: A) Earthquakes B) The Bay is a hodgepodge of cities. TO is mostly one big city under the same management. C) SF has quirky and specific views of 'how they ought to be'. Oddly conflicting at times. There's plenty of geography around the Bay - there's no reason that SF 'has to go vertical' while the other areas don't. Too much blame on SF. If it's safe to put 25 story residences in SF surely it is also in Palo Alto and Freemont etc.. Or maybe tech could find another hub?
- iandioch 9y agoOr better yet, forgo a hub at all :)
- slavik81 9y agoToronto added 400k people in last 5-year census period, for a total of ~9% growth. The 5 years before that were similar. It is both the largest and the fastest-growing city in Canada.
- Sag0Sag0 9y agoHave you been to Melbourne, Australia?
- Apocryphon 9y agoWhat about Melbourne?