Toronto's Mega Boom

[OfficialPlanner]

Toronto continues to impress as Downtown Toronto’s population growth triples, outpacing the rate of growth of the suburbs.

The report can be found here: http://www.td.com/document/PDF/econo...13_toronto.pdf
Article on the report: http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01...centre-report/

Highlights copied from the report:

• Toronto’s vibrant downtown core has seen a revival of population growth over the last five years,
driven in large part by a growing Echo Boomer segment.

• This highly-skilled, highly-educated, and young population is trading the larger and (relatively) more
affordable housing choices of their parents for proximity to transit, work, and amenities.

• The growing desire to locate downtown has prompted a wave of condo development. An increasing
number of businesses are also acquiring office space in the core in order to be closer to this growing
labour pool. New business creation, employment gains and population growth in the downtown
core are now outpacing that in the surrounding suburbs, reversing a decades-long trend of exactly
the opposite.

• Overall, these trends represent a huge opportunity for the City of Toronto, but it does create challenges.
Notably, the city’s already-strained road and transit infrastructure could face additional pressure.

[OfficialPlanner]

Toronto, now forth largest city in North America!

The City of Toronto has become the fourth-largest city in North America, according to a new report from the City of Toronto. And now everyone can go back to sleep.

The city hall report, released Tuesday, says the city’s population of 2,791,140 has surpassed that of Chicago, which used to hold fourth spot but now has 84,020 fewer souls than Toronto. The top three spots are held by Mexico City (pop. 8.9 million), New York (8.2 million) and Los Angeles (3.8 million).

The problem is, no one seems to care...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/...rticle9354681/

[Cismontane]

Given that "cities" mean different things in different places, it's probably better to compare the GTA (well, I guess technically GTHA) with American Metros rather than the corporate boundaries of the City of Toronto with US cities. By this standard, the GTA is the fifth largest North American metro

Mexico City 21.4 million
New York 19.1 million (or 22.1 million in the CSA)
Los Angeles 16.4 million (or 18.2 million if you include the entire 7 county region of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Kern, Ventura, Santa Barbara)
Chicago 9.5 million
Toronto 6.6 million (GTHA)

This being said, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the GTHA may actually be the most diverse and cosmopolitan city in North America. The GTHA's population is projected to be 8.6 million by 2031, however! That's a practically Chinese rate of urban growth!

Note that these numbers can be a bit confusing depending on how you define a metropolitan area. If you count the cross-border metropolitan cities, you get Detroit-Windsor at 5.7 million and San Diego-Tijuana at 5.3 million, at the low end of the debatable Mexican population counts. The GTA proper only has 5.6 million, I think.. you only get the extra million if you put Hamilton into the mix.

As for actual city (municipal corporation) populations, I wouldn't be so sure Toronto is #4 in North America. I think Havana Cuba's last reliable estimate was in 2003 or 4 and that put its population at 2.4 million, up from 2.1 million in 2000. Extrapolation suggests that it is now #4. hehe. There's also a problem with some Mexican cities in terms of the reliability of census data, given their large floating and/or seasonal populations. If you ask Tijuana what their population is, they'll cite the 2010 Census that gives the population currently living within the ayuntamiento as being 1.65 million or so, but then they'll quote you a margin of error that ranges from 1.5 to 2.8 million. The upper end of this range would make them larger than the city of Toronto.

[OfficialPlanner]

Basically, it's a pissing contest in that contact. What interests me about growth in Toronto is the densification/urban infill that is occuring in a established and largely built-out municipality. nec209 said that Toronto is starting to resemble an Asian city, which I don't think is accurate. Others have said that it's modeling Vancouver with its point towers. That might be a little closer to the mark but still feels off.

[Cismontane]

Basically, it's a pissing contest in that contact. What interests me about growth in Toronto is the densification/urban infill that is occuring in a established and largely built-out municipality. nec209 said that Toronto is starting to resemble an Asian city, which I don't think is accurate. Others have said that it's modeling Vancouver with its point towers. That might be a little closer to the mark but still feels off.

Givent hat those point towers are almost all shearwall buildings, there is a certain similarity with Asian cities, if not aesthetically, then in terms of construction processes.

The sustained clusters of highrise residential development way out into the city's periphery are something unique in a North American or publicly-built and subsidized housing context. New York City has some of this, but not much, and not at all for the last 30-40 years.