Toronto is an Alpha city globally but it's not on the level of Alpha++ or Alpha+ cities like the above mentioned. Is there a way Toronto could have reached that level by today?
AHC: Put Toronto on the international level of New York, London or Hong Kong
- Thread starter Mitchell Hundred
- Start date
No, the national population it serves is too small, it is not on the Atlantic with a New York-class harbor, and the amount of wealth that passes through the Canadian financial markets (or even down the St. Lawrence) is not large enough. And too much of the trade of the prairie provinces and BC goes south, not east. You'd need a nuclear war that decimates the U.S. and leaves Canada unharmed (thanks to ASBs) to make Toronto a new New York (its original name was York). If China screws up big time, however, as the Pacific becomes the center of world trade, Vancouver might have a marginally better chance for the A list over the course of the next 50 years.
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Perhaps
But the POD would have been in the ARW, That being that Upper Canada was given to the USA at the Peace of Paris.
The other POD would be no Eerie canal or the Welland canal being built faster and trumping the Eerie canal.
Instead of New York's role diminishing, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland would diminish a little for a beefier Toronto.
Toronto could become one of the busiest ports in the world as the interior of the USA would be opened to it. It might perhaps be a rail center as well to the Midwest.
Who knows.
Currently, Toronto is a big fish in the smaller pond of Canada. With it and most of Canada included in the USA, it is a bigger fish in the bigger pond.
But the POD would have been in the ARW, That being that Upper Canada was given to the USA at the Peace of Paris.
The other POD would be no Eerie canal or the Welland canal being built faster and trumping the Eerie canal.
Instead of New York's role diminishing, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland would diminish a little for a beefier Toronto.
Toronto could become one of the busiest ports in the world as the interior of the USA would be opened to it. It might perhaps be a rail center as well to the Midwest.
Who knows.
Currently, Toronto is a big fish in the smaller pond of Canada. With it and most of Canada included in the USA, it is a bigger fish in the bigger pond.
Napoleonrules
Banned
Toronto is already doing pretty darn well and it's insulting that people don't realize that the Erie Canal has been replaced by the Saint Lawrence Seaway... most Great Lakes international trade goes out through the St Lawrence. Now that doesn't really help Toronto.
Toronto is bigger than Chicago.
Toronto is the 11th biggest global financial center, which places it above Geneva, Shanghai, or Frankfort.
Toronto is bigger than Chicago.
Toronto is the 11th biggest global financial center, which places it above Geneva, Shanghai, or Frankfort.
Toronto already is on the same level as New York and London. It's the fourth biggest city in North America, the Toronto International Film Festival draws film makers from all over the world and is considered to be a major bellweather for the Oscars, Toronto is highly tolerant and cosmopolitan and is the third largest centre for Broadway theatre after New York and London. Toronto also regularly attracts A-list Hollywood directors and movie stars who come here to shoot top tier films and TV shows, like the up-coming Suicide Squad.
Fearless Leader
Donor
How about improving Toronto's infrastructure? If they decided to build subways in 1911 instead of 1950 the city would undoubtedly be more highly regarded and larger (thus more population!)
I am going to have to disagree, and I say that as a Torontonian... Toronto is nowhere near the same league as London and New York.
Don't get me wrong. Toronto is a phenomenal city, world class restaurants, good theatre scene, multicultural, etc. (in that you are correct). But there is still a 'parochialness' to the city. It hasn't yet reached New York/London levels. It just hasn't had enough time or reached the population or have the economy to be on par. Give it time though and it will be a city to be reckoned with!
p.s. there is no where else I would rather raise a family though
There is no doubt that Toronto is one of the topmost cities in the world for quality of life. But what does that have to do with a POD that would put its stock exchange in the same league with Wall Street in volume of trading? And by the way, does anyone remember the great CBC drama series, Traders. Not many people in the U.S. got to see it, but it was terrific.
The language issue in Quebec comes to a head earlier than in OTL, and Anglophone banks and corporations move their Montreal operations to Toronto.
Toronto, instead of Montreal, hosts the 1976 Olympics.
Toronto, instead of Montreal, hosts the 1976 Olympics.
Devvy
Donor
Well London and NYC are "the" prime global cities because:
- They have an international outlook
- They are logistics hubs for the country (historically speaking)
- They are the financial centres of the country
- They are highly populated cities
- They sit in highly populated countries
- They have excellent infrastructure to facilitate the above
Toronto's rise is predicated upon Montreal's fall; Montreal is better suited for logistics, as I understand it much business was Montreal centred, and Montreal had a slightly larger population then Toronto. It's only the language policies in Quebec that made a decisive push factor to Toronto.
I'd suggest more post-war immigration to Canada to bolster the population; immigrants tend to cluster in the cities as well which will help. Any other factors that serve as a push from places like the UK will see Canada grow (red revolution!?).
Otherwise, you need to address the Montreal/Toronto thing quicker; earlier language policies in Quebec pushing business to Toronto sooner. Commited investment by Government in Toronto will likewise make the city more desirable - things like resolving the airports issue earlier will help (ie. early agreement on the site and get building), and systems like GO-ALRT to link the city, suburbs and airport will help. Sadly, Canada, like the UK, seems unable to just get on with infrastructure investments with large amounts of bickering. Something better then VIA Rail needs establishing as well; with the 3-way combination of Toronto and Montreal as the large cities, along with Ottawa in the middle as the institutional capital, you need better links.
After NAFTA is instituted, maybe some slightly more favourable tax regimes on things like corporation tax might attract some North American businesses to locate in Canada; it's always going to be difficult to compete with the US on small Government and low taxes however. On the flip side, if Canadian politics reject NAFTA, then perhaps signing a comprehensive trade agreement with Europe will provide investment from Europe in Canada, and see Canada used as a convenient logistics hub for exporting to the US.
More international actions done by Canada itself rather then working through multilateral agencies will raise it's profile; however such actions seem to go against the long running foreign policy outlook of Canada. Maybe somehow it gets a UN Security Council seat following WW2, however I'm not sure how that is achievable (maybe Canada and Poland get seats to balance the east/west divide?).
And then you have the cultural fields that are dominated by NYC and London. How you replicate in any meaningful fashion the scale of significant museums, festivals (film, literary, and every other type), Broadway/West End, etc etc is beyond me. Toronto already has many of those, but the scale is nowhere comparable. The Toronto film festival is about the only one I know of that is at the top of the game on a global level.
Also bear in mind, the big cities are instantly recognisable from a landmark or two, which serve as the iconic "badge" of the city, making that city recognisable. NYC has things like the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, the look of Manhattan. London has Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Buck Pal. Paris has the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dam etc. Sydney has the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Toronto has....? The CN Tower? It has great buildings, but nothing that really stands out on a global scale. I've been to Toronto as a tourist, and my major memories aren't actually of Toronto; it was the day trip to the Niagara Falls. Toronto needs some major architectural wonders to raise it's profile, and raise it's cultural capital.
And as mentioned, if Toronto can host the Olympics instead of Montreal, that's a nice bonus as well.
TLDR: It's going to be difficult to get on NYC/London's level; they are there because of centuries of history improving and cementing their roles. But it could manage a bit higher, on the same level as Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris etc.
- They have an international outlook
- They are logistics hubs for the country (historically speaking)
- They are the financial centres of the country
- They are highly populated cities
- They sit in highly populated countries
- They have excellent infrastructure to facilitate the above
Toronto's rise is predicated upon Montreal's fall; Montreal is better suited for logistics, as I understand it much business was Montreal centred, and Montreal had a slightly larger population then Toronto. It's only the language policies in Quebec that made a decisive push factor to Toronto.
I'd suggest more post-war immigration to Canada to bolster the population; immigrants tend to cluster in the cities as well which will help. Any other factors that serve as a push from places like the UK will see Canada grow (red revolution!?).
Otherwise, you need to address the Montreal/Toronto thing quicker; earlier language policies in Quebec pushing business to Toronto sooner. Commited investment by Government in Toronto will likewise make the city more desirable - things like resolving the airports issue earlier will help (ie. early agreement on the site and get building), and systems like GO-ALRT to link the city, suburbs and airport will help. Sadly, Canada, like the UK, seems unable to just get on with infrastructure investments with large amounts of bickering. Something better then VIA Rail needs establishing as well; with the 3-way combination of Toronto and Montreal as the large cities, along with Ottawa in the middle as the institutional capital, you need better links.
After NAFTA is instituted, maybe some slightly more favourable tax regimes on things like corporation tax might attract some North American businesses to locate in Canada; it's always going to be difficult to compete with the US on small Government and low taxes however. On the flip side, if Canadian politics reject NAFTA, then perhaps signing a comprehensive trade agreement with Europe will provide investment from Europe in Canada, and see Canada used as a convenient logistics hub for exporting to the US.
More international actions done by Canada itself rather then working through multilateral agencies will raise it's profile; however such actions seem to go against the long running foreign policy outlook of Canada. Maybe somehow it gets a UN Security Council seat following WW2, however I'm not sure how that is achievable (maybe Canada and Poland get seats to balance the east/west divide?).
And then you have the cultural fields that are dominated by NYC and London. How you replicate in any meaningful fashion the scale of significant museums, festivals (film, literary, and every other type), Broadway/West End, etc etc is beyond me. Toronto already has many of those, but the scale is nowhere comparable. The Toronto film festival is about the only one I know of that is at the top of the game on a global level.
Also bear in mind, the big cities are instantly recognisable from a landmark or two, which serve as the iconic "badge" of the city, making that city recognisable. NYC has things like the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, the look of Manhattan. London has Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Buck Pal. Paris has the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dam etc. Sydney has the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Toronto has....? The CN Tower? It has great buildings, but nothing that really stands out on a global scale. I've been to Toronto as a tourist, and my major memories aren't actually of Toronto; it was the day trip to the Niagara Falls. Toronto needs some major architectural wonders to raise it's profile, and raise it's cultural capital.
And as mentioned, if Toronto can host the Olympics instead of Montreal, that's a nice bonus as well.
TLDR: It's going to be difficult to get on NYC/London's level; they are there because of centuries of history improving and cementing their roles. But it could manage a bit higher, on the same level as Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris etc.
Napoleonrules
Banned
Toronto is larger than Chicago, not much smaller than LA, and has the CN Tower the tallest free-standing structure in North America. Plus, as John Candy said in Canadian Bacon "Wow, it looks like Albany... only cleaner"
Those saying that Toronto needs a financial sector as big as London or NYC ignore that those are THE two biggest! Toronto is number 11, ahead of Shanghai and Frankfort! How big do you want it?! Are you saying that Shanghai is not an international city?
That has been one of Toronto's problems. We talk about infrastructure projects for 30 years before we actually build them. So, maybe Yonge-University Line in 1910, the Bloor-Danforth Line in 1930 and then maybe the Eglington Crosstown in 1960 and a fourth line across the top of the city in 1980? Convincing the city to stick with GO-Urban would and be a big help.
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What economic changes and government policies in the 20th century could have led to a Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal megalopolis? Or, if Montreal is too far away, a southwest Ontario megalopolis with Detroit and Buffalo becoming its satellites? Among other things, it would have meant an aggressive aircraft industry, an early lead in computers, and industry-driven university science research.
Montreal, Ottawa, and Detroit are all too far away (100s of Kilometres, basically the distance from Paris to Amsterdam or Cologne), and Buffalo is about as close to being a satellite as possible across an international border like Canada and the US have. There's a near continuous city between Toronto and Buffalo.
Getting Toronto on the level of NYC, London or Hong Kong requires Canada to be bigger, or the British Empire to consider Toronto a major hub in the 19th Century, and keeping Montreal down - its true that much of Toronto's upward trajectory began when Quebec Nationalism resulted in an awful lot of Montreal's business community moving west to Toronto, and that came just as Canada's multicultural movement really got going, which resulted in a huge number of people coming to Canada in the 1970s to the present seeing Toronto, not Montreal, as Canada's centerpiece eastern city - Montreal began to recover in the 1980s, but by then Toronto and Vancouver had already usurped Montreal's former place.
As far as making it possible, what might be a good POD for this is the War of 1812. The sacking of York in 1814, which was one of the causes of Britain burning Washington, results in instead a major counterattack by both British troops and the local militias into the United States. Britain, angry both over the war and wanting to teach the Americans a lesson, push Canada's borders in 1815 and 1816 all the way to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, as well as taking northwestern Pennsylvania and Western New York, in effect completely surrounding the Great Lakes save the south shore of Lake Ontario east of Thirty Mile Point. America, naturally, is no fan of this, and over the first half of the 19th Century both sides race to get population into their side of the territory. The war also confirms that Canada can do a deal with its Native Canadian inhabitants, and many deals over the 19th Century see Native Canadian groups in large numbers become full-fledged citizens of Upper Canada, along with the French Canadians. The British inability to push for a greater distance between the American border and Montreal forces the British to push for greater forces to be settled further into the nation. The development of railroads starting in the 1840s in Canada starts from Montreal, but Toronto is joined to the network in the 1853, and Britain's race to reinforce Canada as America does the same to its states, but by the 1850s the questions of slavery are fracturing America, even as Canada grows. Toronto is the first major city to grow into a major center, followed by Hamilton, Kitchener, London and Buffalo, with Detroit, Erie, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Youngstown and Lansing also being well established during this time.
Canada is first unified into a single nation in 1858, and the year after that Britain signs the Orillia Treaty, which explicit established rights for Native Canadians, including the half-blooded Metis who were becoming a notable source of conflict in the Northwest Territories. The Treaty's signing also resulted in the Province of Manitoba, which joined Canada in 1861, weeks before the American Civil War breaks out. The South's attempt at using Cotton as a commercial weapon worked on the French, causing the French to begrudingly support the Confederacy. Britain, however, saw the Civil War's French support of the Confederacy as a way of healing relations with America, and when France got into the conflict, the Royal Navy instead openly supported the Americans, to the point of supplying weapons to the Americans. The British support of this also was loudly backed by the Canadians. The Americans won the war - but Britain and Canada's wish for the support of the Americans was settling the fight over Canada's borders. Illinois went back to the United States, as did all of Indiana south of the Wabash River and Wisconsin is divided so that Madison remains in Canada but Milwaukee goes into Illinois, while Minnesota is divided at the Mississippi, Crow Wing, Buffalo and Red Rivers. The Columbia Territory disputes were settled by making the Columbia and Snake Rivers as the international boundary, while Montana and the Dakotas went all the way to the 40th Parallel. This settling of differences in a dignified manner, along with Britain's substantial support for America's defeat of the Confederate rebels, cements a good rapport between the nations that would be put to good use many years later. Canada would make one of its first major moves as an independent nation by buying Alaska from Russia in 1867, doing so in large part as a result of a substantial loan from Washington. (Canada paid this loan back, with interest, in 1887.)
Canada as a nation seeks to push beyond its British roots, and while staunchly loyal to the empire, they are more than willing to take in millions of immigrants. America's population was larger to start with and would always be that way, but Canada would over the latter years of the 19th Century and well into the 20th Century would seek good immigrants from pretty much everywhere. As the country's provinces are formed, one tribe after another signed the Orillia Treaty, and while racism would be wide and common through the 19th Century and well into the 20th Century, but by the 1920s the Native Canadian population of Canada would be considered full partners. It's a similar story with the French Canadians, who find their language and cultural rights retained within Canada. The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1872 - three years after the completion of the Union Pacific in the United States - is one of the crowning glories of the early era of Canada as a nation, but the building of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the 1880s adds to this.
The St. Lawrence Seaway, completed in 1887, is one of the largest canal projects ever built at the time - indeed, the canal's size dimensions are used as templates for the Panama Canal. Within a decade of the completion of the Seaway, the Erie Canal begins a rebuilding of its own, as American shippers seek to reduce their own transport costs. The Seaway establishes Toronto and neighboring Hamilton as two of the largest inland ports in the world, and the two cities become transport hubs as well as centers of industry.
By 1900, Toronto has a population of 1.12 million (OTL: 440,000), while Hamilton has a population of 275,000 (OTL: 50,000 or so) and the massive Port Lands of the city swell west into modern-day Port Credit and Mississauga and east to modern-day Pickering, Whitby and Oshawa. As with New York's Lower East Side, Toronto's Little Italy, Regent Park, St. James Town, Cabbagetown, Junction, Rockcliffe-Smythe, Annex and Forest Hill neighborhoods were crowded with newly-arrived immigrants, resulting in major epidemics on a regular basis in the 1880s. A massive sewer system, which began construction in 1883 and continued almost constantly thereafter, was followed by massive public health campaigns in the years following. The Great Toronto Fire of 1904 was a major setback in the city's development, but the area was rapidly rebuilt. As the port of arrival for many who came to Canada, Toronto was swelling in both commercial and economic importance for not just Canada but the world by the early 1900s, as so things would continue. Canada's independence from Britain in 1858 was followed eventually by the Statute of Westminster in 1931 which massively raised the nation's autonomy in conducting its own affairs.
The building of the Queen Victoria Viaduct in 1886 resulted in the connection of downtown Toronto to regions to its east across the deep Don River ravine. Four other crossings were built across this ravine between 1895 and 1934. The establishment of High Park in 1871 was the first in a line of development of major parks and public spaces which continued through the rest of the 19th Century, while the 20th Century saw major advancements. The building of the first Yonge subway line, which opened in 1921, was the first sign of major building to come, and so it was - the massive Union Station built by the companies that would eventually merge to become Canadian National Railways which opened in 1913 was followed by the CPR's Pacific Station on Yonge which opened in 1920, and the subway line which at first ran directly between the two. The subway system began growing rapidly during the interwar period - The University Line began operations in 1928 from Union Station to Eglinton Avenue, while the Yonge Line would be expanded in stages all the way to Richmond Hill and Markham starting in 1927 and continuing in stages until 1986. The Queen Subway Line began operations in 1929 from the Humber River to Broadview Avenue, and the Bloor line began construction in 1935 though would not become operational until 1949.
Toronto's civic landscape changed dramatically after WWII, as the devastation wrought on Europe saw wave after wave of European arrivals after the war, followed soon after by those from Asia and the Caribbean. Metropolitan Toronto - originally made up of the OTL six cities as well as Pickering to the east, Mississauga, Woodbridge and Brampton to the west and Markham, Richmond Hill and Vaughan to the north - became part of the Metropolitan city in 1954. Toronto beginning in the immediate aftermath of WWII and Korea began spending to build up its infrastructure at both a very steady and massive rate - the city would expand its subway network constantly from 1947 until 1989, and it would be a similar story on other forms of transit.
The Yonge-University-Spadina subway opened to its OTL limits in 1960, while the Queen Subway line was expanded up the west side of the Humber River to Eglinton Avenue in 1962, in time for the Eglinton Subway to be built - it opened from Kennedy Station to Toronto Malton Airport (which would become Pearson International Airport) in 1964, while the building of the Don Valley Parkway into downtown began in 1954, but it ran into major citizen opposition in the late 1950s.
Perhaps the ultimate shaper of the roadways in Toronto was this citizen opposition. The Don Valley Parkway ultimately went ahead (as did the William Davis Expressway which would also feed into it) and opened in 1959, but the planned Spadina Expressway got stopped cold by citizen opposition - but Frederick Gardiner, who championed the freeways, instead proposed (in an attempt to remove opposition to this) to instead bury the freeways, expecting that the massively-increased cost of this would cause his original plans to go through, but to his surprise the move to bury the highways proved popular enough that they were built. The buried Gardiner Expressway along the waterfront and the Humber Expressway were built in the 1960s, with the Gardiner Expressway ultimately buried for its entire distance east of Strachan Avenue when it opened in 1967, with the section on the south side of High Park buried in 1969-70. The subway expansion included the building of the Scarborough Subway from Kennedy station to the Toronto Zoo, which opened in 1974, and eventually extending it to the Pickering Town Centre, that extension opening in 1980, and ultimately up to the William Davis International Airport on Pickering's north side, which opened despite acrimonious protests in 1984. The proposed Crosstown Expressway would never be built, and the original Spadina Expressway would be stopped at Eglinton Avenue by the Ontario government in 1971. Highway 401 across Toronto opened in 1956, followed eventually by Highway 407, which opened in stages between 1971 and 1982.
GO Transit's initial commuter rail service began in 1958, but the service (originally run by Canadian National Railways as a test service) was so successful that it rapidly become permanent, and GO service grew out rapidly from 1960 to the present, eventually reaching all the way to Niagara Falls, Cambridge, Kitchener, Orangeville, Orillia, Keswick, Uxbridge, Newcastle and Peterborough by 2000 and the service trading its diesel locomotives for electric locomotives in the mid-1970s and adding EMUs to its operations starting in the mid-1980s. Toronto's streetcar network saw its service redone to accomodate the subway network - the Queen and Bloor lines were taken out, but all of the other abandonments stopped in 1964, and indeed most of the other routes would be rehabilitated in the 1970s. The streetcar route along Jane Street would be the basis of the Etobicoke Subway which began construction in 1985 and was opened in stages starting in 1991, and the Airport Expresses from Union and Pacific Stations to the Pearson and Davis Airports began operations in 1996, just in time for the Toronto Summer Olympics.
The city's massive renewal didn't begin and end with transit infrastructure, either - and the crown jewel of the private-sector led developments was Harbour City, the giant town on the lake built in stages between 1962 and 1970 which would rapidly become one of the city's most desirable neighborhoods, a canal community built on the water that, despite the initial architecture becoming dated rapidly, also led to the building of Ontario Place and the building of the vast Sunnyside beaches and pools complex, which opened in 1971. The building of Harbour City also led to the redevelopment of the Toronto Islands as a major park, and the now mostly-empty former Port Lands becoming new developments, including one of the world's largest movie studio complexes (Studio Powerstation, opened in 1995) and a series of mixed-use neighborhoods that began development in the 1980s.
Rapid population growth and the explosion of the Quebec separatist movement in the 1960s all but eliminated Montreal's competition to Toronto as a major city, and Toronto's banks, insurance companies, major industrial firms and many other companies moved to Toronto during the boom years, in many cases out of Montreal. The office towers that came out of this were notable in itself, though the giant CN Tower, built in 1974-76 and reigning as the world's tallest structure for over 30 years, dwarfed them all. The portion of downtown south of Front Street, a massive railyard from the 1850s, became useless to the freight railroads after the infamous 1979 Mississauga freight train derailment, where a tank car full of toluene exploded in the middle of a massive train derailment, leveling four walk-up apartment buildings and setting fire to over thirty other buildings and killing 46 people in the process. The disaster caused the federal government to ban through freight trains carrying hazardous materials, resulting in both the yards along the waterfront, Grand Trunk's Etobicoke Yard, CNR's Leaside Yard and CPR's Agincourt Yard becoming useless. Pacific Station, disused for years, became part of the GO network in 1982 and was re-dedicated to considerable fanfare on the 65th Anniversary of its original opening in May 1985. The Summerhill, Forest Hill and Rosedale Neighborhoods around it grew rapidly as a result, and the CBC Tower, built in 1993-95 at St. Clair Avenue and Yonge Street, took the title of Toronto's second-tallest building at 421 metres (1,358 ft) and being the marker of the "Second Downtown".
Toronto's population exploded from 3.4 million in 1945 to just top the 10 million mark in 1996, and with it came new challenges. The problems of urban sprawl hammered Toronto's suburbs in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s just as it did in many other major cities' suburban regions, and the Oak Ridges Moraine Act, passed by the Ontario government in 1985, also shifted the goalposts as it all but called a halt to continuing sprawl, causing later developments to move away from the massive growth on the west side of Toronto towards around Hamilton as well as towards the auto industry city of Oshawa to the east. Toronto's dense downtown was soon matched by other urban centers in the region going up - Hamilton, Mississauga, St. Catharines, Markham and Vaughan all went up in a big way, while the former Port Lands of Toronto and several other areas were reborn as residential complexes, with many trying to emulate the vast development that was Harbour City. The former rail yards south of Union Station became home to the Skydome (built 1986-89) and Air Canada Center (built 1993-96), while the former West Don Lands became home to Olympic Stadium (built 1991-95), while the monstrous Malvern City Complex was built on the former CPR Agincourt Yard. The Toronto Summer Olympics resulted in the building of many new sports arenas, but the focus of the games on the city center showed that the city center, with its pedestrian bridges over busy road intersections, PATH underground city complexes, subway, streetcar and commuter rail service and pretty much any amenities needed within the center of the city, set a standard that few cities in the New World could hope to match.
By 2015, Toronto was the center of Canada, whose population of 92.2 million ranked it highly, and whose economy of $4.65 Trillion ranked it sixth in the world (the USA, China, India, Japan and Germany are ahead), and the Greater Toronto Region's population of 12.7 million and economy of $627 Billion are by far the highest in Canada, and the economy number ranks among the world's ten-largest city GDP numbers. The Toronto Stock Exchange is North America's second-largest (after the NYSE) and the Toronto Mercantile Exchange is one of the world's largest such exchanges, despite strict Canadian laws on what financial services can be offered there. The city's economic indicators are impressive - the seven largest Canadian banks are all based in Toronto (five of them within sight of each other on Cambrai Avenue, the other two in North Center at Yonge and Dupont), the city is the second-largest producer of movies and television media (after Los Angeles) and is home to over 80 media organization offices.
As far as making it possible, what might be a good POD for this is the War of 1812. The sacking of York in 1814, which was one of the causes of Britain burning Washington, results in instead a major counterattack by both British troops and the local militias into the United States. Britain, angry both over the war and wanting to teach the Americans a lesson, push Canada's borders in 1815 and 1816 all the way to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, as well as taking northwestern Pennsylvania and Western New York, in effect completely surrounding the Great Lakes save the south shore of Lake Ontario east of Thirty Mile Point. America, naturally, is no fan of this, and over the first half of the 19th Century both sides race to get population into their side of the territory. The war also confirms that Canada can do a deal with its Native Canadian inhabitants, and many deals over the 19th Century see Native Canadian groups in large numbers become full-fledged citizens of Upper Canada, along with the French Canadians. The British inability to push for a greater distance between the American border and Montreal forces the British to push for greater forces to be settled further into the nation. The development of railroads starting in the 1840s in Canada starts from Montreal, but Toronto is joined to the network in the 1853, and Britain's race to reinforce Canada as America does the same to its states, but by the 1850s the questions of slavery are fracturing America, even as Canada grows. Toronto is the first major city to grow into a major center, followed by Hamilton, Kitchener, London and Buffalo, with Detroit, Erie, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Youngstown and Lansing also being well established during this time.
Canada is first unified into a single nation in 1858, and the year after that Britain signs the Orillia Treaty, which explicit established rights for Native Canadians, including the half-blooded Metis who were becoming a notable source of conflict in the Northwest Territories. The Treaty's signing also resulted in the Province of Manitoba, which joined Canada in 1861, weeks before the American Civil War breaks out. The South's attempt at using Cotton as a commercial weapon worked on the French, causing the French to begrudingly support the Confederacy. Britain, however, saw the Civil War's French support of the Confederacy as a way of healing relations with America, and when France got into the conflict, the Royal Navy instead openly supported the Americans, to the point of supplying weapons to the Americans. The British support of this also was loudly backed by the Canadians. The Americans won the war - but Britain and Canada's wish for the support of the Americans was settling the fight over Canada's borders. Illinois went back to the United States, as did all of Indiana south of the Wabash River and Wisconsin is divided so that Madison remains in Canada but Milwaukee goes into Illinois, while Minnesota is divided at the Mississippi, Crow Wing, Buffalo and Red Rivers. The Columbia Territory disputes were settled by making the Columbia and Snake Rivers as the international boundary, while Montana and the Dakotas went all the way to the 40th Parallel. This settling of differences in a dignified manner, along with Britain's substantial support for America's defeat of the Confederate rebels, cements a good rapport between the nations that would be put to good use many years later. Canada would make one of its first major moves as an independent nation by buying Alaska from Russia in 1867, doing so in large part as a result of a substantial loan from Washington. (Canada paid this loan back, with interest, in 1887.)
Canada as a nation seeks to push beyond its British roots, and while staunchly loyal to the empire, they are more than willing to take in millions of immigrants. America's population was larger to start with and would always be that way, but Canada would over the latter years of the 19th Century and well into the 20th Century would seek good immigrants from pretty much everywhere. As the country's provinces are formed, one tribe after another signed the Orillia Treaty, and while racism would be wide and common through the 19th Century and well into the 20th Century, but by the 1920s the Native Canadian population of Canada would be considered full partners. It's a similar story with the French Canadians, who find their language and cultural rights retained within Canada. The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1872 - three years after the completion of the Union Pacific in the United States - is one of the crowning glories of the early era of Canada as a nation, but the building of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the 1880s adds to this.
The St. Lawrence Seaway, completed in 1887, is one of the largest canal projects ever built at the time - indeed, the canal's size dimensions are used as templates for the Panama Canal. Within a decade of the completion of the Seaway, the Erie Canal begins a rebuilding of its own, as American shippers seek to reduce their own transport costs. The Seaway establishes Toronto and neighboring Hamilton as two of the largest inland ports in the world, and the two cities become transport hubs as well as centers of industry.
By 1900, Toronto has a population of 1.12 million (OTL: 440,000), while Hamilton has a population of 275,000 (OTL: 50,000 or so) and the massive Port Lands of the city swell west into modern-day Port Credit and Mississauga and east to modern-day Pickering, Whitby and Oshawa. As with New York's Lower East Side, Toronto's Little Italy, Regent Park, St. James Town, Cabbagetown, Junction, Rockcliffe-Smythe, Annex and Forest Hill neighborhoods were crowded with newly-arrived immigrants, resulting in major epidemics on a regular basis in the 1880s. A massive sewer system, which began construction in 1883 and continued almost constantly thereafter, was followed by massive public health campaigns in the years following. The Great Toronto Fire of 1904 was a major setback in the city's development, but the area was rapidly rebuilt. As the port of arrival for many who came to Canada, Toronto was swelling in both commercial and economic importance for not just Canada but the world by the early 1900s, as so things would continue. Canada's independence from Britain in 1858 was followed eventually by the Statute of Westminster in 1931 which massively raised the nation's autonomy in conducting its own affairs.
The building of the Queen Victoria Viaduct in 1886 resulted in the connection of downtown Toronto to regions to its east across the deep Don River ravine. Four other crossings were built across this ravine between 1895 and 1934. The establishment of High Park in 1871 was the first in a line of development of major parks and public spaces which continued through the rest of the 19th Century, while the 20th Century saw major advancements. The building of the first Yonge subway line, which opened in 1921, was the first sign of major building to come, and so it was - the massive Union Station built by the companies that would eventually merge to become Canadian National Railways which opened in 1913 was followed by the CPR's Pacific Station on Yonge which opened in 1920, and the subway line which at first ran directly between the two. The subway system began growing rapidly during the interwar period - The University Line began operations in 1928 from Union Station to Eglinton Avenue, while the Yonge Line would be expanded in stages all the way to Richmond Hill and Markham starting in 1927 and continuing in stages until 1986. The Queen Subway Line began operations in 1929 from the Humber River to Broadview Avenue, and the Bloor line began construction in 1935 though would not become operational until 1949.
Toronto's civic landscape changed dramatically after WWII, as the devastation wrought on Europe saw wave after wave of European arrivals after the war, followed soon after by those from Asia and the Caribbean. Metropolitan Toronto - originally made up of the OTL six cities as well as Pickering to the east, Mississauga, Woodbridge and Brampton to the west and Markham, Richmond Hill and Vaughan to the north - became part of the Metropolitan city in 1954. Toronto beginning in the immediate aftermath of WWII and Korea began spending to build up its infrastructure at both a very steady and massive rate - the city would expand its subway network constantly from 1947 until 1989, and it would be a similar story on other forms of transit.
The Yonge-University-Spadina subway opened to its OTL limits in 1960, while the Queen Subway line was expanded up the west side of the Humber River to Eglinton Avenue in 1962, in time for the Eglinton Subway to be built - it opened from Kennedy Station to Toronto Malton Airport (which would become Pearson International Airport) in 1964, while the building of the Don Valley Parkway into downtown began in 1954, but it ran into major citizen opposition in the late 1950s.
Perhaps the ultimate shaper of the roadways in Toronto was this citizen opposition. The Don Valley Parkway ultimately went ahead (as did the William Davis Expressway which would also feed into it) and opened in 1959, but the planned Spadina Expressway got stopped cold by citizen opposition - but Frederick Gardiner, who championed the freeways, instead proposed (in an attempt to remove opposition to this) to instead bury the freeways, expecting that the massively-increased cost of this would cause his original plans to go through, but to his surprise the move to bury the highways proved popular enough that they were built. The buried Gardiner Expressway along the waterfront and the Humber Expressway were built in the 1960s, with the Gardiner Expressway ultimately buried for its entire distance east of Strachan Avenue when it opened in 1967, with the section on the south side of High Park buried in 1969-70. The subway expansion included the building of the Scarborough Subway from Kennedy station to the Toronto Zoo, which opened in 1974, and eventually extending it to the Pickering Town Centre, that extension opening in 1980, and ultimately up to the William Davis International Airport on Pickering's north side, which opened despite acrimonious protests in 1984. The proposed Crosstown Expressway would never be built, and the original Spadina Expressway would be stopped at Eglinton Avenue by the Ontario government in 1971. Highway 401 across Toronto opened in 1956, followed eventually by Highway 407, which opened in stages between 1971 and 1982.
GO Transit's initial commuter rail service began in 1958, but the service (originally run by Canadian National Railways as a test service) was so successful that it rapidly become permanent, and GO service grew out rapidly from 1960 to the present, eventually reaching all the way to Niagara Falls, Cambridge, Kitchener, Orangeville, Orillia, Keswick, Uxbridge, Newcastle and Peterborough by 2000 and the service trading its diesel locomotives for electric locomotives in the mid-1970s and adding EMUs to its operations starting in the mid-1980s. Toronto's streetcar network saw its service redone to accomodate the subway network - the Queen and Bloor lines were taken out, but all of the other abandonments stopped in 1964, and indeed most of the other routes would be rehabilitated in the 1970s. The streetcar route along Jane Street would be the basis of the Etobicoke Subway which began construction in 1985 and was opened in stages starting in 1991, and the Airport Expresses from Union and Pacific Stations to the Pearson and Davis Airports began operations in 1996, just in time for the Toronto Summer Olympics.
The city's massive renewal didn't begin and end with transit infrastructure, either - and the crown jewel of the private-sector led developments was Harbour City, the giant town on the lake built in stages between 1962 and 1970 which would rapidly become one of the city's most desirable neighborhoods, a canal community built on the water that, despite the initial architecture becoming dated rapidly, also led to the building of Ontario Place and the building of the vast Sunnyside beaches and pools complex, which opened in 1971. The building of Harbour City also led to the redevelopment of the Toronto Islands as a major park, and the now mostly-empty former Port Lands becoming new developments, including one of the world's largest movie studio complexes (Studio Powerstation, opened in 1995) and a series of mixed-use neighborhoods that began development in the 1980s.
Rapid population growth and the explosion of the Quebec separatist movement in the 1960s all but eliminated Montreal's competition to Toronto as a major city, and Toronto's banks, insurance companies, major industrial firms and many other companies moved to Toronto during the boom years, in many cases out of Montreal. The office towers that came out of this were notable in itself, though the giant CN Tower, built in 1974-76 and reigning as the world's tallest structure for over 30 years, dwarfed them all. The portion of downtown south of Front Street, a massive railyard from the 1850s, became useless to the freight railroads after the infamous 1979 Mississauga freight train derailment, where a tank car full of toluene exploded in the middle of a massive train derailment, leveling four walk-up apartment buildings and setting fire to over thirty other buildings and killing 46 people in the process. The disaster caused the federal government to ban through freight trains carrying hazardous materials, resulting in both the yards along the waterfront, Grand Trunk's Etobicoke Yard, CNR's Leaside Yard and CPR's Agincourt Yard becoming useless. Pacific Station, disused for years, became part of the GO network in 1982 and was re-dedicated to considerable fanfare on the 65th Anniversary of its original opening in May 1985. The Summerhill, Forest Hill and Rosedale Neighborhoods around it grew rapidly as a result, and the CBC Tower, built in 1993-95 at St. Clair Avenue and Yonge Street, took the title of Toronto's second-tallest building at 421 metres (1,358 ft) and being the marker of the "Second Downtown".
Toronto's population exploded from 3.4 million in 1945 to just top the 10 million mark in 1996, and with it came new challenges. The problems of urban sprawl hammered Toronto's suburbs in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s just as it did in many other major cities' suburban regions, and the Oak Ridges Moraine Act, passed by the Ontario government in 1985, also shifted the goalposts as it all but called a halt to continuing sprawl, causing later developments to move away from the massive growth on the west side of Toronto towards around Hamilton as well as towards the auto industry city of Oshawa to the east. Toronto's dense downtown was soon matched by other urban centers in the region going up - Hamilton, Mississauga, St. Catharines, Markham and Vaughan all went up in a big way, while the former Port Lands of Toronto and several other areas were reborn as residential complexes, with many trying to emulate the vast development that was Harbour City. The former rail yards south of Union Station became home to the Skydome (built 1986-89) and Air Canada Center (built 1993-96), while the former West Don Lands became home to Olympic Stadium (built 1991-95), while the monstrous Malvern City Complex was built on the former CPR Agincourt Yard. The Toronto Summer Olympics resulted in the building of many new sports arenas, but the focus of the games on the city center showed that the city center, with its pedestrian bridges over busy road intersections, PATH underground city complexes, subway, streetcar and commuter rail service and pretty much any amenities needed within the center of the city, set a standard that few cities in the New World could hope to match.
By 2015, Toronto was the center of Canada, whose population of 92.2 million ranked it highly, and whose economy of $4.65 Trillion ranked it sixth in the world (the USA, China, India, Japan and Germany are ahead), and the Greater Toronto Region's population of 12.7 million and economy of $627 Billion are by far the highest in Canada, and the economy number ranks among the world's ten-largest city GDP numbers. The Toronto Stock Exchange is North America's second-largest (after the NYSE) and the Toronto Mercantile Exchange is one of the world's largest such exchanges, despite strict Canadian laws on what financial services can be offered there. The city's economic indicators are impressive - the seven largest Canadian banks are all based in Toronto (five of them within sight of each other on Cambrai Avenue, the other two in North Center at Yonge and Dupont), the city is the second-largest producer of movies and television media (after Los Angeles) and is home to over 80 media organization offices.
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Devvy
Donor
The OP was to get Toronto on the same level as New York or London (or HK, although I don't think that's quite on the same level). Hence the comments.
The CN Tower maybe a regional wonder, but as a foreigner, it's not on the same level as many other international sights. Statue of Liberty, White House, Niagara Falls, etc etc are iconic and world famous. The CN Tower, sadly, is not on the same level.
I was after financial markets being the same size as London or New York City as per the OP. While there may be many international cities, the list of really global cities is quite short.
Nicely put
In relation to the Metis, is their creole language (Michif) and culture respected and preserved by the Canadian federal government?
The War of 1812 POD, to be plausible, requires an earlier one--a decision by the U.S. Continental Congress to go with a Constitution much more heavily weighted towards states' rights than the Constitution in our time line. Disunity is the only way the British could have ripped away a huge chunk of the U.S. Otherwise, they simply could not get enough troops and supplies across the ocean to defy a nation as large in population (and as well armed) as the U.S. Remember, as the War of 1812 developed, the U.S. after a slow start was winning everywhere except on the ocean. The burning of Washington DC was just a pinprick in every sense except the symbolic (and the British might not even have bothered if U.S. forces had not burned York). With a weaker Constitution, the New England states would have refused to participate in the war and might even have broken away.