AHC: Put Toronto on the international level of New York, London or Hong Kong

What happens if Ottawa gets bonked and instead of it being the capital Toronto is the Capital.

That should help it a bit.

also give it a set of skyscrapers built in the late 20's early 30's on par of the Chrysler building and Empire State building that with the CN Tower should add the needed skyline that A+ cities have.
 
Cite your sources because I see -

Toronto Metro Pop - 6,054,191
Chicago Metro Pop - 9,729,825

By City Limits Toronto is bigger, so there's that. Then when you bring up metros Toronto complains that American Metros are too generous and claims a whole bunch of cities in the area as being Toronto's true number even though those cities are mostly wholly independent (most of a million in Hamilton, half a million in the Kitchener area, half a million in the Niagara region, Brantford, Peterborough and Guelph at about 100k each, and a bunch of smaller towns).
 
If you're using the Global City definitions from the Globalization and World Cities Research Network- the group that actually uses the Alpha/Beta/Gamma world cities ranking system- it's an interesting challenge.

Basically, the entire ranking system is now designed around New York and London, and a city's ranking has a lot to do with its relation to the cities higher on the list.

For example, New York and London are the only two Alpha ++ cities. Alpha + cities are explicitly defined as cities that "complement London and New York City by filling advanced service niches for the global economy."

These niches are almost entirely located at great physical distances from New York and London, representing the logistics nodes of a global economy. (The exception is Paris, which can be argued gets a major bump for its culture and for a rather unique place in the world economy, as well as perhaps an outdated perception of its place as the continental hub of Europe.)

The Alpha cities are very specifically regional links in the global economy (where Toronto comfortably sits), filling in the pattern gaps left by the top two tiers, and below that cities tend to be included based on more specialized rather than generalized reasons (economic, cultural, or political importance).

So I guess if I have a point (other than a pressing desire to get in some quick mansplaining before my next meeting) it's that it'd be much much MUCH easier to get Toronto up to the level of an Alpha + than to expand the top tier of this pyramid scheme by a single city.

To orient the global economy around New York, Toronto, and London is not likely with any POD I can think of. To boot one or two cities off and add Toronto, totally possible, some people have already made suggestions.

To put Toronto at Alpha + standing...totally doable! In fact, by some measures (Global Cities Index, Economic Power Index) Toronto's already the equivalent of that, or very close. A few tweaks to the economy, maybe some leading innovators in computers emerge from the area in the 1970s, Toronto jumps up a few places and lands in Alpha + no problem.
 
Cite your sources because I see -

Toronto Metro Pop - 6,054,191
Chicago Metro Pop - 9,729,825

I'm no expert of this matter but US definitions of what constitutes a metro area for a city seem to be more lenient when it comes to geographic area covered, than their Canadian counterparts.

Chicagoland which that population belongs to is considered to cover 10,856 sq mi (28,120 km2). The GTA (Greater Toronto Area) which your other population refers to technically covers an area of only 2,750.65 sq mi (7,124.15 km2).

A more apt comparison would be to compare Chicagoland to the "Golden Horseshoe" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horseshoe

Chicagoland:

Area:10,856 sq mi (28,120 km2)
Population: 9,729,825

Golden Horseshoe:

Area: 12,185.99 sq mi (31,561.57 km2)
Population: 8,759,312

Granted it is still larger population wise but Toronto and its metro area has been outpacing Chicago in population growth for years now. It just had a much later start to get booming than Chicago.
 
Nicely put :)

Very well put-together piece.

Thank you, gentlemen. :) My idea there was to have Toronto get going with its 20th Century civic improvements earlier and have a little more guts in many of them, using the book I have about unbuilt Toronto projects as a reference and butterflying the bad ideas as much as possible. I went with building Harbour City but not Metro Centre because of the possibility of the latter proving to be a mess, the CBC Communications tower of Metro Centre was built at Yonge and St. Clair instead. The buried highways are done so that you get fewer eyesores, and this Toronto does respect such things. :) This city never ditched the trolleybuses (most of the old trolleybus routes became streetcar lines) but instead moved them to other routes, while the Yonge-University-Spadina and Bloor subway lines grow to include Bathurst-Queen-Jane, Eglinton, Etobicoke, Sheppard, Vaughan-Markham, Mississauga and Eastern subways, while a massive streetcar network fills in most of the gaps in the city center and the busiest further-out routes use trolleybuses in the place of streetcars.

This Toronto's older sections (primarily around Vimy Circle and along Cambrai Avenue remain, resulting in older buildings along there (the 51-story Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce building, completed at University and Queen's northwest corner in 1931, is the big building of the older towers), but most of the newer buildings were built along Bay and Yonge streets, creating an older Skyscraper section near Vimy Circle and along Queen Street while the newer ones flank it on all sides. The tallest office building in town is the 89-story, 1,084-foot Toronto World Trade Center Tower One on the East edge of the Don River next to the Parkway. (IOTL, this site is home to a BMW dealer and a rather big parking lot.)

I'm not sure I agree with Devvy's comment that the CN Tower isn't an icon - it is considered to be one of the modern wonders of the world, after all - though I think it not having the status of the city, not the building, though the point is seen and taken. :)
 
I'm no expert of this matter but US definitions of what constitutes a metro area for a city seem to be more lenient when it comes to geographic area covered, than their Canadian counterparts.

Chicagoland which that population belongs to is considered to cover 10,856 sq mi (28,120 km2). The GTA (Greater Toronto Area) which your other population refers to technically covers an area of only 2,750.65 sq mi (7,124.15 km2).

A more apt comparison would be to compare Chicagoland to the "Golden Horseshoe" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horseshoe

Chicagoland:

Area:10,856 sq mi (28,120 km2)
Population: 9,729,825

Golden Horseshoe:

Area: 12,185.99 sq mi (31,561.57 km2)
Population: 8,759,312

Granted it is still larger population wise but Toronto and its metro area has been outpacing Chicago in population growth for years now. It just had a much later start to get booming than Chicago.

See? What did I say? You might as well claim all of Belgium as Brussels if we're using area equivalents. Urban areas are the only ones that really work. Chicago has ~9 million people in the urban area, only about half a million or so live in that vast outer Chicago-land. Meanwhile Toronto sits at 6.5 million officially, and even that is grabbing some land from Hamilton because the two cities just happen to be rather close. :rolleyes:
 
I'm not sure I agree with Devvy's comment that the CN Tower isn't an icon - it is considered to be one of the modern wonders of the world, after all - though I think it not having the status of the city, not the building, though the point is seen and taken. :)

I don't agree those comments either. The CN Tower held the record as the tallest building on Earth for 34 years and it's still the tallest man made structure in the western world
 
See? What did I say? You might as well claim all of Belgium as Brussels if we're using area equivalents. Urban areas are the only ones that really work. Chicago has ~9 million people in the urban area, only about half a million or so live in that vast outer Chicago-land. Meanwhile Toronto sits at 6.5 million officially, and even that is grabbing some land from Hamilton because the two cities just happen to be rather close. :rolleyes:

Most of the suburbs of Chicago are within around thirty miles of the city and you can see the Sears tower on clear days from alot of Chicagoland. Get farther away then that and it quickly becomes farmland. One of the farthest away is the town of Elgin which is west of my suburb which is around twenty five miles from the city.
 
See? What did I say? You might as well claim all of Belgium as Brussels if we're using area equivalents. Urban areas are the only ones that really work. Chicago has ~9 million people in the urban area, only about half a million or so live in that vast outer Chicago-land. Meanwhile Toronto sits at 6.5 million officially, and even that is grabbing some land from Hamilton because the two cities just happen to be rather close. :rolleyes:

I'm not sure I'm seeing your point?

The entire Golden Horseshoe is heavily urbanized. The Canadian census definition however limits what actually constitutes the Greater Toronto Area to a much smaller land area definition. It's come to a point now where people who live in Hamilton are actually working in Toronto and there are plans currently in place to work on a joint public transit infrastructure.

Frankly I doubt Chicago's Urban area (which is referred to as Chicagoland) which includes a huge stretch of land is that totally urban in nature or much more so than the Golden Horshoe and likely less so than the smaller GTA definition. Also that urban area contains independent cities as well. All large metro regions contain multiple independent cities within them that happen to orbit one large principle city.

I just stated it makes more sense to compare Chicagoland to the Golden Horseshoe.

No comparison is going to be apple to apple when going beyond specific city limits, but I think it makes more sense this way.
 
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I'm not sure I'm seeing your point?

The entire Golden Horseshoe is heavily urbanized. The Canadian census definition however limits what actually constitutes the Greater Toronto Area to a much smaller land area definition. It's come to a point now where people who live in Hamilton are actually working in Toronto and there are plans currently in place to work on a joint public transit infrastructure.

Frankly I doubt Chicago's Urban area (which is referred to as Chicagoland) which includes a huge stretch of land is that totally urban in nature or much more so than the Golden Horshoe and likely less so than the smaller GTA definition. Also that urban area contains independent cities as well. All large metro regions contain multiple independent cities within them that happen to orbit one large principle city. Chicagoland is the CSA, Chicago's Urban Area is a much smaller area and a slightly smaller population.

I just stated it makes more sense to compare Chicagoland to the Golden Horseshoe.

No comparison is going to be apple to apple when going beyond specific city limits, but I think it makes more sense this way.

Because the Greater Golden Horseshoe is irrelevant to Toronto. Torontonians are convinced they're the centre of the universe sometimes, but in reality the rest of the Horseshoe would be there without Toronto. Hamilton has some people working in Toronto, yes, but that's less than 10% of the population, and apart from Barrie and Oshawa I believe Hamilton is the highest for commuting to Toronto as a percentage. The Horseshoe is densely urbanised, yes, but it's only by Canadian standards. In Europe or China that's normal. We don't call the whole North China or North Europe plain part of Beijing or Paris, just because a few people might have rather long commutes.

American MSA's are actually tighter than Canada's Metros, and while Chicago's bigger one (called a CSA in a bit of irony) is 9.9 million the MSA is 9.5 Million. If you refuse to compare Urban Areas (for which Canada and the US have rather similar definitions) then comparing MSA to CMA gives Canada the advantage and Toronto is still smaller than Chicago.

Also comparing cities is not apples to apples. It's practically Apples to Aardvarks. Otherwise you can claim Ottawa is bigger than Vancouver.
 
Because the Greater Golden Horseshoe is irrelevant to Toronto. Torontonians are convinced they're the centre of the universe sometimes, but in reality the rest of the Horseshoe would be there without Toronto. Hamilton has some people working in Toronto, yes, but that's less than 10% of the population, and apart from Barrie and Oshawa I believe Hamilton is the highest for commuting to Toronto as a percentage. The Horseshoe is densely urbanised, yes, but it's only by Canadian standards. In Europe or China that's normal. We don't call the whole North China or North Europe plain part of Beijing or Paris, just because a few people might have rather long commutes.

American MSA's are actually tighter than Canada's Metros, and while Chicago's bigger one (called a CSA in a bit of irony) is 9.9 million the MSA is 9.5 Million. If you refuse to compare Urban Areas (for which Canada and the US have rather similar definitions) then comparing MSA to CMA gives Canada the advantage and Toronto is still smaller than Chicago.

Also comparing cities is not apples to apples. It's practically Apples to Aardvarks. Otherwise you can claim Ottawa is bigger than Vancouver.

Ahh yes the old "Torontonians think their the centre of the universe" slur...

My point is again the Canadian census definition of what constitutes the GTA is arguably quite limited in scope. The way the city and region is growing/spreading anyways the Toronto and Hamilton urban areas are practically becoming merged into one. The only Golden Horseshoe region I'll concede is quite independent from Toronto is the Niagara region due to its proximity to Buffalo and western New York. However if you think the Niagara region would be the same if Toronto did not exist you're very off-base.

I also do believe that the MSA definition for Chicago is quite broad and it's probably including a good deal of cities divided apart by rural areas/farmland that stretches the definition of what one would consider truly an "urban region".
 
Ahh yes the old "Torontonians think their the centre of the universe" slur...
I only brought it up in response to you proving it.

My point is again the Canadian census definition of what constitutes the GTA is arguably quite limited in scope. The way the city and region is growing/spreading anyways the Toronto and Hamilton urban areas are practically becoming merged into one. The only Golden Horseshoe region I'll concede is quite independent from Toronto is the Niagara region due to its proximity to Buffalo and western New York. However if you think the Niagara region would be the same if Toronto did not exist you're very off-base.
The GTA isn't perfect because it includes a city it shouldn't (Burlington is more a Hamilton suburb than a Toronto one). And yes, the Hamilton and Toronto urban areas are merging, but it's not all that different from Kyoto and Osaka having their respective suburban areas starting to overlap. Now the least Toronto dependent part is probably Brantford which only has about 5% of the population commuting to Hamilton and a not even measured amount going to Toronto's CMA. Niagara is about the same though. KWC from what I saw had maybe 5% working in Toronto's metro, and nearly as many Torontonians making the reverse commute. The Horseshoe is a bunch of close together cities that Toronto got drunk and decided to claim.

I also do believe that the MSA definition for Chicago is quite broad and it's probably including a good deal of cities divided apart by rural areas/farmland that stretches the definition of what one would consider truly an "urban region".
Have you actually reviewd the MSA? And yes, it includes a fair bit of farmland, just like Toronto's CMA or the city of Hamilton or city of Ottawa. That's an artifact of country shapes, and is completely irrelevant to any comparison in urban areas which are done at a much finer scale and very comparable between Canada and the US.

The end result is what I said before, Chicago is a lot bigger than Toronto and Toronto tries to claim cities that would probably actually be bigger if Toronto wasn't there as their suburbs (think of all those regional offices that would be set up in Hamilton or Kitchener if Toronto wasn't gobbling up all the office jobs).
 
The Horseshoe is a bunch of close together cities that Toronto got drunk and decided to claim.

Hey now, we only get drunk on weekends, and who claims anything on the weekends? It ain't our fault you guys are within driving/commuter train distance of us. :cool:
 
also give it a set of skyscrapers built in the late 20's early 30's on par of the Chrysler building and Empire State building that with the CN Tower should add the needed skyline that A+ cities have.

I dunno if this helps, but if the Vimy Circle idea had been built, this is what that circle would look like today, more or less:

phXGpA.jpg


And this is a pic of the Harbour City models of the 1960s, this model pretty much showing the residential neighborhood that would have replaced the Island Airport and reclaimed about 500 acres of land from Lake Ontario, looking towards a very rough model of OTL Downtown Toronto circa 1968:

4uUsNU.jpg


To be fair, the Harbour City relied heavily on the stacked boxes style of architecture which has not aged well, but I can see that neighborhood in the 1980s becoming a highly desirable area, resulting in a great many of the older houses there being demolished and rebuilt or heavily refurbished, and it doesn't take much to see that with the Toronto Islands to the east, Ontario Place and Exhibition Place (and Exhibition Stadium) to the West and this close to downtown that this would be a very desirable neighborhood rather quickly.
 
To be honest, I think Toronto has a hard climb to reach the heights of New York or London. Here is a chart of some of the more popular global cities rankings:
Screen%20Shot%202012-05-07%20at%204.15.55%20PM.png

As you can see, Toronto only appears in even the top 10 in one of these. Next, let's look at a meta-ranking--that is, a ranking of cities by how often they appear on these lists of global cities:
Screen%20Shot%202012-05-07%20at%204.07.49%20PM.png

Beyond the two cities that virtually every list ranks as global/world cities, New York and London, only Tokyo can really be added. Hong Kong and Paris can be considered near-peer global cities. Hong Kong tends to do well on rankings that emphasize financial services, while Paris tends to do better on rankings that emphasize cultural attributes. Tokyo, while not as important in financial services as New York or London, still does well here, and tends to do the best when other economic factors, such as manufacturing and R&D, are important to the ranking. In the meta-ranking, as you can see, Toronto ranks 18th (tied with Shenzhen). It would take a fairly large PoD, IMHO, to bring it up to the ranks of the top 5, let alone to the level of New York, London, or Tokyo.
 
To be fair, the Harbour City relied heavily on the stacked boxes style of architecture which has not aged well, but I can see that neighborhood in the 1980s becoming a highly desirable area, resulting in a great many of the older houses there being demolished and rebuilt or heavily refurbished, and it doesn't take much to see that with the Toronto Islands to the east, Ontario Place and Exhibition Place (and Exhibition Stadium) to the West and this close to downtown that this would be a very desirable neighborhood rather quickly.

With a bad economic development in the area and dated architecture, it might also end up like Manchester's Crescents. But I guess that in the very interesting and detailed scenario you described earlier, it probably gets a major boost for the 1996 Olympics. Talking of which: Wouldn't Harbour City make a good spot for the Olympic village? Otherwise, cities like Munich and Barcelona made good use of the Olympics areas, so that's probably also a good boost factor.

I think with your scenario, Toronto might also be attractive for post-colonial immigration from the former British colonies during the 1950s/1960s.

Another question, as I've never been to Canada and therefore not familiar with the development of the urban areas: Is there any chance of Toronto expanding northwards to make a connection to Lake Simcoe in your scenario?
 
Another question, as I've never been to Canada and therefore not familiar with the development of the urban areas: Is there any chance of Toronto expanding northwards to make a connection to Lake Simcoe in your scenario?

As I mentioned, Barrie seems to be one of the cities Toronto actually has a claim to. New Market is definitely in Toronto's sphere. However the growth will be limited as the Oak Ridge Moraine is a key source of water for Toronto and an ecologically sensitive area.
 

Devvy

Donor
I'm not sure I agree with Devvy's comment that the CN Tower isn't an icon - it is considered to be one of the modern wonders of the world, after all - though I think it not having the status of the city, not the building, though the point is seen and taken. :)

Granted; having had a little mooch around, the CN Tower is a bigger "thing" then I gave it credit for. Still not quite in the top tier in my opinion, but more then I thought.
 
With a bad economic development in the area and dated architecture, it might also end up like Manchester's Crescents. But I guess that in the very interesting and detailed scenario you described earlier, it probably gets a major boost for the 1996 Olympics.

I can see that point, but any neighborhood on the lake in the middle of Toronto is almost certainly always going to be desirable, particularly if it is next to Exhibition Stadium, Ontario Place and the Toronto Islands. Economic development in the area is not really a concern, especially after the Mississauga derailment causes the rail yards to be closed and the area to be redeveloped. What I would expect is that by the 1980s Harbour City is still a desirable location but the architecture would start looking dated (particularly for older buildings), and the development that is growing on the Toronto Waterfront would result in many wealthier residents buying up properties and rebuilding them, either renovating the places themselves or tearing them down and building new homes and businesses in their place. Even Toronto's worst whole neighborhoods (places like Jane/Finch, St. James Town and Mount Dennis aren't exactly paradise, but they never got to the ugliness of the likes of the Crescents or many American housing projects) don't end up nearly as bad as Crescents, and the location of Harbour City would make sure that doesn't happen.

Talking of which: Wouldn't Harbour City make a good spot for the Olympic village? Otherwise, cities like Munich and Barcelona made good use of the Olympics areas, so that's probably also a good boost factor.

My original plan for the Toronto Olympics was to put the Olympic Village on Queens Quay east of Yonge Street, a site that is IOTL today occupied by the Redpath Sugar refinery, the Toronto Star's building, a big nightclub and a variety of low-rise buildings. The Refinery and the nightclub would go, but the others would remain, and the either the Queens Quay LRT or maybe a subway branch would connect the Olympic Village to the other venues - my proposed Olympic Stadium and Aquatic Centre sites are a few blocks southeast of the Village, the Air Canada Center two blocks west on Bay, the Skydome a few more blocks west and Maple Leaf Gardens (which would probably be used here, too) accessible by the streetcar up Sherbourne Street to Carlton Street and a jog four blocks west to the Gardens at Carlton and Church. Furthermore, most of the venues used for the 2008 Olympics proposal are pretty central to this, too - Ashbridges Bay Park, Ontario Place, Metro Toronto Convention Center, Molson Canadian Amphitheatre, Ricoh Coliseum - are nearby. The subways I have laid out also cover the proposed locations of the Velodrome and Tennis Centre, and I'm thinking the Archery Course would go at Riverdale Park in the Don River Ravine just north of Bloor Street, accessible directly from Castle Frank and Broadview subway stations on either side of the Prince Edward Viaduct.

Harbour City (and probably more importantly CityPlace on the other side of the Gardiner Expressway adjacent to Harbour City) would be a great second option for the Olympic Village, but I think the original proposed option would be better.

I think with your scenario, Toronto might also be attractive for post-colonial immigration from the former British colonies during the 1950s/1960s.

That happened quite a lot IOTL - Toronto has taken in its largest portions of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and the Caribbean as well as East Asia, and in the city itself the Indian and Caribbean arrivals are more common - but I agree, and I think that would play a big role in the city's huge population growth in the second half of the 20th Century in my scenario.

Another question, as I've never been to Canada and therefore not familiar with the development of the urban areas: Is there any chance of Toronto expanding northwards to make a connection to Lake Simcoe in your scenario?

As I mentioned, Barrie seems to be one of the cities Toronto actually has a claim to. New Market is definitely in Toronto's sphere. However the growth will be limited as the Oak Ridge Moraine is a key source of water for Toronto and an ecologically sensitive area.

Beedok is right. The Moraine is massively protected for a reason, and while Toronto's vacationers have been heading to Lake Simcoe (and a lot further than that) for a century, developing all the way to it is out of the question, as by the time the city's population reaches that point (and they'd have to fill in the areas to the east of the city, which has always been rather smaller in population than the cities of Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Markham to the north of Mississauga and Brampton to the west), ecological concerns and problems with transportation will put the brakes on development in the direction of the Moraine. I can see it possible for Lake Simcoe's communities to be refuge spots for vacation-seeking Toronto residents (already true IOTL), development all the way there is out of the question.

Granted; having had a little mooch around, the CN Tower is a bigger "thing" then I gave it credit for. Still not quite in the top tier in my opinion, but more then I thought.

No biggie, and to be fair I am probably biased on the CN Tower, as I can see the thing from my bedroom window. :) It was the tallest building on Earth for over 30 years, and it is the city's single biggest tourist destination.
 
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