[denfromoakvillemilton]

Point me to a Toronto residential neighbourhood where lots of houses and stores are disappearing, and there's just acre after acre of grass appearing in it's place. You see this in a lot of US cities, like Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, etc. I'm yet to observed it in a Canadian city. I'm particularly surprised to see it in Chicago, near their mass transit stations. I'd assume that real estate values must be very low in parts of the city.

Not sure where you take tourists in Toronto has to do with livable cities ...

Winnipeg. Large Swaths of nothing on the north side. Chicago has WAY more violence, fine. Your right where you take tourist in Toronto has nothing to do with livable cities. So why are bringing it up for Chicago? The North side is as safe as any Toronto neighborhoods.

 

[RC8]

Do you have any understanding of American history at all?

Let's not pat ourselves on the back too much. These centuries-old problems simply weren't ingrained here. I mean, the occasional Orange Man might have bad-mouthed an Irishman now and then or something, but you simply cannot compare the two contexts... and even though we ought to have known better poverty and crime are becoming extremely ethnically segregated in our city and region.

I lived in the US, have an American high school diploma, and obtained a full university credit in 'History of the Americas'. So yes, I have an 'understanding'.

Part of this understanding is that crime wasn't particularly horrible in black communities for the longest time. The United States could have done much more back then to prevent the inevitable wave of violence that followed.

Murders in Chicago in 1965: 395

Murders in Chicago in 1974: 970

While Canada was busy passing universal health care, student loans, and regulating fire arms, Americans were fighting amongst themselves and invading other countries.

Not to say we don't have it much easier than them, but their social security network is still not yet where ours was 50 years ago.

In Chicago they handed the city to the car much more leniently than Toronto, and the degree of social and ethnic segregation of their suburbs is appalling. Their social housing projects were all an enormous failure, and while Toronto was experimenting with the St. Lawrence neighbourhood, Chicagoans were holding on to the giant blocks they would eventually demolish.

To this day social housing in Chicago is kept out of downtown and out of the north side, while in Toronto we realised the importance of inclusive neighbourhoods ages ago.

 

[nfitz]

Winnipeg. Large Swaths of nothing on the north side.

I was looking in Google, but everytime I thought I saw something, it was a school or park. There's some abandoned industrial, but I was talking residential.

So why are bringing it up for Chicago? The North side is as safe as any Toronto neighborhoods.

Because a city is a whole, not just an isolated place. We can't sit and say X is better than Y, when we only look at a small portion of X, which might indeed be better than a small portion of Y, when a good chunk of X is far, far, far worse than anything in Y.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Let's not pat ourselves on the back too much. These centuries-old problems simply weren't ingrained here. I mean, the occasional Orange Man might have bad-mouthed an Irishman now and then or something, but you simply cannot compare the two contexts... and even though we ought to have known better poverty and crime are becoming extremely ethnically segregated in our city and region.

Good point. I, for one, would like to see violent crime stats comparing black males in Greater Toronto vs. Greater Chicago. I still think Greater Chicago might be worse, but hardly by a wide margin. I am not pointing this out to be racist; on the contrary, I want to highlight that violence, poverty and destitution is unevenly distributed with blacks being disproportionately affected, but that this is a crisis in urban Canada too.

I think that the likelihood of a white, male Chicagoan being the victim of a violent crime is probably at a rate much closer to a white, male Torontonian than even a black, male Torontonian. I could be wrong about this, but I think that the income gap between the average Aboriginal and the average white Canadian in a place like Winnipeg or Saskatoon is probably even higher than the income gap between the average black and white person in Metro Detroit.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

I was looking in Google, but everytime I thought I saw something, it was a school or park. There's some abandoned industrial, but I was talking residential.

Because a city is a whole, not just an isolated place. We can't sit and say X is better than Y, when we only look at a small portion of X, which might indeed be better than a small portion of Y, when a good chunk of X is far, far, far worse than anything in Y.

That's what your doing. You ignore Jane and Finch because while not as dangerous clearly it is still above Canadian standards.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

That's what your doing. You ignore Jane and Finch because while not as dangerous clearly it is still above Canadian standards.

Especially when I see monster homes replacing bungalows on the surrounding streets. They may install security systems in those homes, but then most homeowners either do that or get a dog anyways.

 

[nfitz]

That's what your doing. You ignore Jane and Finch because while not as dangerous clearly it is still above Canadian standards.

To what standards do you refer? I assume by above standards you mean bad, not good.

I've driven and walked around Jane/Finch. It hardly feels dangerous. Frankly walking up Sherbourne at 2 AM feels more unsafe to me ...

If that's the worst we've got, we're light-years ahead of Chicago. Surely to compare two cities, you have to compare the worst neighbourhoods in each city, rather than just the best neighbourhoods.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Especially when I see monster homes replacing bungalows on the surrounding streets. They may install security systems in those homes, but then most homeowners either do that or get a dog anyways.

Fair point.

To what standards do you refer? I assume by above standards you mean bad, not good.

I've driven and walked around Jane/Finch. It hardly feels dangerous. Frankly walking up Sherbourne at 2 AM feels more unsafe to me ...

If that's the worst we've got, we're light-years ahead of Chicago. Surely to compare two cities, you have to compare the worst neighborhoods in each city, rather than just the best neighbourhoods.

Bad. Jane and Finch is not as bad as anywhere in Chicago. But it sucks. So does St Jamestown. We should compare worst to worst. You're trying to saying Toronto is better because its' safer. Sorry safety is not the only factor. If it was the world would agree and Toronto would get more recognition for it.

 

[Torontovibe]

I think the big difference between Chicago's South Side and Jane & Finch, is that the South Side appears to be abandoned by the city and the public realm is just allowed to decay, while Jane & Finch appears to be maintained, the same as any other part of North York. You don't see huge swaths of land full of garbage or blocks of broken sidewalk, the way you do in poor parts of Chicago. It appears to me, that the city of Chicago's government has just abandoned the south and west sides. You see empty lots on the side streets, that clearly haven't been cleaned in a long, long time.

American cities seem to spend big money on the fancy tourist areas and wealthy neighbourhoods but very little on poorer districts. You really notice the huge difference in the public realm, whereas in Canada, we don't go all out in our upscale tourist areas or lux neighbourhoods. The tax dollars seem to be more evenly spent throughout the city, so even the poorest areas are maintained somewhat.

 

[nfitz]

You're trying to saying Toronto is better because its' safer. Sorry safety is not the only factor. If it was the world would agree and Toronto would get more recognition for it.

No, it's only a factor.

The comparison mostly seems to be to take the a small portion (call it the best 5% for argument) of the cities, and say Chicago is better.

But if you flip it, and take the worst 5%, clearly Toronto is better.

What if you break the cities' down in 5% increments, economically, from highest value to lowest value. 20 categories. Chicago seems to get the top 1 in 20. Toronto seems to get the bottom 1 in 20. What about the other 18 in 20? I don't have the resources or data to do this ... but simply randomly dropping into various spots in metropolitan Chicago and the GTA in Google streetview, my gut feel is that Toronto would be ahead.

It would be interesting to see if there's any data that would demonstrate (or refute) this.

 

[Torontovibe]

^^ Before I travel to any city, I go on Google Streetview and I start dropping that little guy all over the map. I start by exploring the downtown core and then I start moving outward in all directions. Within about an hour, I can pretty much tell if I'm going to like a city or not. I have never been wrong using this way to screen cities. Every time I see the city in person, it confirms my tour on Streetview, so it has become required viewing for me before any vacation. It's saved me a lot of frustration and disappointment. I can now limit my stays in cities I know will offer me very little and I can focus on areas that provide a higher level of animation. Thank god for Streetview! I'm addicted to that site. (as well as this one lol)

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Chicago is a much better city to visit than Toronto (if you stay within the good areas). Chicago is a more interesting city, though Toronto is certainly is improving.

But Toronto is a far superior city to live in than Chicago.

Chicago has huge areas of the city that are just horrible. I would be embarrassed if I were a Chicagoan. Yes, Toronto has "bad" areas like Jane/Finch, but they pale in comparison to just how horrible Chicago's neighbourhoods are.

Putting crime aside, Toronto undeniably has better transit, education, health care, political stability, environment, cleanliness etc...

Unless you're judging a city by superficial things such as it's skyline I really don't see how anybody could realistically argue that Chicago is better than Toronto.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Chicago is a much better city to visit than Toronto (if you stay within the good areas). Chicago is a more interesting city, though Toronto is certainly is improving.

But Toronto is a far superior city to live in than Chicago.

Chicago has huge areas of the city that are just horrible. I would be embarrassed if I were a Chicagoan. Yes, Toronto has "bad" areas like Jane/Finch, but they pale in comparison to just how horrible Chicago's neighbourhoods are.

Putting crime aside, Toronto undeniably has better transit, education, health care, political stability, environment, cleanliness etc...

Unless you're judging a city by superficial things such as it's skyline I really don't see how anybody could realistically argue that Chicago is better than Toronto.

I Think Toronto transit is porous, just IMO. Chicago is clean too. I've see trash around nathan phillips square, people just don't care about that. Me, I rank them even.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

No, it's only a factor.

The comparison mostly seems to be to take the a small portion (call it the best 5% for argument) of the cities, and say Chicago is better.

But if you flip it, and take the worst 5%, clearly Toronto is better.

What if you break the cities' down in 5% increments, economically, from highest value to lowest value. 20 categories. Chicago seems to get the top 1 in 20. Toronto seems to get the bottom 1 in 20. What about the other 18 in 20? I don't have the resources or data to do this ... but simply randomly dropping into various spots in metropolitan Chicago and the GTA in Google streetview, my gut feel is that Toronto would be ahead.

It would be interesting to see if there's any data that would demonstrate (or refute) this.

I agree to this. it would be interesting.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I Think Toronto transit is porous, just IMO. Chicago is clean too. I've see trash around nathan phillips square, people just don't care about that. Me, I rank them even.

Toronto rapid transit system certainly has allot of holes in it. But as it stands now I still say it's better than Chicagos. And it is improving too. By 2020 Toronto will undoubtedly have the better system.

But as I said, Toronto certainly has better education, health care and political stability (definitely). Toronto's economy is also much more stable and the employment situation is better.

If I were to raise a family Toronto would win hands down.