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Crime rate in Toronto?

Eug said:
However, it seems some people are eager to recommend places like Cabbagetown, without mentioning any of the caveats, like what has been mentioned in this thread.
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After immigrating to Canada as a 5 year old in 1976, I grew up in Mississauga - living in the area of Derry Rd and Winston Churchill Blvd, until I moved to the Toronto Beach(es) area at 17 years old in the late 1980s.

I can tell you, Meadow'jail as we called that area of Mississauga was, for me at least, a bed of idle friends drinking, smoking pot, getting arrested, petty crimes, poor performance at school, absent parents, etc. Moving to the Beach(es) where I met some great, academically-focused friends at Malvern Collegiate and turned my life around, and now living in Cabbagetown I am surrounded by neighbours and home owners I really like, and with whom I share much of the same sense of professional middle class home and community pride. Meanwhile, that area of Mississauga where I once lived is a dump of falling apart 1970s houses and infrastructure.

I'm much happier raising my daughters in Cabbagetown than I'd ever be in Mississauga, Brampton, etc. Some of the better suburbs such as Milton and Oakville by the waterfront are good, and friends in Georgetown love it there, but I'm a downtown Toronto guy by heart. I lived in Fredericton, NB for three years and while we had a nice house and such, I really missed the urban life.
 
When one and stops and thinks about this, do the two go hand in hand?

Great urban qualities and a little bit of sketchiness? They are one and the same or at the very least require each other?

Well, that probably depends how you define "urbaness", if it's simply, access to a ton of amenities in walking distance along with good/decent public transportation. If this is your argument then they probably don't necessarily go hand in hand but to be honest there are not many exceptions.

As of today the only areas I'd consider that meet this are NYCC and Yonge and Eglinton ... although there are others on a smaller scale ... these are scattered throughout the GTA - but they're relatively small stretches (port credit, bloor west village, so on, so forth...)

But many (on this form and 'real' people :D alike) would argue the aforementioned areas lack the 'real' character that goes with urban living? In which case, I think we're left saying they go hand in hand? Is this not true in other cities as well?
 
^^ I don't really agree with this.

I lived at Bay/Bloor for about a half-dozen years before I moved to King West for another half-dozen years.

Both are urban living, but neither would really high on my list for young families. There ARE lots of young families at Bay/Bloor but that in itself doesn't make it high on my recommended list for that demographic.

After that dozen years of urban living, my definition of urban Toronto living has expanded. I want access to the city centre, but I don't want necessarily to be in the thick of things all the time. I'd be perfectly happy to live in Leaside for example. Close enough to Yonge/Eg and downtown, but further away from sketch than say parts of Queen West, and not as hectic as Bay/Bloor.

Do people here consider Leaside urban? Or do they consider it suburban?
 
There's really no argument to disagree about : - )

These are merely opinions so they're all valid.

Regarding your question, it would depend where exactly but this really depends on your definition. I reckon you can't easily walk to a grocery store, movie theater, restaurants ... so on. Depending where, i.e. if it's close to Eglinton, transit might make it easier.

But by my books, and again you can disagree, I wouldn't consider this "urban" ... eek I hate that word ... let's just say, ideally I'd rather live in an area with my aforementioned properties.

Walking is key in my books - otherwise extremely quick transit, which really doesn't exist unless we're talking about a subway. I mean if it's going to take more then 20/30min to get where you want (with wait times) you probably won't do it :)

Anyway, in other American cities, actually our suburbs even - you can probably accomplish everything I mentioned above with say a 5min or less car drive in *areas* -to a lot this would be - a good place to live - as well.

To bring crime (sort of), back in play - it depends what type of parent you want to be - I've known parents who don't like their sons / daughters taking the subway alone till they're 18+ ...
 
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kettal said:
Who cares? It's a very nice neighbourhood in any case.
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The question was semi-rhetorical, as personally I think it's ludicrous to consider Leaside suburban, considering it's right in the middle of the city.

To almost require sketch in the definition of urban seems very, very odd to me.

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BTW:

Police, suspects exchange gunfire

Toronto police exchanged gunshots with three men in the Victoria Park area early Saturday morning.

Uniformed officers were investigating a drug offence near Finch Ave. E. around 2:30 a.m. when the incident occurred, said Insp. Howie Page.

As a plainclothes officer returned to his vehicle, he was confronted by the men and several shots were fired. The men then fled the scene.
 
Eug said:
The question was semi-rhetorical, as personally I think it's ludicrous to consider Leaside suburban, considering it's right in the middle of the city.
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It's a pre-WWII suburb, like Forest Hill or the Kingsway.

I don't think we should change our definition of "suburban" because of amalgamation. Staten Island and parts of Queens for instance are quite "suburban" in character even if they're part of New York City.
 
Looking at this Statistics Canada study released today - http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/101215/t101215c2-eng.htm

Toronto has almost the highest number of police officers per capita than any city in the country (only Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Thunder Bay, Regina, and Saint John are higher, but all have much higher severe crime rates, most of them much, much higher crime rates).

Yet we have almost the lowest severe crime rate in the country (only Guelph and Quebec City are lower).

If we cut our police force to Guelph levels, we could cut 11% of our police officers - a reduction of over 1,100 officers.

If we cut our police force to Quebec City levels, we could cut over 3,200 officers.

There's a very easy way to deal with Toronto budget problems. Deal with our overstaffed police force.
 
Umm...Ford's agenda is to add more police. Not cut though...Did you vote Ford?
 
Given even the police department has been dismissing Ford's proposal to add more officers, that's not about to happen.

Not sure it matters who voted for whom. I certainly never hesitated in criticizing bad policy for people I voted for and against in the past.
 
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