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Moving beyond "downtown vs. suburbs"

K

King of Kensington

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I don't really like this piece - saying Corktown is somehow "suburban" is silly - but it's a good place to start this discussion.

http://www.thestar.com/life/2014/05/09/in_toronto_there_is_no_real_downtown_no_real_suburb.html

How can we get the terminology changed? It seems ridiculous to call Bloor West Village and the Beaches "downtown" just because they're part of the old City of Toronto and didn't vote for Ford.

North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke still get referred to as "the suburbs" but they're much more of an urban suburbia and they've been part of Metro since 1954. Suburban in character perhaps, but they're really our equivalents of Queens and Staten Island or the San Fernando Valley.

Perhaps we should start using the terms Inner Toronto and Outer Toronto, like is done in London.
 
You guys won't like what some of my friends do because of how outwardly spread we are as a friend group in the Golden Horseshoe.

For example, east of Main Street is "downtown" apparently. As is where I live....which it very much isn't. Davenport was also "downtown" when I lived there. As is Parkdale.

Anyway, I agree with the Inner and Outer labels as opposed to suburbs and downtown, which I always found to be a massive oversimplification of our city's geography.
 
It's actually "inner city vs. suburbs." The downtown is only a small part of the inner city. No one refers to the entirety of former Toronto, York and East York as "downtown", because that would be stupid. This article is a good example of "strawman argument".

In Toronto's case there is also the distinction between inner suburbs and outer suburbs that is vague. I guess nowadays it refers to the 50s/60s suburbs that contains thousands of apartment buildings. This means Scarborough, North York, Etobicoke, and large portions of Mississauga (e.g. Cooksville) and a few other places in the 905.

And for the record, only around half of East York is inner city, the rest is (inner) suburb (e.g. Thorncliffe Park).
 
I think most people do recognize this, but "downtown vs. suburbs" is unfortunately used quite a bit particularly when talking about municipal politics:

"The City of Toronto has released their full, official election results. Despite Rob Ford’s election night assertion that Toronto is united, not divided, the voting statistics suggest a different, and stark, picture: downtown wards overwhelmingly backed George Smitherman, and suburban wards overwhelmingly backed Rob Ford."

http://torontoist.com/2010/10/which_wards_voted_for_who_for_mayor/

"George Smitherman, meanwhile, was ahead in 14 wards that roughly comprise the former City of Toronto - the downtown core where bike lanes, streetcars and left-of-centre politics have found their homes.

That divide, between suburban and downtown voters was revealed starkly Thursday, when the city produced its poll-by-poll results for the mayor's race and city council races."

http://www.insidetoronto.com/commun...reakdown-highlights-downtown-suburban-divide/

"Smitherman's support was exclusively in the Old City of Toronto and East York where he won 13 of 16 wards. His support was especially strong in the downtown core.

The three downtown wards he didn't win were:

Ward 31 (Beaches-East York), where incumbent Coun. Janet Davis was re-elected.
Ward 17 (Davenport), where incumbent Coun. Cesar Palacio was re-elected.
Ward 15 (Eglinton-Lawrence), where Josh Colle was elected councillor."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/vote-breakdown-shows-pre-amalgamation-split-1.894941
 
Eglinton-Lawrence is "downtown", lol.

That's just lazy writing. Journalists should know better. I think other people don't say Lawrence Ave is downtown. But maybe I'm wrong.

It shows the divide in the city. Toronto has become increasingly polarized, and it is a illusion.

"George Smitherman, meanwhile, was ahead in 14 wards that roughly comprise the former City of Toronto - the downtown core where bike lanes, streetcars and left-of-centre politics have found their homes.

That divide, between suburban and downtown voters was revealed starkly Thursday, when the city produced its poll-by-poll results for the mayor's race and city council races."

Do the people actually believe that places like Jane-Finch and Malvern are not left-of-centre? Look at the results of the last provincial election for York West and Scarborough-Rough River. Those places don't seem very right wing to me. They are more left-wing than Toronto Centre, as far as I can tell.

York West
Liberal 50.7%
NDP 35.7%
PC 12.1%

Toronto Centre
Liberal 54.9%
NDP 25.2%
PC 15.6%

Just people trying to draw a line between parts of Toronto as usual. Trying to create a double standard. Toronto's municipal politicans do the same. Rob Ford merely capitalized on that.
 
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Everyone: I always considered the City of Toronto to be what was the 6 Boroughs of Metropolitan Toronto as today's unified City is
and areas outside the City boundary to be considered the "suburbs" of Toronto...

I have never considered the "outer boroughs" to not be part of the City of Toronto...To me that would be like saying that NYC's four
outer boroughs are not part of the City of New York and that only Manhattan is truly the "City"...It is to some,though...

This type of thinking to me is just part of the "Us Versus Them" mentality that is meant to divide-and not unite-people...

LI MIKE
 
The whole bit of this distinction being used to divide people is a concern, but the terms do serve somewhat of a purpose as a geographical identifier.
 
I agree with the article in terms of things not being black & white with regards to suburban & urban.

These days suburban implies certain car-dominated sprawled areas, but the term "suburbs" in the past referred to places that were mostly residential where a large group of people commuted somewhere else to work or do other activities.

The early suburbs were "streetcar suburbs" which were houses & shops that appeared near streetcar lines. People would use the streetcars to go "downtown" near King & Yonge. A lot of these places developed in the early 1900's, or late 1800's.

Most of the old city of Toronto are "streetcar suburbs", places like the Annex, Little Italy, the Beaches, Danforth, Bloor West, Yonge-Eg are early suburbs aka streetcar suburbs.

Is a place like Bloor West Village considered "downtown"? If we choose Yonge-Dundas or King-Bay as the "centre", then places like Bloor West Village or the Beaches is just as far as Yonge-Eg. Places like Yonge-St Clair is just as far as Bloor-Bathurst.
 
MTown said:
You guys won't like what some of my friends do because of how outwardly spread we are as a friend group in the Golden Horseshoe.

For example, east of Main Street is "downtown" apparently. As is where I live....which it very much isn't. Davenport was also "downtown" when I lived there. As is Parkdale.
Click to expand...

I get that people in 905 call almost anything in the old city proper to be "downtown" but encouraging this just panders to ignorance.

And even if the Danforth or St. Clair West or Bloor West Village "feels like downtown" to them - really?
 
King of Kensington said:
I get that people in 905 call almost anything in the old city proper to be "downtown" but encouraging this just panders to ignorance.

And even if the Danforth or St. Clair West or Bloor West Village "feels like downtown" to them - really?
Click to expand...

I think this speaks to what the article is trying to say. There are so many definitions of "downtown" used that are completely different from one another that it's not really the most meaningful term.
 
I don't agree. Since downtown is so broadly-defined it doesn't really exist in any meaningful sense?

For example, City Hall is clearly downtown. High Park is not.
 
I think it has to do with the sheer geographical size of the GH. For someone living in north-west Oakville, that dense place where you can walk everywhere which is relatively very close to the CBD in Toronto can be "downtown".

At least that's how my friends look at it.

If you were to take the entirety of the GH and consider it as one city, and given that Toronto's CBD is the centre of it all, then you can start to see how some people would consider anything between the Humber and Victoria Park/Lawrence and the Lake as "downtown".

For example, 90% of the time when I'm in Durham and people refer to "downtown", they're speaking of central Toronto. In my experience, a lot of people consider the whole urban mess at this end of Lake Ontario to be one big city.
 
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MTown said:
I think it has to do with the sheer geographical size of the GH. For someone living in north-west Oakville, that dense place where you can walk everywhere which is relatively very close to the CBD in Toronto can be "downtown".

At least that's how my friends look at it.

If you were to take the entirety of the GH and consider it as one city, and given that Toronto's CBD is the centre of it all, then you can start to see how some people would consider anything between the Humber and Victoria Park/Lawrence and the Lake as "downtown".

For example, 90% of the time when I'm in Durham and people refer to "downtown", they're speaking of central Toronto. In my experience, a lot of people consider the whole urban mess at this end of Lake Ontario to be one big city.
Click to expand...

Is all of the city of Chicago downtown Chicago to people who live in far-flung exurbs?
 
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