Scene/Suburban surprise

[miketoronto]

This if from The Star. They are right. It is a cool little downtown. The Beaches of the west.

Now this is what our suburbs should have. Not bland suburban malls.

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Scene/Suburban surprise



Those of us who live in downtown T.O. are generally resistant to any evidence of cultural life in the suburbs. We tend to be surprised to learn, for instance, that Oakville actually has a downtown, and it's not a golf course or a strip of big-box stores.

A short drive from the excellent Oakville Galleries — another perceived cultural anomaly to us urbanites — lies the strip, such as it is, which runs about six blocks along the city's Lakeshore Rd. It's pedestrian-friendly and is thick with stroller-pushing families on weekends this time of year. This is what non-Canadians might picture a Canadian town to be — safe, friendly, pleasant, with Christmas displays in every window and a wreath on every lamppost. But it's also home to a surprising number of good restaurants, cafes, bars and browse-worthy shops to make for a decent, idle afternoon.

Check out oakvilledowntown.com for weekend events and other information.

 

[sleeksky]

Suburbia does include some great areas. Unfortunately these are relics of a time when places like Port Credit, Brampton, or Oakville were completely separate cities from Toronto.

All the suburban "centres" built since suburbanization are just malls. (some exceptions of course) Its a bit unfortunate to see how some suburbs started off so well, but are now so bad due to Toronto's influence.

 

[ganjavih]

"Its a bit unfortunate to see how some suburbs started off so well, but are now so bad due to Toronto's influence."

They're bad because of the automobile's influence.

 

[sleeksky]

Thats true too, but if Toronto didn't exist, cities like Oakville, Markham, Brampton, etc. would be your average nice Ontario small cities by now.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming Toronto here. I just want to point out that the influence of a major city doesn't only have benefits.

 

[miketoronto]

They would still be sprawl towns like they are now, even without Toronto.

Have you ever been to a smaller city in Canada? They still have their strip malls, suburban malls, housing tracts, etc.

Go to Kingston. About 5min outside of downtown, and you think you are in Mississauga. Looks no different.

Being a small town does not stop sprawl.

My brothers small farm town has a power centre now, just 2min from the historical downtown. I thought I was in Markham, up there.

 

[sleeksky]

That's certainly true, but I'm not so sure a town the size of Brampton would have rivaled Kingston in sprawl. Port Credit probably would have grown as large due to its lakefront location. But sprawl does happen everywhere. I suppose the effect of a metropolis only makes things worse.

 

[Chuck100]

If it wasn't for Toronto's boom, the north shore of Lake Ontario would resemble the north shore of Lake Erie. Even 100 years ago, communities like Willowdale, Agincourt and Port Credit had more people in them and were closer together than in other parts of Ontario thanks to their proximity to Toronto. If Toronto didn't boom the way it did, probably only a quarter of the 200 year old towns that surround Toronto would exist, and there would be little incentive to grow.

Assuming Toronto took the same course as say Kingston, I predict that the biggest cities in the GTA would have 50-150 thousand people. They would be Oshawa, Newmarket, Toronto, and Oakville.

Anyway, the suburbs still do have the odd attraction. Speaking for my area, Highway 7 and Leslie is a major Chinese focal point with stores and especially restaurants (in strip malls) that compare to - but still don't rival - Spadina. You can still find remnants of old main streets, the best ones up here being Unionville and Richmond Hill.

 

[roch5220]

That Oakville strip, which is very nice, Port Credit tried to imitate it, and its success along lakeshore. Successful, no.

Chuck100 - @chinese focal point, most of the best chinese restaurants, from what I've heard from HKers, who mainly have immigrated in the last 10-15 years, say the best restaurants are HWY 7, as well as on steeles. - They avoid Spadina like the plague. You also can't find the same products on Spadina as well. But is still good for after bar gourging.

 

[spmarshall]

The north shore of Lake Erie is odd, because all the towns in that part of Ontario were inland. The largest towns on Lake Erie are Port Colborne and Leamington, yet larger towns (even the size of Cobourg or pre-sprawl Oshawa), like St. Thomas, Tillsonberg, Simcoe and Chatham were inland. Most of the larger towns east of the GTA are on Lake Ontario (or Bay of Quinte) or the St. Lawrence, with the exception of Peterborough, which is quite a ways inland.

If one looks at maps from the 1920s to 1950s, they would see that the largest towns in the GTA outside of Toronto were, in order, Oshawa (over 10,000 - large due to the automotive industry), Brampton (about 5,000 in the 1940s), Whitby (about 4,000), Oakville (2,500-3,000), Newmarket and Georgetown (2,000-2,500), Port Credit and Milton (1,500-2,000). Streetsville, Markham, Unionville, Aurora, Thornhill and Pickering were all villages with less than a thousand through the 1930s and 1940s.

Brampton, Oshawa, Whitby, Newmarket and Oakville were fully independant towns until the early 1950s, when the first wave of sprawl hit. Port Credit was also fairly independant, but already linked to Toronto with radial (and later TTC bus) commuter service.

 

[wonderboy905]

Without Toronto a lot of the folks in Mississauga would be without sustainable jobs and could very well end up just like Brantford, sh*t holes... You can't merely say "without Toronto...". They're joined at the hip.