Toronto’s Messy Urbanism from the perspective of an Angeleno

[adma]

Though given the conference-generated circles Rojas was revolving in within Toronto, I wouldn't be surprised if he was made aware of the whole 54east-esque revisionist spin on the strip-plaza 'burbs. So, I wouldn't dis him for excessive downtowncentricity--upon closer examination, the pattern applies even where it apparently doesn't apply.

I think the "god bless this mess" point here may run deeper than raw urban form; it's a joy and purposefulness, and the absence of that raw mass of anomie and alienation that renders so much of urban AmeriKKKa in a constant perceived state of civil war. It isn't like when you cross the Rainbow or Lewiston-Queenston and encounter a bunch of Timothy McVeigh clones...

 

[BuildTO]

Quite a few years ago, Toronto was named the bike-theft capital of North America. I'm willing to bet we haven't lost that distinction. It is indeed the price we pay for the popularity of bikes as a method of transport. I'd rather have that dubious distinction than be the car-theft capital.

 

[MisterF]

I think I didn't really get my idea across very well. I wasn't trying to write off Scarborough and Etobicoke. I simply meant that the analysis in the article didn't take into account Toronto as a whole. To me Scarborough and Etobicoke are Toronto,their urban form is very different from what was stated in the article. I think the analysis in the article only looked at a small fraction of what the city really is. I just felt that we tend to overlook the boroughs when we talk about Toronto because they fall into a weird urban greyzone. Once suburbs, now in transition towards being more urban as junctionist acurately pointed out.

My bad. I'll try to express myself more clearly next time.

But like I was trying to say in my last post, that's hardly unique to Toronto. In both North America and Europe, the urban form of suburbs is very different from the central cities. Analyses like this of New York or London or Amsterdam almost always focus on a small fraction of those cities. The fact that suburban New York isn't filled with skyscrapers, or that suburban Amsterdam isn't filled with pot cafes and prostitutes, pretty much goes without saying.