Toronto Parks

[Ayan]

Except:

A: Some of those things don't pertain to the specific version of downtown Vancouver you presented. You gave us a link...it has a map with specific boundaries. Stick to it.
B: It doesn't matter, as none of those things you presented is evidence that it isn't also happening in downtown Toronto.

Perhaps you can provide links to some pictures like I did ?

 

[freshcutgrass]

As I said, I would use current city boundaries. That's how comparisons are made.

Comparison of what though?

A residential density figure in and of itself is meaningless without context.
Total population divided by total municipal boundary area doesn't reveal anything very useful.

 

[King of Kensington]

What constitutes the "city proper" varies greatly across metropolitan areas. It only matters in stupid "my city is better than your city" comparisons.

Why is it relevant that Cote St. Luc and New Westminster are denser than Toronto, or that White Rock is denser than Mississauga?

 

[freshcutgrass]

Perhaps you can provide links to some pictures like I did ?

What for...the onus is on you to back up your claim by providing proof that what you listed as going on in downtown Vancouver is not going on in downtown Toronto.

 

[nfitz]

As I said, I would use current city boundaries. That's how comparisons are made.

No it isn't.

If one city is a huge amalgamated metropolitan area, extending out into farmland (Toronto), and the other is a relatively small area, with similar suburbs (not to mention the forests around UBC) left out, the comparison is clearly not valid. Unless one is trolling.

 

[Ayan]

What constitutes the "city proper" varies greatly across metropolitan areas. It only matters in stupid "my city is better than your city" comparisons.

Why is it relevant that Cote St. Luc and New Westminster are denser than Toronto, or that White Rock is denser than Mississauga?

According to Statistics Canada, Vancouver has a significantly higher population density than Toronto. Among the top 25 densely populated Canadian cities, there are 6 from Vancouver CMA and only 2 from Toronto CMA.

http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/hlt-fst/pd-pl/Table-Tableau.cfm?LANG=Eng&T=307&SR=1&S=10&O=D

If you think that Statistics Canada should have used the old City of Toronto or the federal electoral district or Toronto CMA or continuous area or whatever definitions that won’t offend your narrow Toronto-centric views, you are welcome to contact Statistics Canada and share your concerns.

 

[Ayan]

What for...the onus is on you to back up your claim by providing proof that what you listed as going on in downtown Vancouver is not going on in downtown Toronto.

Actually it’s YOU who is claiming that downtown Toronto is as green as downtown Vancouver (as evident in the beautiful linked pictures I posted before). The onus is on YOU to back up YOUR claim. Good luck !

 

[nfitz]

According to Statistics Canada, Vancouver has a significantly higher population density than Toronto.

If you don't just look at cities though, and include parishes and Indian Reserves, you'll find that Gillam Manitoba and Notre-Dames-des-Anges, Quebec, both have higher densities.

http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-r...able-Tableau.cfm?LANG=Eng&T=301&SR=1&S=10&O=D

If you think that Statistics Canada should have not used whatever definitions that won’t offend your narrow Vancouver-centric views, you are welcome to contact Statistics Canada and share your concerns.

I'm not sure what these fantastical claims of yours have do with your claims that downtown Vancouver has more parks. We've clearly established that downtown Vancouver has both less parks, and is less dense. So instead you are now trying to make a case, that the relatively small City of Vancouver is on paper more dense than the relatively large amalgamated City of Toronto. I fail to see what your claims about your being so dense there have to do with anything.

That you'd even be sticking to such an apples and oranges comparison, clearly demonstrates your ability to reason and process information is deeply flawed, and only erodes any other argument you will ever make. Though perhaps a simpler explanation is that your trolling.

 

[King of Kensington]

According to Statistics Canada, Vancouver has a significantly higher population density than Toronto. Among the top 25 densely populated Canadian cities, there are 6 from Vancouver CMA and only 2 from Toronto CMA.[

http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/hlt-fst/pd-pl/Table-Tableau.cfm?LANG=Eng&T=307&SR=1&S=10&O=D

You're either really dense or you're just trolling. These 2 municipalities make up 60% of the Toronto CMA population. The 6 municipalities in Vancouver CMA make up less than half of that CMA's population. If you can't make a distinction between a 5 sq. km municipality with a population of 20,000 and a 300 sq. km municipality with a population of 700,000, then your arguments can't be taken seriously.

If you think that Statistics Canada should have used the old City of Toronto or the federal electoral district or Toronto CMA or continuous area or whatever definitions that won’t offend your narrow Toronto-centric views, you are welcome to contact Statistics Canada and share your concerns.

Stats Can's job is to collect data for incorporated municipalities, as well as census tracts, federal ridings etc. But even they recognize that focusing on municipal boundaries alone to determine what is "urban" and what is "suburban" is problematic:

The biggest drawback is probably the fact that the central municipality's administrative boundaries can provide an inaccurate picture of the forms of urban development in a CMA. In some CMAs, people who live a dozen kilometres from the city centre, in neighbourhoods that have all the qualities of traditional suburban neighbourhoods, are nevertheless residing in the central municipality. Conversely, in other CMAs, people living only a few kilometres from the central business district, in very densely populated neighbourhoods, are regarded as living in a suburban municipality. The reason for these differences is that municipal history, and therefore municipal administrative boundaries, vary substantially from CMA to CMA. As a result, the percentage of the CMA's total population living in the central municipality as opposed to the suburban municipalities will also vary a great deal from one metropolitan area to another (Chart 1).

For example, according to 2006 Census data, Calgary's seven suburban municipalities accounted for only 8% of the CMA's total population. The same was true for the CMA of Winnipeg, where the suburban municipalities also made up only 9% of the CMA's total population. The situation was completely different in the CMA of Vancouver, where 73% of the total population lived in the suburban municipalities.

While the difference in the percentages provides some idea of the extent of administrative fragmentation in these metropolitan areas, it tells us very little about the types of neighbourhoods in which Calgary and Winnipeg residents live compared with Vancouver residents. In addition, comparing the central municipalities of the various CMAs can lead to serious misinterpretations if we fail to take into account how each one is divided.3

A second major disadvantage of the approach based on the central municipality's administrative boundaries, in terms of sociological and geographic analysis of CMA populations, is that boundaries can change abruptly at any time, especially during municipal mergers or reorganizations. Neighbourhoods and localities that had long been considered suburbs can suddenly become part of the central municipality, even though there has been no substantive change in their areas' nature or their social and economic ties to the centre.

For example, the town of Pierrefonds is now included in one of the wards of the new municipality of Montréal, although it was considered an independent suburban municipality before the municipal mergers of 2001. The same thing happened to the Borough of East York in the CMA of Toronto: before 1998 it was a suburb and today it is an integral part of the central municipality. In the Ottawa area, the former suburban municipalities of Kanata, Orléans, Gloucester, Vanier and Rockcliffe are now part of the central municipality. Of course, it is always possible that further municipal reorganizations will occur in the future, making the distinction between central and suburban municipalities even fuzzier than it is now.

Yet, despite these limitations (particularly from the perspective of comparing CMAs), the distinction between central and suburban municipalities remains, for some purposes, the most pertinent and useful way to present various statistics. It is important for decision-makers and policy-makers to have a variety of demographic and socio-economic information about the population of their own municipality as well as adjacent municipalities.

On the other hand, the approach based on the administrative or political boundaries of the central municipality is probably not the most appropriate for studying certain social, demographic and economic differences between suburban and urban neighbourhoods.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2008001/article/10459-eng.htm

 

[Ayan]

You're either really dense or you're just trolling. These 2 municipalities make up 60% of the Toronto CMA population. The 6 municipalities in Vancouver CMA make up less than half of that CMA's population. If you can't make a distinction between a 5 sq. km municipality with a population of 20,000 and a 300 sq. km municipality with a population of 700,000, then your arguments can't be taken seriously.



Stats Can's job is to collect data for incorporated municipalities, as well as census tracts, federal ridings etc. But even they recognize that focusing on municipal boundaries alone to determine what is "urban" and what is "suburban" is problematic:



http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2008001/article/10459-eng.htm

There are plenty of examples of using of current city boundaries when comparing cities despite methodological challenges.

http://www.conferenceboard.ca/press/newsrelease/14-09-18/six_canadian_cities_out_of_50_receive_top_marks_for_attracting_newcomers.aspx

 

[King of Kensington]

There is no disputing that Vancouver's 115 sq. km area is denser than Toronto's 603 sq. km area. But if density is a desirable thing, then we should be talking about the urbanized area as a whole. Why is it "better" in any meaningful sense that a city proper that represents a small area and only has a quarter of the CMA population exceeds the density of a city proper that constitutes a much larger area and contains nearly half of the CMA population?

 

[nfitz]

There is no disputing that Vancouver's 115 sq. km area is denser than Toronto's 603 sq. km area.

There's no doubt that old Toronto's 90 km² (or whatever it is) is denser than new Toronto's 603 km². There's no doubt that Vancouver's 115 km² is denser than Greater Vancouver.

Would anyone expect anything any different? What's that got to do with the price of Tea in China ... or Vancouver's deficiency in downtown parks and trees?

 

[DSC]

What's that got to do with the price of Tea in China ... or Vancouver's deficiency in downtown parks and trees?

Or, frankly, with the subject of this thread - TORONTO'S PARKS.

 

[Ayan]

There is no disputing that Vancouver's 115 sq. km area is denser than Toronto's 603 sq. km area. But if density is a desirable thing, then we should be talking about the urbanized area as a whole. Why is it "better" in any meaningful sense that a city proper that represents a small area and only has a quarter of the CMA population exceeds the density of a city proper that constitutes a much larger area and contains nearly half of the CMA population?

Is it your opinion that Toronto can't increase population density further to reach Vancouver's population density level?

 

[freshcutgrass]

Is it your opinion that Toronto can't increase population density further to reach Vancouver's population density level?

Of course it could. But Toronto has a handicap over Vancouver....a much larger area in which to accommodate average density. And that's all you are doing when you take population and divide by land area.

If it is your contention that the higher the density number is the better, then you have to also agree that the larger the area in which you can average that density over is important as well. "Average density" without context is pointless.