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Under "5.".
Columbus has a Goodale Park. Toronto has High Park.
Columbus has a City Center Mall (which is being torn down). Toronto has a thriving Eaton Centre.
Columbus has the Blue Jackets whose games you can easily attend. Toronto has the Maple Leafs which you can't see unless you pay scalpers for tickets.
Columbus has a North Market. Toronto has a St. Lawrence Market which is just as nice but 5 times the size.
Columbus has Short North. Toronto has at least 20 neighbourhoods like this. All bigger. Some are ethnic.
Columbus has Easton Town Center. Toronto's major malls are all covered.
Columbus has Ohio State U. Toronto has University of Toronto which is quieter, except for the engineering school.
Columbus has the Ohio Historical Centre. Toronto has the Royal Ontario Museum.
Columbus has the Franklin Park Conservatory. Toronto has nothing like it.
That's all I can think of for now.
For the most part, unless you're right in the heart of downtown, yes. I'll hazard to guess that Toronto has a higher population of people who either don't own cars or don't use them often than other cities, but I wouldn't expect anybody to not use one.
I either use a backpack or a basket I can stick on the back of my bike. In the deep suburbs, it can be a bit of a drain to not get them by car though. For a lot of groceries, I resort to cloth or canvas bags that I seem to have everywhere
To be honest, I don't think it's overrated at all. Toronto's got a lot of good things going for it, and for the most part those things are only going to get better.
I actually use transit a lot. I know the TTC's built a very reliable system. They're making a lot of improvements (though unfortunately the majority of it is LRTs that shall not be discussed further in this thread,) which should make Transit even more used than it is now, which is rather high for a North American city (The TTC is the 3rd most used system, even though Toronto's like the 5th or 6th largest North American city, and I have to admit, they don't try very hard to keep that up.)
Hmm, I'm not sure what important things there are.
Depends where you intend to live. In general I would say a car would help, and could be mandatory depending on your lifestyle. If you planned on living in the greater downtown, you may want to look into getting a small displacement motorcycle or scooter. The licensing on scooters is easy, and they are much quicker than the streetcars.
The best solution to that would most likely be using a car-sharing program. Making frequent smaller trips is in many cases an inefficient use of time and energy. Best to periodically go to Costco or Walmart to stock up on staple non-perishables while using a local joint to frequently stock up on things like milk, meat and fruit. For larger non-food items, internet shopping is the way to go. Many places offer free shipping anyways.
Depends. If you are coming from a town where everyone thinks of TO as a polluted crime filled cesspool, then no. It is actually a pretty nice city. If you have been told that TO is the greatest city since sliced bread and everything is wonderful here, probably.
Daily. It is a godsend for commuting if you work or plan on going to school near a subway. Its utility drops fairly quickly when you neither live nor work near a subway, or have to travel outside of peak-hours.
Don't get sucked into the myth of urban Toronto. It's a nice place, but if you want to live south of Bloor you will pay a big premium for it. Depends heavily on your social life and goals, but you can live a pretty comfortable life outside of downtown as well. A lot of people will disparage a location like North York Center, but there is definitely something to be said for it.
