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What one thing does Toronto do better than anywhere else?

M

mrgrieves

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I'm going to say the PATH system. Love it or hate it, I'm going to venture its the best indoor retail/commercial network out there given the size, quality of retailers, consistency of the quality of the network, and support from the city. Thoughts? Montreal's underground city doesn't come close. (I get it that many people live here their whole lives and almost never set foot it in it.)

I would think the most common answer though is multiculturalism/diversity. And when you ask anyone what that means they'll probably say restaurants and street festivals. Which I feel is superficial. And many cities are diverse. Pretty much every big city in North America nowadays is diverse. Toronto is just more diverse than most, if not all.
 
Public libraries: I have heard many people discuss our public library system as being one of the best in the world.

Crime rate: Our crime rate for a city of our size, by North American standards, is incredible.

Public transit in suburban/outlying communities: I think we under appreciate how comprehensive our public transit bus service is in suburbs/outlying communities. For instance, take a look at the outlying suburban regions of Buffalo and St. Louis and the horrendous service gaps:

http://metro.nfta.com/pdfs/Systemmap.pdf
https://www.metrostlouis.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SystemMap2017.jpg
 
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mjl08 said:
Public libraries: I have heard many people discuss our public library system as being one of the best in the world.

Crime rate: Our crime rate for a city of our size, by North American standards, is incredible.

Public transit in suburban/outlying communities: I think we under appreciate how comprehensive our public transit bus service is in outlying communities. For instance, take a look at the outlying suburban regions of Buffalo and St. Louis and the horrendous service gaps:
Click to expand...

All excellent answers!

I would probably add transit integration.

Some will make a face; but what I'm speaking of is the integration of TTC buses, streetcars and subway, by having them all meet at so many stations, and no-hassle change between modes.

This is relatively rare in my experience around the world, particularly at this scale.

I would also add Recreation facilities.

Let's just compare, NYC indoor pools (including Manhattan, Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn.

12

Toronto

34 (doesn't include school pools)
 
I agree with all of these. I am also impressed with the city's bus service. I think the fact that the city is a grid and the arterials go on forever facilitate this.

On crime, Montreal isn't as big as Toronto, but I think their crime rate is slightly better.
 
I agree with the points stated.

Suburban local bus service that is 10 minutes or better during off-peak is something extremely few cities in the world have. Oh, and said local bus service is integrated extremely well with subway and streetcar service. Almost no other city of Toronto's size in the world has that seamless transfers between many different modes of local public transit.

Toronto also has the largest public library system outside of Hong Kong.

Toronto's extremely low crime rate for its population is enviable (and we don't resort to caning offenders or putting them in death row).

The PATH network is the largest underground shopping centre in the world.

Don't forget about Toronto's numerous ethnic festivals.
 
Transit studies and fruitless plans that inevitably lead to redundant studies. A++, 100%, full credit, etc on that score.

I also think Toronto has a weird frontier town aesthetic, 200 hundred years after the fact. The overhead wires, 2-storey high street facades, and NIMBYism in regards to densifying areas that are in a massive urban area are the most prominent examples, not to mention the prevailing small-mind psyche in regards to grand public projects.
 
pman said:
Completely agree. But many Torontonians seem to believe our frontier town aesthetic is a mark of our gritty, urban sophistication.
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I actually like certain aspects of it myself. Not the silly NIMBYism or fear of densification of high streets (like, actually, not lip-service piecemeal bits and bobs). Toronto has a certain street-level griminess to it that I find endearing. I'm talking like chilling in a laneway with free street art. That being said, the small-mindedness is a major drag.
 
Streetscapes are definitely not one thing that Toronto does better than anyone else. We're worse than just about any other wealthy city in that regard. And the belief that improving streetscapes and burying hydro wires will somehow make the city less interesting is part of that small mindedness that people are talking about.

mjl08 said:
Crime rate: Our crime rate for a city of our size, by North American standards, is incredible.
Click to expand...

mrgrieves said:
On crime, Montreal isn't as big as Toronto, but I think their crime rate is slightly better.
Click to expand...

Johnny Au said:
Toronto's extremely low crime rate for its population is enviable (and we don't resort to caning offenders or putting them in death row).
Click to expand...

It's worth noting that there's no correlation between the size of a city and the crime rate. Maybe it's a Hollywood thing that perpetuates this myth, but bigger cities don't have higher crime rates than small towns. In this list of cities by crime severity index, Toronto was the 124th most dangerous city out of 229. In other words, it doesn't just have a low crime rate for a city its size, it has a low crime rate period. Montreal is 97th, so it's slightly worse than Toronto.
 
Politeness! Toronto is usually highly ranked when it comes to world's friendliest cities in the world. My friend visiting from Norway recently, couldn't get over how friendly and welcoming everyone is here! Complete strangers holding the door open for her, service with a smile in restaurants, people don't body-check to get on the subway. Where she is from, people are very cold and inconsiderate. I didn't really notice how friendly Torontonians are until i traveled to other big cities around the world.
 
gabe said:
Politeness! Toronto is usually highly ranked when it comes to world's friendliest cities in the world. My friend visiting from Norway recently, couldn't get over how friendly and welcoming everyone is here! Complete strangers holding the door open for her, service with a smile in restaurants, people don't body-check to get on the subway. Where she is from, people are very cold and inconsiderate. I didn't really notice how friendly Torontonians are until i traveled to other big cities around the world.
Click to expand...
After I lived in Atlantic Canada for three years, I came to perceive that Maritimers are superficiously friendly towards visitors but not welcoming of new residents, while Torontonians are superficially colder but more welcoming of newcomers.
 
Johnny Au said:
Toronto's extremely low crime rate for its population is enviable
.
Click to expand...
Maybe we have a low murder rate, but violations of the Safe Streets Act and other public nussiance crimes Are IMO rampant in Toronto, including public intoxication, panhandling at roadside and near banks, graffiti and littering. Any visitor from the west end to Toronto coming off the Gardiner at turning northward at Sherbourne will encounter beggars walking up to their window, see addicts shooting up at Shuter (no pun intended), vagrants sleeping on the grass at Allan Gardens, and graffiti much of the way up the street.

I sometimes worry we’ll turn out like Vancouver, with tent cities and an entire section of the the city surrendered, with the police refusing to enforce the laws on the books.
 
As a person who used to live in the shutter and Sherbourne area, I have found it has gotten better in the last 5 years or so, especially with condos and major businesses coming into the neighbourhood.

It's not nearly as bad as other metropolis' tend to have it. Off the top of my head living in Vancouver was much much worse, and Chicago is the murder capital of North America. One would assume that would include defication, gangs, drugs, littering, graffiti, et all.

Toronto is pretty damn good in that viewpoint.
 
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