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The Upside of Toronto’s Condo Boom

By Kevin Bracken

Hundreds of Windows
Unlike our neighbour to the south, Canada has an interesting population problem: despite having the second-largest landmass in the world, the country still suffers from a population slightly smaller than that of California. The biggest downside to this, of course, is the large tracts of land just waiting to be turned into the most nightmarish form of settlement: the ‘burbs.
While some harbour doubts about the ability of condos to solve this problem, today’s Metro reports on the upside of Toronto’s tower boom: half of Toronto’s target 500,000 people have moved in already. The goal was to get half a million more people south of Steeles in 30 years, but a quarter-million have already made the M postal code their own in just five.

Glenn Miller said it’s very difficult to say if the city development is actually halting urban sprawl. But he agreed that having people move into a 250-unit condo on King Street West means it’s less likely that a 250-home subdivision will be built in Stouffville.

At this rate, Toronto (proper) is poised to surpass our sister city Chicago’s within-city-limits population, which would cement us at the third largest city in North America, after New York and Los Angeles. For those keeping score, this could put Toronto in the “Alpha” category for “world class” status, up from our current Beta.
What this does not address, however, is the inevitable question: will a denser, more populated Toronto mean a more vibrant Toronto? Or will these new residents simply commute north anyway, rendering Toronto’s new high-rise neighbourhoods bedroom communities?
Photo by Trachsi from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Comments

  • GH

    Re: ‘For those keeping score, this could put Toronto in the “Alpha” category for “world class” status, up from our current Beta.’ This listing appears to have nothing to do with population. The Alpha/Beta/Gamma listing ‘ranked cities based on provision of “advanced producer services” such as accountancy, advertising, finance and law, by international corporations. The GaWC inventory identifies three levels of world cities and several sub-ranks. Note that this roster generally denotes cities in which there are offices of certain multinational companies providing financial and consulting services rather than other cultural, political, and economic centres.’
    Notably, the other listing in the Wikipedia entry has Toronto in a third tier and there is no clear indication that an increase in population would change the ranking. Our desire to be world class will take more work than simply throwing up a bunch of condos.

  • ep

    Hey There, interesting article. A lot of condo buildings are just hideous, but much preferable to endless burbs. I just have issue with your Stats at the end, Toronto is far behind Chicago in Population.
    TORONTO:
    - Urban 4,366,508
    - Metro 5,304,100
    CHICAGO:
    - Urban 8,711,000
    - Metro 9,443,356
    Toronto is more on par with Houston and Philadelphia.
    Thanks.

  • rek

    We suffer from a small population? I have to disagree there. Could you imagine a Canada with two or three times the population? Would you want to live there?

  • http://null Dwayne

    I’d love for Toronto’s population to increase three-fold..but I’m thinking New York City not Chicago.

  • drew

    i never understand why we keep referring to toronto as a world class city, when we can’t even land the olympics or the world’s fair

  • GH

    Re the statement: ‘For those keeping score, this could put Toronto in the “Alpha” category for “world class” status, up from our current Beta.’ This ranking appears to have nothing to do with population. The Alpha/Beta/Gamma system’ranked cities based on provision of “advanced producer services” such as accountancy, advertising, finance and law, by international corporations. The GaWC inventory identifies three levels of world cities and several sub-ranks.’ So bring some more advanced producer services here and we’ll move up, but I’m sure that this is not what the average person thinks about when thinking of Toronto on the world stage.
    The other ranking system noted at the Wikipedia entry referenced(i.e.,”Leading World Cities”)goes further, but it too seems to have little or nothing to do with population: ‘Cities are treated as locales through which four globalizations – economic, cultural, political and social – are produced and reproduced. Sixteen sets of data describing agents of global network formation, such as global service firms, NGOs and UN agencies, are analysed to measure cities’ overall network locations and subnet articulator roles.’
    Other ranking systems likely do not take population into account to any great extent (I think I saw Wellington NZ pretty highly ranked in one annual ranking), so a bunch of new people in a bunch of new condos isn’t going to bring any satisfaction to those who long for Toronto to be more important than it is.

  • http://www.thestar.ca Dog Bone

    Miami, about the same metro population as Toronto, is a world city. Nor has it had a world’s fair or olympics.

  • JK

    Mexico City is the largest city in North America, not New York City. This would make Toronto the 4th largest city in North America if it were to surpass Chicago in population.

  • http://null nick

    “i never understand why we keep referring to toronto as a world class city, when we can’t even land the olympics or the world’s fair”
    I think people refer to Toronto being world class due to it being one of the major economic centres of the world, the largest city in Canada, and the most multi-cultural city in the world. Although the Olympics would help, not having them doesn’t make Toronto any less world class. Besides, the Olympics aren’t decided on which localities are world class or not. Nagano, Salt Lake City and now Turino are not world class cities. Besides, the only reason why Toronto didn’t get the games is because the city didn’t bribe the IOC. Or, didn’t bribe them as much as the Chinese, whichever the case may be.

  • http://null claire

    Thank you, GH. Totally similar to the comment I wanted to make last week when the link to comments was busted (and nicely fixed). World cities and global cities refer to two different theories on the power of place – not determined by popnl as you state, and indeed determined by the global capital that they set into motion through their “command and control” powers (that’s global cities… world is a bit slippier in my mind)