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news

Cost of Living Up, Tourism Up or Maybe Down, Dunlap Sold but Maybe Safe

By David Topping

20080727news.jpg
Toronto is the second most expensive city in North America and fifty-fourth most expensive city in the world, according to the Mercer’s annual cost of living survey. In the worldwide list, Toronto jumped twenty-eight spots and now ranks as more expensive than Los Angeles, a city known for its frugality.
How’s tourism in Toronto doing? Depends on who you ask: the Globe says it’s not going so hot across the board for the big Canadian cities, but the Star says things are going okay based on wisdom from “industry insiders” like the person at Tourism Toronto whose job as vice-president of communications is to make his company look good, and the manager of Hippo Tours. So, tough call.
According to the Globe, U of T will officially announce today that they have sold the David Dunlap Observatory property to Metrus Development. Good news, though! According to their sources, Metrus is “willing to try to keep the observatory and telescope running and is looking for proposals for future operation” and has no plans to demolish the Dunlap’s farmhouse, either. Levelling the buildings at which proof of the existence of black holes was discovered would be a little too apropos.
Cyclists who’ve had their wheels stolen spent the weekend looking through two police-run warehouses packed with the 2,400 bikes recovered from raids in the wake of Bicycle Clinic owner Igor Kenk’s arrest. The bikes are available for viewing at 35 Strachan Avenue (bike models beginning with “A” to “Q”) and 30 Ordance Street (“R” to “Z”) until at least Thursday; more information is available in the Toronto Police news release [PDF].
Three kids have been arrested for robbing apartment units in 2 Secord Avenue, the east-end building where an explosion last week forced 1,000 residents out of their homes for at least a month. Anti-graffiti folk take note: these last two news stories are far better examples of “contempt for private property” than this is.
Photo by News46 from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Comments

  • David Topping

    Also: Toronto Police just sent out an e-mail saying that 250 people have gotten back their bikes so far.

  • leftist

    David, when you say models do you mean brand or actual model? The PDF release doesn’t say.

  • David Topping

    According to the Post article I linked to,

    Bicycles are organized according to the first letter of the make or model. Bike models that begin with “A” through “Q” are on display in the Strachan Avenue warehouse while models that begin with “R” through “Z” are located in the Ordance Street warehouse.

    The two warehouses are right beside each other, though.

  • TokyoTuds

    Remember that the Mercer index is denominated in U.S. dollars, and the greenback has weakened significantly against other currencies. Toronto’s rate is 88.1 where NYC is 100, so Toronto is still quite affordable I’d say.
    Also, for Canadians earning Canadian dollars, the ranking doesn’t really change their daily expenses. Still, the Mercer index is interesting to watch.

  • David Topping

    The Toronto Police just announced that they recovered 700 more bikes today thanks to three more search warrants. Wow.

  • Phil_h

    I think you’ll find the Globe article doesn’t say much about Toronto specifically, and nothing that disagrees with the Star:

    Toronto, which attracted 10.6 million visitors and more than $4-billion in tourist spending in 2007, saw encouraging early summer figures in 2008, but has since tailed off, said Andrew Weir of Tourism Toronto.
    “We’re cautiously optimistic for the remainder of the summer, but we know it’s been a difficult period for some tourism businesses,” he said.