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Originally Posted by someone123
These days Canada tends to be pretty timid when it comes to public-sector infrastructure building and for better or worse we don't have the equivalent of European monarchs or American industrialists who want to build monuments to themselves.
Toronto in 2019 is very close to being Toronto in 1999 plus condos and office buildings. The TTC's subway map from 2018 looks very similar to the one from 1997.
When Montreal was more prominent in the 1960's Canada invested a lot more in infrastructure and wasn't afraid to crack a few eggs. Not all of those projects panned out of course, and today that type of risk and disruption would make so many of those projects look like complete non-starters. A few homeowners can stop multi-billion public projects in Canada, and the fact that all cost overruns are considered scandals means that it's politically difficult to try anything novel.
Here in Vancouver the level of ambition and forward thinking in public infrastructure development is markedly lower than Toronto or Montreal, at least in the inner areas. A lot of the inner city here isn't directly served either rapid transit or highways and the built environment is whatever was inherited from 1986 or so plus real estate development. This isn't to say that Vancouver can't be a good place to live but I am not sure the current path is going to lead to this place feeling like a major world city simply by virtue of more of the same post-2000 development happening over and over.
I think Toronto and Vancouver might actually feel a lot smaller for many residents in 10 or 20 years because people will have to live an work in a smaller portion of their metro area due to congestion and poor transit options. The central areas will feel more like theme parks for the rich people who can afford multimillion dollar condos, and will serve less and less as public gathering points for everyone. This is the direction we are headed in if the rate of population growth continues to exceed the rate of public investment.
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I'd agree with most of your comments but I think you phrased your comments on Toronto in a way that makes its achievements sound less impressive than they are. I mean, the vast majority of buildings in most cities are either residences or workplaces, so if a city is mostly the same as it was 20 years ago except for major changes in these hugely important areas, it's kind of like saying something would be mostly the same if it wasn't so different. Well... yes?
You're absolutely right in that the transit investments have not kept pace with growth, but I'd rather have the current situation with lots of centralized development but lagging infrastructure than lots of decentralized sprawl with accompanying road expansion since the current problem is much easier to fix. If most of the downtown and central growth had instead been mostly outer suburban and exurban growth that would not have been pretty.
Besides, even if the biggest changes have been in terms of the condo and office development, other changes have also occurred. Things like the Queens Quay remake, the Berczy Park improvement, AGO and ROM expansions, Union station expansion, new aquarium, significant improvements to rail corridors allowing for two-way all-day UPE and Lakeshore services. Plus the Eglinton line is well under way. And after all, this is still just 20 years we're talking about. Yes Montreal developed a lot in the mid 20th century, but was its development really that much more extreme in just a 20 year period?