[MisterF]

^Which is equally uninformed.

I don't see how it's uninformed. A city like Houston is overwhelmingly suburban in nature in comparison to Toronto. It also has fewer businesses that are open late. That's not ignorant or baseless, it's just the way it is. There's nothing baseless about disliking a highly suburban city.

 

[Hipster Duck]

^you and Cooool have no idea whether Phoenix or Houston have fewer places open late than Toronto - for all you know , there might be just as many places per capita only they happen to be scattered in a decentralized manner and are much less visible.

The "endless sprawl" comment is also categorically false. Some of the biggest offenders in the sprawl department also tend to be cities that are lauded for their inner city vibrancy; Boston has ridiculous quantities of exurban sprawl that extends into 5 states.

 

[MisterF]

Boston and other northeastern US cities may have a lot of sprawl but they generally have much more urban central areas than southern cities. But Boston isn't relevant, since nobody was talking about it. Toronto doesn't have the same kind of sprawl as Houston or Phoenix; it's a much more urban, dense, and centralized city by any measure. There's nothing illogical or uninformed about preferring a more urban city.

As for nightlife, a quick search on travel sites shows more in Toronto. But even if, for the sake of the argument, a southern city has just as many late night businesses, the fact that they're more concentrated in Toronto makes it more of a 24-hour city IMO.

 

[golodhendil]

FWIW, here is a table listing American metro areas according to the sprawl index calculated in this study (one of the more extensive ones I have seen). Houston is in the top half in terms of bad sprawl, but Phoenix, consistent with several other methodologies, is actually ranked pretty well, in the bottom quarter. Boston is in the top ten for least sprawl, though trending worse in recent years.

One potential problem with this methodology is that they haven't seemed to take the entire commute pattern into account. E.g., for Boston, the way it's measured doesn't include areas like Nashua, NH, or Providence, RI, where there are people who commute daily into Boston. But my thinking is that, given Boston is the single largest city in New England, and even many people from Maine would commute 9 hrs a day into Boston (and increasingly more, so much so that Amtrak's Downeaster is seeing ever increasing ridership, looking into adding more runs and extending the line further north), it might not be entirely reasonable to count every small, ancient town in NE where people commute into Boston as "sprawl", especially when most of these developed independently long before they lost their primary industries (milling, manufacturing, etc) and became dependent on Boston (same would hold for the relation between mid/upstate New York and NYC, or mid/upstate Penn and Philadelphia).

 

[scarberiankhatru]

That study isn't any more useful than looking at a map. New York is #1, but only because its truly vast swaths of commuter/estate sprawl on Long Island, in New Jersey, in Connecticut, and so on were not counted. Instead, Stamford and Newark absorb some of these exurban counties and get sunk to the bottom of the list. Chicago's sprawl over the past few decades is absolutely atrocious - and it's been speeding up as it moves beyond Joliet and Aurora and Elgin, like how the number of people scammed by a pyramid scheme quickly becomes exponential - but it's countered by the non-sprawl in the core city itself. Atlanta has no such core, of course, which is why it's near the bottom...yet still scores four times as highly as Riverside/San Bernardino, which isn't even a real city, just [a collective noun of] suburbs.

 

[Cooool]

If you are student, family member or visitor to Columbia, you'd probably have a hard time avoiding Upper Manhattan. Or if you want to visit the Cloisters. And while I don't have the numbers, I'm pretty sure a substantial number of people will actually visit Harlem for its culture scene.
More to the point. The OP is about someone comparing living in NYC vs. Toronto. That's not about which "trendy" area looks more or less "run-down" (not that I necessarily agree with your premise that QW looks more run-down than LES), it's about the reality of the people who live there everyday. And if you feel that "wealthy" Toronto should be ashamed of its "run-down" areas, then what should one feel about NYC, arguably the premier city of the world, with the neighbourhoods I brought up? And that was only Manhattan; what of South Bronx, East New York, etc?

Other than Morningside Heights, which is almost more apart of the Upper West Side than anythiing else, I would say Upper Manhattan is the least appealling section of Manhattan. It has the highest concentration of housing projects, a significantly poor population, and there are many drug addicts as well. And truthfully, I think Harlem has such a negative image associated with it, since it used to be one of the most troubled neighbourhoods in New York, and still has many issues, that people would make an effort to avoid it. I can't think of one potential tourist attraction other than The Apollo Theatre.

And when I mentioned New York City, it had nothing to do with the connection the OP made. I was discussing what I didn't like about Toronto. And one of those things would be the fact that Toronto tends to look run-down (even in areas that are not sketchy), whereas New York obviously that's not the case (at least in Manhattan).

And I never said Toronto should be ashamed of their run down neighbourhoods. What I said was, how perplexing it is that an area considered to be trendy and fashionable (such as Queen West) looks run down.

 

[adma]

Other than Morningside Heights, which is almost more apart of the Upper West Side than anythiing else, I would say Upper Manhattan is the least appealling section of Manhattan. It has the highest concentration of housing projects, a significantly poor population, and there are many drug addicts as well. And truthfully, I think Harlem has such a negative image associated with it, since it used to be one of the most troubled neighbourhoods in New York, and still has many issues, that people would make an effort to avoid it. I can't think of one potential tourist attraction other than The Apollo Theatre.

Of course, what you're saying is meaningless when you're hedging upon the "R" word...race. Race still matters...

 

[scarberiankhatru]

To many people these days, race - and just about any other "negative" qualities one can think of - *is* a tourist attraction...

 

[golodhendil]

That study isn't any more useful than looking at a map. New York is #1, but only because its truly vast swaths of commuter/estate sprawl on Long Island, in New Jersey, in Connecticut, and so on were not counted. Instead, Stamford and Newark absorb some of these exurban counties and get sunk to the bottom of the list. Chicago's sprawl over the past few decades is absolutely atrocious - and it's been speeding up as it moves beyond Joliet and Aurora and Elgin, like how the number of people scammed by a pyramid scheme quickly becomes exponential - but it's countered by the non-sprawl in the core city itself. Atlanta has no such core, of course, which is why it's near the bottom...yet still scores four times as highly as Riverside/San Bernardino, which isn't even a real city, just [a collective noun of] suburbs.

While I agree with the general methodology and results of that study, I do agree with your criticism here. What I pointed above for Boston (not including Nashua and Providence into Boston's count) is also true for NYC (as you pointed out), LA (separating Orange County, Inland Empire and Ventura County from Metro LA), SF (separating Oakland and San Jose from the count), and other big metropolitan areas. The problem is that they wanted to keep consistency in looking at PMSAs / NECMAs only, and in doing so compromised on taking the entire commute pattern into account. On the other hand, big US metro areas are much more multicentred than the likes of Golden Horseshoe or smaller US metros, and can be anchored by multiple million-people cities with their own pool of commuters, so I can understand why they are hesistant to use CSAs in their calculations. At the end, no sprawl index is perfect.

Other than Morningside Heights, which is almost more apart of the Upper West Side than anythiing else, I would say Upper Manhattan is the least appealling section of Manhattan. It has the highest concentration of housing projects, a significantly poor population, and there are many drug addicts as well. And truthfully, I think Harlem has such a negative image associated with it, since it used to be one of the most troubled neighbourhoods in New York, and still has many issues, that people would make an effort to avoid it. I can't think of one potential tourist attraction other than The Apollo Theatre.

And when I mentioned New York City, it had nothing to do with the connection the OP made. I was discussing what I didn't like about Toronto. And one of those things would be the fact that Toronto tends to look run-down (even in areas that are not sketchy), whereas New York obviously that's not the case (at least in Manhattan).

And I never said Toronto should be ashamed of their run down neighbourhoods. What I said was, how perplexing it is that an area considered to be trendy and fashionable (such as Queen West) looks run down.

Perhaps "ashamed" was poor paraphrasing on my part, but no, what you said was that Toronto is a wealthy city that (unexpectedly, surprising, however you want to put it) has run-down looking areas, and my counterpoint is that even "wealthier" cities have even more truly run-down and neglected areas. The social problems in Upper Manhattan you brought up are exactly what I'm talking about. On the other hand, you are seriously underestimating the "appeal" (for lack of better words) of Harlem, perhaps not with international tourists who will maybe spend a week at most in Midtown/Downtown Manhattan, but the "locals" (NY or rest of US) who will go there for its arts, culture, food, etc (of course, even they will probably not frequent the wost areas in West or Spanish Harlems). Moreover, Harlem (and increasingly, other parts of Upper Manhattan like west Inwood) is gradually gentrifying, with new condos and developments, and many more NYers are actually moving into those neighbourhoods (which incidentally could very well price the original residents out of them, another problem with the criticisms in the OP that ladyscraper pointed out).

 

[Jonny5]

Some recent news and commentary on Harlem's gentrification.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Other than Morningside Heights, which is almost more apart of the Upper West Side than anythiing else, I would say Upper Manhattan is the least appealling section of Manhattan. It has the highest concentration of housing projects, a significantly poor population, and there are many drug addicts as well.

The highest concentration of housing projects is actually in the LES particularly as you get closer to the East River.

And truthfully, I think Harlem has such a negative image associated with it, since it used to be one of the most troubled neighbourhoods in New York, and still has many issues, that people would make an effort to avoid it. I can't think of one potential tourist attraction other than The Apollo Theatre.

Can you name two tourist attractions in Park Slope or Brooklyn Heights? Can you name tourist attractions in Toronto neighbourhoods like Trinity Bellwoods, Leslieville, or Roncesvalles? The main attraction (not for shallow tourists, but for urban explorers) is the neighbourhood itself: its cultural vibe, the vernacular architecture, hidden landmarks. If familiar tourist attractions are what make a neighbourhood, Bremner Avenue would be the greatest street in Toronto.

And I never said Toronto should be ashamed of their run down neighbourhoods. What I said was, how perplexing it is that an area considered to be trendy and fashionable (such as Queen West) looks run down.

Maybe that's because a run-down aesthetic is fashionable among the Queen West demographic, including more affluent groups.

 

[Tewder]

Perhaps "ashamed" was poor paraphrasing on my part, but no, what you said was that Toronto is a wealthy city that (unexpectedly, surprising, however you want to put it) has run-down looking areas, and my counterpoint is that even "wealthier" cities have even more truly run-down and neglected areas.

Maybe that's because a run-down aesthetic is fashionable among the Queen West demographic, including more affluent groups.

I would agree with Coool. Of course all cities have run-down areas, including wealthy cities, but Toronto has a certain pervasive shabbiness everywhere, and even in the nicer areas and more central busy areas. We've talked about this ad nauseum on this forum: broken and cracked gum-stained sidewalks, messy overhead wires everywhere, tilting wooden hydro poles, unkempt parks and public spaces, postering and tagging, messy ugly street furntiture and of course the Waterfront. Now there are definitely improvements in some of these things and a greater public awareness which is good, but which also sort of proves the point to start with.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

If Toronto is overwhelmingly slightly shabby, is that better or worse than having a few pockets of nice stuff surrounded by endless miles of city that looks like it's been ravaged by zombies and nuclear fallout?

Toronto is the Lesotho of cities...we don't have the highest highs, but our low points are higher than everyone else's.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

It might also have something to do with the lack of extremes (I use that term very very loosely here) in socioeconomic status and political power - that a slightly degraded public realm for everyone is a more desirable outcome than any political structure that will allow for extremes.

AoD

 

[Eug]

To many people these days, race - and just about any other "negative" qualities one can think of - *is* a tourist attraction...

Yes and no.

"Race" is an attraction to me in Toronto. Very strong mix in many neighbourhoods, all (relatively) happily getting along. Same can be said of many areas of New York.
"Race" did startle me in Atlanta though. Much bigger class division, and that class division was to a large extent based on race.