[taal]

Mississauga needs to strategize on how to entice business, white collar business, to their core if they truly want to lose this "Toronto's suburb kid brother" moniker and grow into something more than a concentration of condos. I have no idea how this would be accomplished though. They can't compete in the finance industry nor can they be a talent hub due to lack of higher education institutions.

Kinda silly ... we're one region ... Toronto's talent is Mississauga's talent as Markham's talent is Toronto's talent ... you're referring to it as if it was hundreds of kilometers a way.

They do attract tons of business ... I can list many companies that have relocated their headquarters from various parts of Toronto (outer 416 for the most part) ... not only that, companies have relocated here from across Canada. The issue is attracting this office development to the core instead of the 401 / airport / Eglinton / west Mississauga area ... which, in my opinion is worst sprawling office development node in the GTA ... but this is what business like ... I don't think you'll see a strong desire to change this in the immediate future ... yes MCC plans indicates a desire to attract more office usage, I think we may see this but not for a decade or so ... and then it really comes down to Toronto's willingness to lose business from the outer 416.

 

[UCL kc]

Kinda silly ... we're one region ... Toronto's talent is Mississauga's talent as Markham's talent is Toronto's talent ... you're referring to it as if it was hundreds of kilometers a way.

They do attract tons of business ... I can list many companies that have relocated their headquarters from various parts of Toronto (outer 416 for the most part) ... not only that, companies have relocated here from across Canada. The issue is attracting this office development to the core instead of the 401 / airport / Eglinton / west Mississauga area ... which, in my opinion is worst sprawling office development node in the GTA ... but this is what business like ... I don't think you'll see a strong desire to change this in the immediate future ... yes MCC plans indicates a desire to attract more office usage, I think we may see this but not for a decade or so ... and then it really comes down to Toronto's willingness to lose business from the outer 416.

Sorry, I sometimes poorly describe what I am talking about. I should clarify then, yes, Mississauga attracts business, just not the business that is going to build a central business district. Mississauga has plenty of industrial parks.

No we are not hundreds of kms away from each other but where a company decides to place its HQ has everything to do with local talent. Markham talent certainly is not Toronto talent. If you put your head office in Markham say, you will be attracting 'B' talent. If you want 'A' talent, you locate to an easily accessible part of Toronto (or if you are RIM locate beside Waterloo University, or if you are a big pharmaceutical move to Montreal or if you are an oil company locate in Calgary) . All I'm saying is if you want the best, your company locates near the best, which Mississauga is not. The distance between Toronto and Mississauga makes a huge difference. Mississauga is going to have to come up with something other than cheap rent to compete and draw companies to places other than its industrial parks.

 

[doady]

Mississauga needs to strategize on how to entice business, white collar business, to their core if they truly want to lose this "Toronto's suburb kid brother" moniker and grow into something more than a concentration of condos. I have no idea how this would be accomplished though. They can't compete in the finance industry nor can they be a talent hub due to lack of higher education institutions.

Proportion of population with post-secondary education, 2006:

Mississauga 49%
Toronto 40%

Just sayin'.

 

[Rowe]

No one at RIM lives in Waterloo. It's a sad fact.

What your saying is true but not for the GTA. Markham, Vaughan and even Mississauga are suburbs of Toronto. Most of those people work in Toronto and people from Toronto work in those suburbs. You also have to include that fact that the GTA is 'trying' to streamline transit within the region. Which means talent can go freely within the region.

Bringing it back to your Waterloo example... Google Canada just moved it's suburban Waterloo office to downtown Kitchener. The city's 'image' does not really apply when they are so close. This goes for Toronto and the GTA.

Back to the topic, it is nice to see a suburb like Mississauga.. invest in more urban development like this square.

 

[UCL kc]

Transit does have more of a influence than actual city boundaries, however in the context of industry that will build a city's core, which is almost always related to finance in someway, Mississauga does not have a ready supply of talent that could support that and that is a fact. And no one at RIM lives in waterloo, but a hell of a lot of them studied there which brings us back to my point- there is a steady supply of talent that RIM and Google need located in the Kitchener Waterloo region which is why it is strategic choice for them to locate there. This really is the sort of argument that lends itself better to power point presentations rather than online building forums...

oh and doady, just because you have post secondary education doesn't mean you are talented! trust me, you should have seen the people I studied with

 

[Rowe]

Kitchener and Waterloo are two different cities that are glued together like Toronto and Mississauga. So RIM, UW, WLU, Google etc. are a benefit to the region.. not just one city. Both cities.. Toronto and Mississauga are investing in themselves because it makes the region a more attractive place to be. Like this square or the new park in MCC.

But Markham, Vaughan and Toronto are also investing.. so I don't think there will be a day when the cities of the GTA will compete against one another.

There is a book from some economist that one or two of Canada's banks will move HQ to Calgary... So I think we have more to worry or think about than Toronto vs. Mississauga + suburbs

 

[taal]

Kitchener and Waterloo are two different cities that are glued together like Toronto and Mississauga. So RIM, UW, WLU, Google etc. are a benefit to the region.. not just one city. Both cities.. Toronto and Mississauga are investing in themselves because it makes the region a more attractive place to be. Like this square or the new park in MCC.

But Markham, Vaughan and Toronto are also investing.. so I don't think there will be a day when the cities of the GTA will compete against one another.

There is a book from some economist that one or two of Canada's banks will move HQ to Calgary... So I think we have more to worry or think about than Toronto vs. Mississauga + suburbs

Oh that bank rumor has been around for ages now ... I mean that, 10+ years.

Also your admitting Mississauga can draw talent but just not to MCC? Well the suburban office parks and MCC are a stones throw away from each other, so clearly there's no issue of attracting talent.

Mississauga's commercial property tax are substationally lower the Toronto's, same goes for every other suburb - it's really Toronto that needs to be fighting to retain it's employment not the other way around - particularly in the outer 416.

Also, doady, % with university degree really means nothing - in any city in North America and likely the world the vast majority of poorer people will live in the city proper as that's where all the services are clustered.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

And the thing is, Mississauga is still growing at a respectable rate despite very nearly running out of land to build subdivisions on. Nearly all future growth is going to be in condos now.

Well, exactly, and it's not like Mississauga wasn't building apartments and condos in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Why does everyone seem so surprised and skeptical that they're trying to finish the 'urban centre' that they started to build decades ago? It's not like they built one downtown and now they're ripping it up and starting over...they're building on greenfields and a mall parking lot around a few urban nuclei (the civic centre/library/theatre, a few offices and residential towers scattered around). You can't build a 'finished' city in 10 years.

Besides, most of the 'downtownness' that will be added to Mississauga Centre will be added through the master-planning, landscaping, street retail., etc., of each condo site, one development at a time, not through some civic mega-scheme. The sheer density, the sheer amount of sky filled up, the lack of fields and parking lots, the addition of people and parks and stores. No political will is necessary to achieve this because it's already happening. Only *redevelopment* requires any serious political will, such as this civic square rebuild, or cobbling together property to build a quaint main street - these things are important, yeah, but the bulk of the neighbourhood can be built without them. Mississauga has always wanted more offices and institutions in its downtown - and having a wide assortment of employers, a hospital, religious buildings, nightclubs, etc., would be very desirable - but just because something gets put on a checklist doesn't mean it's going to happen, even with the political will to add token land uses like a game of SimCity. Fortunately, there's enough land and enough redevelopable land that the area can still largely grow up on its own.

 

[doady]

oh and doady, just because you have post secondary education doesn't mean you are talented! trust me, you should have seen the people I studied with

You are the one who brought up the topic of higher education, not me.

 

[Dan416]

Mississauga needs to strategize on how to entice business, white collar business, to their core if they truly want to lose this "Toronto's suburb kid brother" moniker and grow into something more than a concentration of condos. I have no idea how this would be accomplished though. They can't compete in the finance industry nor can they be a talent hub due to lack of higher education institutions.

So I guess the Canadian head offices of Microsoft, HP, Oracle, American Standard, DuPont, FedEx, GE, Honeywell, Kellogg, Office Depot, Marriott, Mattel, Pepsi, Wal-Mart, Whirpool, Western Digital, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, General Mills, Pitney Bowes, Ingram Micro, ChevronTexaco, Boston Scientific, UPS, Accenture, Canon, AstraZeneca, Bridgestone/Firestone, Electrolux, Fujitsu, GlaxoSmithKline, Hitatchi, LG, Nissan, Novartis, Samsung, Siemens, Sharp, Ricoh, Nestlé, NEC, Biovail, Ericsson, Bell Mobility, Maple Leaf Foods, Orion Bus, Panasonic, Purolator, World Vision, etc. ad nauseam. don't count as white collar now do they? (Ref: http://www.mississauga.ca/file/COM/Our_Business_Community_.pdf)

And I guess the University of Toronto--Mississauga doesn't count as a higher education institution? Nevermind Sheridan College.

Sorry, I sometimes poorly describe what I am talking about. I should clarify then, yes, Mississauga attracts business, just not the business that is going to build a central business district. Mississauga has plenty of industrial parks.

No we are not hundreds of kms away from each other but where a company decides to place its HQ has everything to do with local talent. Markham talent certainly is not Toronto talent. If you put your head office in Markham say, you will be attracting 'B' talent. If you want 'A' talent, you locate to an easily accessible part of Toronto (or if you are RIM locate beside Waterloo University, or if you are a big pharmaceutical move to Montreal or if you are an oil company locate in Calgary) . All I'm saying is if you want the best, your company locates near the best, which Mississauga is not. The distance between Toronto and Mississauga makes a huge difference. Mississauga is going to have to come up with something other than cheap rent to compete and draw companies to places other than its industrial parks.

The distance between Mississauga and Toronto? What distance? We share a border. The distance can range from 1 m to 30 km + so I don't see the big issue. Countless people commute from Toronto to work in Mississauga, more so than people commuting from Mississauga to Toronto (although there's many going that way as well).

Transit does have more of a influence than actual city boundaries, however in the context of industry that will build a city's core, which is almost always related to finance in someway, Mississauga does not have a ready supply of talent that could support that and that is a fact. And no one at RIM lives in waterloo, but a hell of a lot of them studied there which brings us back to my point- there is a steady supply of talent that RIM and Google need located in the Kitchener Waterloo region which is why it is strategic choice for them to locate there. This really is the sort of argument that lends itself better to power point presentations rather than online building forums...

oh and doady, just because you have post secondary education doesn't mean you are talented! trust me, you should have seen the people I studied with

I hate when people bring something up, and then when their point is refuted, say it wasn't important anyway. Let's just move the goal posts every time...

In a nutshell, I think you're talking nonsense.

 

[taal]

He had a point at the start ... or at least it seemed that way ... and that was dense office development should be brought to MCC - all those headquarters you mention are in sprawling campuses ... but honestly, that's what these offices want for the most part and that along with lower rents is what attracts them to Mississauga in the first place.

Then he went on another rant which made no sense

 

[yyzer]

Haven't really been paying much attention to this thread lately, but just re-read some of the recent posts due to CC's amazing and accurate rebuttal /ZING!/...

Then I got back to this....

Markham talent certainly is not Toronto talent. If you put your head office in Markham say, you will be attracting 'B' talent. If you want 'A' talent, you locate to an easily accessible part of Toronto

UCL kc, this is easily the most ludicrous post on the board in several years....are you sure you are not miketoronto, back to haunt us? Laughable...

 

[Dan416]

It really is ludicrous when you consider occasionally a company will move it's HQ or head offices halfway across the country, and SOME people will relocate there (granted, by no means all). The point is, people can and do move, and they can and do commute as well. And while commuting from Toronto to Mississauga can be a pain (whether it be to MCC by transit, or the Airport Corporate Centre by car) but it's done.

 

[UCL kc]

alright, alright, some things get lost in a posting! I concede, no point in getting all upset!

 

[UCL kc]

oh, no, I'm not mike toronto either!