[condovo]

Don't know if this has been posted yet but, according to Statscan, Toronto's population

on July 1, 2010 was 2 720 024

on July 1, 2006 was 2 610 617

for a gain of 109 417 in 4 years.

In 2010, we were ahead of Chicago by 24 426 if population figures are correct. The gap is probably considerably wider today.

 

[freshcutgrass]

Drivers: 1
Smokers: -$11,000,000,000

0

The Toronto Board of Trade’s study — Global City: Scorecard on Prosperity 2010 — says road congestion caused by urban sprawl is costing $5 billion a year.

Studies also have shown that car accidents cost Canada a total of $62.7 billion every year.

(www. ehow .com)

It is estimated that transportation-related emissions will cost the health care system $11 billion to $38 billion between 1997 and 2020 (Transportation Association of Canada, 1998).

Drivers: $107.5 billion
Smokers: $11 billion

We could go on playing this game all day. I'm sure the numbers I quoted are just as bullshitty as yours...but at least accident-related costs can easily be "directly" linked, whereas smoking-realted ones can't.

We prefer the term 'humans who don't want to die prematurely due to self-inflicted stupidity' if you please.

I only wish stupidity caused death. I wouldn't be having this conversation...and Rob Ford would not be mayor.

 

[freshcutgrass]

Don't know if this has been posted yet but, according to Statscan, Toronto's population

on July 1, 2010 was 2 720 024

on July 1, 2006 was 2 610 617

for a gain of 109 417 in 4 years.

In 2010, we were ahead of Chicago by 24 426 if population figures are correct. The gap is probably considerably wider today.

That's interesting. I figured it would take a lot longer for Toronto to overtake Chicago. The 2000 census numbers showed it close to 2.9 million and as a growth over the previous census. I expected that to be trend...I didn't expect such a drop in their population over 10 years.

But my guess is the estimates will not reflect actual census data that will be counted this year. The official census for 2006 was 2,503,281, which was only a 22,000 increase over 5 years, despite significant increased dwelling units. It's highly unlikely the census will show a 200,000 gain. We sure have added a crapload of new condos, but I think the overall trend in decreasing household size is going to keep those gains in check. Unless 2006 was a HUGE goof in counting, I expect a gain, but not enough to "officially" move us ahead of Chicago. So I would probably not start printing the posters yet.

 

[CN Tower]

0



(www. ehow .com)



Drivers: $107.5 billion
Smokers: $11 billion

We could go on playing this game all day. I'm sure the numbers I quoted are just as bullshitty as yours...but at least accident-related costs can easily be "directly" linked, whereas smoking-realted ones can't.




I only wish stupidity caused death. I wouldn't be having this conversation...and Rob Ford would not be mayor.

Last point from me. How about we go a month with no cars on Toronto roads and no smokes sold in Toronto stores. One month each. Only catch is you better go first on the smokes because a week without cars would render this city as destroyed as Babylon. Finally, calling the mayor stupid makes you look a heck of a lot worse than him, i assure you of that.

Back to thread, I believe Chicagoland pop is close to 10,000,000 and full 50% larger than the GTA. Isn't that really the relevant number to compare?

 

[freshcutgrass]

How about we go a month with no cars on Toronto roads and no smokes sold in Toronto stores.

Wouldn't affect me...I cheat, and get my smokes in Six Nations. So I don't even pay the taxes!! HA!

I'm a cheater-cheater.

I lose! (or do I win...hard to tell)

I believe Chicagoland pop is close to 10,000,000 and full 50% larger than the GTA. Isn't that really the relevant number to compare?

Since it's trying to compare two entirely different delineations, it's really quite pointless...and done to death. And if I'M tired of debating it, everybody else must be as well (I'm a well decorated veteran of the old TO vs Chicago wars....I may have even started it).

The only delineation that can be compared equally, is official, legal "cities". And since Toronto and Chicago are so close and similar in many ways...even in physical size...it makes the most sense.

 

[golodhendil]

Well, if you can prove that smoking-related medical treatment is a bigger burden on health care costs (factoring in the taxes collected from tobacco), than the poor diet & exercise issues associated with being overweight, over the lifetime of that person, then I will gladly eat my words. I'm implying that overweight issues cover more conditions that require more medical treatment, starting earlier and more often than smoking related medical issues do.

Since data from Canada are harder to come by, let's look at the US. According to the CDC, smoking cost $200 billion annually ($190 from firsthand, $10 billion from secondhand), while obesity cost between $150 to $215 billion. Tobacco tax (federal plus state) adds up to around $20 billion per year, plus a few billions per year of lawsuit settlement payments from tobacco companies; while still only a small amount compared to the cost, at least these revenues make up for something (I suppose if there were to be a similar situation for obesity, we should start suing McDonald's and the other fast food chains).
What's true though is that the cost of obesity has been rising as the epidemic expanded, having doubled in the past decade. Smoking trends had been on the decline for a few decades (along with the prevalence of its associated diseases), but seemed to have stablized in the past few years as more teens and females offset the decline in male smokers (concomitant with, lo and behold, a decline in male lung cancer rates and rise in female rates).
Obesity also doesn't contribute to many more conditions than smoking; other than diabetes (the big one for obesity), smoking is as much of a risk factor as obesity (and in some cases, a greater risk factor) for various cardiovascular conditions, while also contributing to more cancers and non-cancer lung problems.

And please...pseudoscience is almost completely owned by the anti-smoking brigade (which is why they have convinced almost everyone that "ETS" kills people).

Your credibility just went down the toilet with this one statement. There is as much point in talking to someone who thinks ETS is pseudoscience, as there is in trying to engage a global warming denialist, AIDS denialist, antivaxxer, or cdesign proponentist.

 

[spider]

I only wish stupidity caused death. I wouldn't be having this conversation...and Rob Ford would not be mayor.

Freshy, don't be so hard on yourself.

 

[freshcutgrass]

According to the CDC, smoking cost $200 billion annually ($190 from firsthand, $10 billion from secondhand), while obesity cost between $150 to $200 billion.

Nice try, but your smoking figures include those wonky "lost productivity" estimates (more than half the total), while your $150B obesity figures are strictly strictly medical costs. Hey...I was only cutting and pasting all these numbers for pure fun...I certainly don't take what various pseudoscience organizations say at face value.

Your credibility just went down the toilet with this one statement.

Funny...as it's essentially the only statement I've made that has any....otherwise I'm usually full of it.

There is as much point in talking to someone who thinks ETS is pseudoscience, as there is in trying to engage a global warming denier, AIDS denier, antivaxxer, or cdesign proponentist

.

So don't talk to them.

Talking to people who think ETS kills, is like talking to people who claim to be "allergic" to ETS. I don't think ETS is pseudoscience at all...the air can contain residual amounts of tobacco smoke. But saying there is enough of anything in it to harm or kill you requires pseudoscience. So unless that $10 billion claim is for cleaning smoke residue off surfaces and ashtrays, then it is a completely invented figure.

But I doubt that's something people want to debate in this thread...agreed?

 

[golodhendil]

Nice try, but your smoking figures include those wonky "lost productivity" estimates (more than half the total), while your $150B obesity figures are strictly strictly medical costs. Hey...I was only cutting and pasting all these numbers for pure fun...I certainly don't take what various pseudoscience organizations say at face value.

I am indeed mistaken about the $150B figure, after having read the original paper. But the $215B figure for obesity also includes indirect cost of lost productivity. And there's no doubt that the obesity cost will soon greatly surpass that of smoking: in the last decade the obesity cost doubled from $120B, while the cost of smoking increased only from $160B, thanks to increasingly effective anti-tobacco policies and the decline in smoking rates (which you will of course claim is a load of rubbish).

Talking to people who think ETS kills, is like talking to people who claim to be "allergic" to ETS. I don't think ETS is pseudoscience at all...the air can contain residual amounts of tobacco smoke. But saying there is enough of anything in it to harm or kill you requires pseudoscience. So unless that $10 billion claim is for cleaning smoke residue off surfaces and ashtrays, then it is a completely invented figure.

But I doubt that's something people want to debate in this thread...agreed?

Agreed. Like I said, there is little point in trying to have a rational discussion with someone who brushes off decades of rigorous scientific evidence as pseudoscience and throws in gratuitous accusations of fabrication and conspiracy, but who has neither the knowledge nor expertise to evaluate the science. Not that the validity of scientific findings depend on a war of words on an online forum anyway.

 

[Thanos]

Back to thread, I believe Chicagoland pop is close to 10,000,000 and full 50% larger than the GTA. Isn't that really the relevant number to compare?

The metro of Chicago has about 8.7 million and the metro of Toronto has about 5.1 million. However, the metro of Chicago is 28,163.5 km2 and the metro of Toronto is 7,125 km2.
You're comparing apples to oranges.

 

[CDL.TO]

The metro of Chicago has about 8.7 million and the metro of Toronto has about 5.1 million. However, the metro of Chicago is 28,163.5 km2 and the metro of Toronto is 7,125 km2.
You're comparing apples to oranges.

True.

I did a report where I applied the US Census metro area criteria to Toronto. The conclusion is that Chicago is still much populous than Toronto.

 

[Hipster Duck]

^Do you mean you created a Toronto-Hamilton-Niagara-Waterloo-Northumberland-Muskoka CMSA?

 

[CDL.TO]

^Do you mean you created a Toronto-Hamilton-Niagara-Waterloo-Northumberland-Muskoka CMSA?

Well, not CMSA. Just the Chicago- Naperville- Joliet, IL-IN-WI MSA.

Using the American criteria, it still doesn't make Toronto stretch as far. Both Canada and the USA use commuting patterns as the primary deciding factor for delineating CMAs/MSAs. It seems that Ontarians just don't commute as long of distances as they do in the States.

As a hypothetical example, a lot more people commute from Chicago's equivalent of Peterborough to Chicago's equivalent of Oshawa than commute from Peterborough to Oshawa in Ontario (pulling their Peterborough equivalent into the MSA, while our Peterborough remains independent).

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Chicago will win in any metro comparison. If you extend Toronto to include some kind of arbitrary Golden Horseshoe-Niagara-Peterborough-Simcoe County-etc. creature, well, the fact is that Chicagoland can be extended to include places like Rockford which are about equivalent distances from the core as the GGH periphery. The big one, of course, being Milwaukee, which is only 130km from downtown to downtown (and basically 0km from suburb to suburb since sprawl is almost continuous between the two cities).

Commuting patterns would be much different in Chicago because the sprawlly executive homes go on forever. Everything is so scattered compared to the compactness and more self-contained nature of Peterborough or Oshawa or Barrie or Guelph or ... Scattered enough that people in outer Chicago must be supercommuting to god knows where. Suburban Illinois is one of the fastest growing places in America and it must be a nightmare since A) it has no north/south highways linking anything together, like the entire 905, but much sprawlier and without the 407, and B) most of the people moving out there are probably coming more central spots in Chicagoland, so their jobs may be staying put. Fun commutes for all!

Earlier I said Houston could become as large as LA, and while that is still true, census results were released on the same day I posted. Houston did not gain as many people as expected. Partly, I suspect, because more people returned to New Orleans (predictions surely had high numbers of the people moving to Houston permanently), but also because Houston has not been annexing unincorporated Harris County rapidly lately. If anything, all those medium-sized master-planned suburbs around Houston might incorporate as little bastions of neoliberalism for fear that Houston could become ungainly and problem-prone like LA or Chicago or NYC. Toronto grew only with annexations. Chicago annexed decades ago. Without annexations, no city in Canada or the US would be more than a few hundred thousand people, except perhaps some of New York's boroughs (which themselves may have consolidated earlier entities...I don't know). Whoever annexes the most land wins!

 

[Hipster Duck]

^Yeah, land annexation is the secret, although Vancouver did manage to grow from about 400,000 to 600,000 (or 50% increase) on infill alone.

And Chicago is ridiculously sprawly. I don't know why places like Chicago and Seattle get away with a free pass while Phoenix and Los Angeles are considered to be paragons for sprawl.