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Now...
Golodhendil......
I would agree with you completely...based on 2008 aggregate statistics, however.....a 2009 review......may show something more like what I am suggesting....
As best I can figure 3 of Canada's Big 5 are now in the worlds' biggest 15 banks
All 5 are in the top 25
That makes for one hell of a share of Financial services.
Now...this wasn't true in early 2008.
But you must account for bankruptcy's and major contractions and asset depletion.
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The 03/09 GFCI already took into account the brunt of the financial crisis in late 2008 - hence the significant drop in ranking for places like Tokyo and Sydney. But other than the obvious fact that London and NY are still
the two hubs, none of the major Swiss banks went under, and while HK and Singapore's economies were affected they were relatively unscathed compared to the West, so the top 6 positions are already stable and accounted for. The past half a year has not seen significant worsening of conditions in these places, so it's doubtful that Toronto would have any chance of climbing to the top 5, even if we do surpass cities like Boston and Frankfurt. The 09/09 GFCI should be coming out in a couple of weeks, so we will see who's right.
On parks....
Some of the examples you use are somewhat deceptive......I am sure unintentionally.
HK and Singapore are both in line with this....they are essentially big cities with very little parkland....then a large park occupying the remainder or the vast majority of what is left of their islands.
Using this method of calculation....why not just merge Ontario and Toronto....and then say Toronto's Greenspace is 86%.....
That of course would be misleading.....as the way i which the space is allocated.....is not useful to the majority of residents....
And NY, excluding Central Park is not remotely green, I have been there in person......
There are Cities that may rival us, in this respect, but these are not among them.
Which is not to knock HK, Singapore, or NY...which all have great attributes....but I think in this regard (parkspace) the stats are quite misleading...
Why exclude Central Park from NY's count? It's smack in the centre of the urban area, served by multiple subway lines and bus routes, and well used. In that case why don't we exclude High Park, the Islands and Don Valley from Toronto's count?
And no, the stats for HK and Singapore are not misleading. To count Ontario with Toronto, we would have to at least count the entire Guangdong province with HK, and the Malay Peninsula (and perhaps part of the Archipelago) with Singapore. These are not urban bubbles surrounded by a single large park, they are cities with extremely strict land use restrictions that limit urban development to the core and clusters of "new towns" in the countryside with clearly demarcated boundaries. To take HK as an example, there are strings of new towns connected by highways and railways to the urban core (all of which, btw, have significant urban parks in the middle of the town/city areas); but closely juxtaposed to these urban areas are already readily accessible parklands and subtropical forests crisscrossed by paved and well-lit trails (some of the most well-used trails and densely-forested parks around Victoria Peak are literally minutes away from one of the world's densest and largest financial centres). The majority of the countryside is divided into country parks that have ample facilities (picnic/bbq areas, campsites) and over 300 km of hiking trails that make these parks every bit as accessible, and probably more well used, than Toronto's ravines and parks. Packed beaches, wetlands of global importance, marine parks and reserves that even harbour coral reefs (popular for snorkelling and scuba-diving), geological formations of international significance - all within no more than a 10-min train ride, a ferry ride or a half-an-hour bus/car trip from the urban area. And all of these in an area no larger than the inner GTA (T, Ma, V, RH, Mi, B) - that's why I would agree with adding these areas to Toronto's count, but what we gain would mostly be fields and farms that are of even less use to the general population.
HK and S'pore have a lot of things that are worse than Toronto (political system, diversity/tolerance, education), but parks and open spaces are not one of them.