taal
Senior Member
I thought about this some and after taking a couple long bike rides throughout the western and eastern fringes of downtown; Areas I know well but just haven't visited in a while.
Toronto actually does have a large stock of historic buildings, many of which rival or at the very least are on the same level of those in these photos and many other north american cities.
But there's a difference, and it's a big one. It's even noticeable when compared to Winnipeg. Toronto doesn't have a concentration of these buildings in one given area, rather they are well spread around the inner core. Particularly the King / Queen west and east areas, but far apart. I recall my recent trip to winnipeg and other comparable cities (detroit is a good example as well); they tend to have a large concentration in a relatively small area (it's still substantial) but venture a little outside the core and these don't exist anymore, that's not really the case in Toronto. Not sure what the root cause is here, maybe redevelopment in Toronto which clearly took place on a level unparalelled in most other cities; which can easily be argued as a negative in this regard as we lost buildings to not so noteworthy new ones. Whereas other cities still have many un-used ones but slowly overtime they are re purposed.
Toronto actually does have a large stock of historic buildings, many of which rival or at the very least are on the same level of those in these photos and many other north american cities.
But there's a difference, and it's a big one. It's even noticeable when compared to Winnipeg. Toronto doesn't have a concentration of these buildings in one given area, rather they are well spread around the inner core. Particularly the King / Queen west and east areas, but far apart. I recall my recent trip to winnipeg and other comparable cities (detroit is a good example as well); they tend to have a large concentration in a relatively small area (it's still substantial) but venture a little outside the core and these don't exist anymore, that's not really the case in Toronto. Not sure what the root cause is here, maybe redevelopment in Toronto which clearly took place on a level unparalelled in most other cities; which can easily be argued as a negative in this regard as we lost buildings to not so noteworthy new ones. Whereas other cities still have many un-used ones but slowly overtime they are re purposed.