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over populated? (pg. 2)
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| Jayx1 |
what we need is a bus system where i know that:
-Im not going to be walking half an hour to get to a bus stop.
-im not going be be waiting more than 5 or 10 minutes once i get there
-Its not going to take me 3 hours to get somewhere that takes 30 mins by car.
Id love to sell my car and use the transit system as i did in europe and south america. Sadly its just not possible here unless your entire life is lived within a kilometre of where you live. |
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| Jayx1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by timmyboy
well moscow is very congested too... its a problem of every big city |
sure but take a look at how many more people use public transportation there. |
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| timmyboy |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
sure but take a look at how many more people use public transportation there. |
true mostly coz most ppl cant afford cars.. and the TTC beats the russian public transportation system except the subway of course |
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| ShadoWolf |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
Toronto isnt overpopulated...its just that:
- our road system is built for a city of 2 million but tries to handle a city of 5 million.
- city hall makes it worse instead of better by changing 4 lane roads to 2 lane roads in order to install bike lanes that nobody uses. Not to mention the millions of useless speed bumps.
- our transit system is laughable which is why nobody uses it. Saying that its one of the best in North America isnt saying much either. Thats like saying that dog smells better than horse . :D
- people have lost driving ettiquette which frustrate people even more. Note: left lane is for passing, right lane for driving. In Europe they fine you for this. Forget photo radar, lets get the left lane hogs off the road. |
brilliant post. |
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| ShadoWolf |
Toronto is the most over-rated city on the planet IMO.
Just wondering, why do we need so many immigrants in Toronto? |
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| dEsidEL |
| quote: | Originally posted by ShadoWolf
Toronto is the most over-rated city on the planet IMO.
Just wondering, why do we need so many immigrants in Toronto? |
we don't .. they like everyone else, just choose to move here
ideally places like Winnipeg, and Halifax actually need them more than we do (especially out East)
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| drgoodvibe |
| quote: | Originally posted by ShadoWolf
Just wondering, why do we need so many immigrants in Toronto? |
that deserves a :rolleyes: .. ignorance must be bliss eh? |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
Toronto isnt overpopulated...its just that:
- our road system is built for a city of 2 million but tries to handle a city of 5 million.
- city hall makes it worse instead of better by changing 4 lane roads to 2 lane roads in order to install bike lanes that nobody uses. Not to mention the millions of useless speed bumps.
- our transit system is laughable which is why nobody uses it. Saying that its one of the best in North America isnt saying much either. Thats like saying that dog smells better than horse . :D
- people have lost driving ettiquette which frustrate people even more. Note: left lane is for passing, right lane for driving. In Europe they fine you for this. Forget photo radar, lets get the left lane hogs off the road. |
So true!
The problem isn't the size of the population, it's its spread. Huge proportions of the population are forced into small pockets of the city (like 2-lane roads or those annoying 2-lane segments of the 401). I would love to save nearly half of what I earn, ditch the car and take public transit, but it's not practical when I would have to spend 4 hours of my day commuting. So I have to drive, even though I don't want to, and share the road with idiots who don't seem to have a clue what's going on around them.
I don't blame it 100% on the city though. Normally, the provincial and federal governments are supposed to realize that cities like Toronto attract a lot of tourism and are hence worth investing money in. Revamping the subway system to a European standard requires far more money than the city has - it needs the budget of a higher-level government. |
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| ShadoWolf |
| quote: | Originally posted by drgoodvibe
that deserves a :rolleyes: .. ignorance must be bliss eh? |
the rest of the country needs to be filled out... we live in the 2nd biggest country in the world, yet everyone moves to Toronto
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: |
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| disko-kandi |
| quote: | Originally posted by ShadoWolf
Toronto is the most over-rated city on the planet IMO.
Just wondering, why do we need so many immigrants in Toronto? |
"need"...?!
on another note, if i had to commute every day to TO from Richmond Hill i think i would have to kill myself! it's true, it is a disaster! so much space in this country and we have to be crammed into a sardine can called the DVP! :whip: :wtf: ...
there's not going to be an easy & cheap solution ...
here's an article that might interest some of you:
Canada's biggest cities see influx of new immigrants
By MARINA JIMÉNEZ AND KIM LUNMAN
Globe and Mail – Thursday, August 19, 2004
TORONTO and OTTAWA -- Canada's megacities are absorbing an ever increasing number of immigrants, a demographic revolution that has created a country of two solitudes and put unprecedented strain on everything from health care to public transit.
Seventy-three per cent of the 1.8 million immigrants who arrived in Canada from 1991 to 2001 settled in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver, a new trend according to a Statistics Canada study released yesterday.
The study, which analyzed census data from 2001, 1991 and 1981, found that 20 years earlier just 58 per cent of recent immigrants lived in Canada's three largest metrolitan centres.
Urban planners say the federal government has failed to create programs to disperse immigrants to smaller cities, where populations are aging and in decline, while Ottawa says it is impossible to force newcomers to settle in remote places.
"We're turning a half-dozen cities into intensely multicultural and multilingual places and creating these fantastically vibrant but underserviced cities while the rest of the country remains homogeneous with a declining and aging population," said Larry Bourne, a University of Toronto geographer and urban planner. "We may be creating new kinds of divides in Canada, a far more important trend than the east-versus-west division or big city versus small."
About 90 per cent of Canada's recent immigrants -- defined as refugees, and business or family-class immigrants who came to Canada between 1991 and 2001 -- live in the country's 10 largest cities, with a very small percentage going to such places as Sudbury, the Maritimes or smaller urban centres in Quebec.
Prof. Bourne believes that Ottawa doesn't take geography into account when it sets immigration policy targeting 220,000-250,000 newcomers a year.
"In Canada, 45 per cent of urban centres are actually declining in population," he said. "We need efforts to disperse immigrants."
Frank McKenna, New Brunswick's former premier, predicted this year that Atlantic Canada will face a "long, slow and tortuous" decline unless it attracts more immigration to the region.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada is aware of the problem of the two solitudes -- overtaxed megalopolises and waning small towns -- and in January a meeting of federal, provincial and territorial immigration ministers was held to address the concerns raised in yesterday's report.
Jean-Pierre Morin, CIC spokesman, said the provincial nominee program was created in the 1990s to allow provinces to select independent immigrants overseas. Manitoba, for example, has recruited small numbers of Jews from Argentina in an attempt to boost its declining Jewish population.
"It's understandable immigrants would want to settle in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal," Mr. Morin said. "These three cities are known worldwide. . . . Immigrants often make their choices before leaving because of family ties and accessibility. We cannot force people."
The demographic revolution not only has profound consequences for Canada's urban landscape, but also for public services, housing and infrastructure. The Statistics Canada study found that recent immigrants are more likely to use public transport and require English-language classes, housing and other immigrant-support services.
"Ottawa only spends $500-million a year on immigrant-support services, which amounts to $1,500 per newcomer," Prof. Bourne said. "But there is an immense pressure on local infrastructure and a huge cost to municipalities, and the federal government should do more."
In Montreal, for example, 47.8 per cent of recent immigrants take public transport to work, compared with 20.1 per cent of Canadian-born residents. In Toronto and Vancouver, about one-quarter of all children up to the age of 17 were recent immigrants or the children of immigrants and account for a significant share of the student population. Most lived in households where the primary language spoken was not English or French.
"With the changing demographics of Canada's largest cities, it's imperative to have city-level data to effectively assess whether quality of life can be sustained," said Grant Schellenberg, the report's author and a Statistics Canada senior researcher.
Experts say it's understandable that newcomers gravitate toward cities with robust job markets where they can rely on fellow immigrants to help them find housing and jobs, as well as familiar places of worship and stores that carry food from their homelands. |
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| malek |
| quote: | Originally posted by ShadoWolf
the rest of the country needs to be filled out... we live in the 2nd biggest country in the world, yet everyone moves to Toronto
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: |
well immigrants choose where they want to live.
Its not sovietic canada. |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by malek
well immigrants choose where they want to live. |
Why should we be giving so many rights to immigrants? The charter of rights only applies to citizens and permanent residents. I can't even imagine what the basis could be for saying that they should be able to choose wherever they want to live, but that seems to be the policy - live wherever you want, speak whatever language you want, get however much or however little education you want - no need to actually contribute to the economy or the national culture. It must be nice for people from oppressed countries to be able to swing by Canada and help themselves to whatever they please. :rolleyes:
I notice a major paradox in this country's politics. We have a huge number of isolationists - people who are anti-capitalism, anti-American, anti-free-trade, pro-censorship (CRTC etc.) and so on, basically people who feel we should be more like a European country - and yet those same people are in favour of loose immigration and diversity policies which pack more and more non-citizens into the same places and encourages them to contribute as little as possible.
You folks do realize that this conflicting pair of ideologies is absolutely disastrous economically when put into practice, right? On the one hand you'd like to see ties severed with countries like the USA and UK who have great wealth, but at the same time accept immigrants from poor countries and make it easy for them to suck up jobs and cause population explosions in already overcrowded urban centres. Not a very effective policy.
Of course I don't mean to divert attention from the fact that we COULD be coping if a lot more money was invested in this city's infrastructure, but it's still a band-aid solution to a real political problem. |
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