How many highrises are going up in Toronto? Well, that depends.
That was nice of them: The Canadian Urban Institute’s new report about Canadian cities’ downtowns [PDF] uses the highrise construction map I made back in November to demonstrate that, as they put it on page 88, “downtown Toronto is attracting many new high rise towers, particularly in the south western quadrant of the core.” Very true! (Over at OpenFile, John Michael McGrath pulled a few other interesting things from the report.)
But hey, speaking of tall buildings: how many are actually being built, right now, in Toronto? The correct answer is both “a whole lot” and “more than anywhere else in the world, thanks,” but beyond that, it gets complicated. I’ve read a million news articles over the last year that make some mention of how many highrises this city has under construction, but the number’s always lower—by a hundred or so—than the 239 I ended up counting six months ago.
When you measure a number like that matters, of course, but what it really seems to depend on is what you call a “highrise.” I went with the City of Toronto’s definition: seven storeys and up. But everyone else seems to be using whatever construction research company Emporis says, and their definition of a “highrise” is weird: it only covers buildings between 12 and 40 storeys tall. If a building’s taller than that, it’s called a “skyscraper,” not a highrise, and doesn’t count in their totals. Whether a not an 11-storey building’s a highrise is something to argue about, but a 44-storey building should probably count as one, and when someone writes an article about the boom of highrise construction in Toronto, they probably don’t mean to exclude from their count the buildings that actually rise the highest.
Not that my methodology of using active building permits and shoring permits was perfect, either, and I’m sure that the number I came up with has changed since I measured it. But, Toronto, please, when you want to brag about how many tall buildings we have, err on the side of bigger.
THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN, AND THEY DON’T REALLY SEEM TO CARE MUCH FOR LIBERTY VILLAGE The neighbourhood, which has transformed over the last two decades from an industrial zone into a place where people (well, some people) actually want to live, has been crowned Toronto’s most overrated neighbourhood by The Grid’s readers, while not-so-disastrous St. Clair West has some bragging to do—it’s Toronto’s most underrated neighbourhood.
TORONTO THE BETTER This week’s cover story of The Grid is, oh hey, mine and Katie Underwood’s! It’s thirty-four big ideas to make Toronto better, from thirty-four of Toronto’s smartest people. Plus, if you think you can do better (and what are you, some kinda hot shot?!), we want to hear your idea, too.
NOT ALL DISGRUNTLED ANONYMOUS INTERNET COMMENTERS ARE WRONG Sometimes they leave a comment on a months-old article to tell you that you need “to redo grade 5 math,” and they are absolutely correct.
AND TORONTO’S THREE MOST OVERRATED NEIGHBOURHOODS ARE… Liberty Village, The Distillery District, and Yorkville—at least as selected by The Grid’s readers. Go read why, and vote now to decide who we’ll crown the big loser, while I try to figure out how the Annex and Little Italy didn’t make it to the final three.
YET ANOTHER REASON TO PICK UP THE GRID Not that you shouldn’t already be grabbing a print copy of The Grid each and every week—there’s no such thing as a good excuse not to—I’d be remiss if I didn’t insist you grabbed, I don’t know, two to three additional copies of this week’s and next week’s? I’m filling in as the paper’s city editor for the May 3 and May 10 issues while Matthew Halliday is on a much-deserved vacation. There’s stuff you’ll only see in print, like what a bunch of people we stopped in the street think Toronto should really declare war on, because this doesn’t count. (Plus, it’s pretty.) And okay, sure, you can read most of what’s in the paper online too, and there’s even a really splendid online-only gallery of War of 1812 re-enactors getting suited up in the parking lot behind Fort York last weekend. But, like, print, man.
IS THERE LIFE AFTER DEBT? Young people in Toronto are spending way too much, saving way too little, and getting way too comfortable with being neck-deep in debt. On the latest episode of The Grid Podcast, I weep uncontrollably in the corner for six to seven minutes ask what’s wrong with us. Subscribe on iTunes!
I’LL TAKE IT, TORONTO STAR I’ve got an article in print in the Star for the first time today, which doesn’t really count because it’s their edit of a longer story I wrote for The Grid two weeks ago with a new photo. But it also doesn’t not count. (Here’s a closer look.)
