Canadian Off Topic Thread

Uncle Flav, I'm with ya. A good friend of mine who is up on crazy, arcane stats told me that Toronto proper has a net population growth of 10,000 people per year.

We've got other issues in the city, though, and I'm glad I live here. We're going to see marginal increases in population density in this neighbourhood, but others areas with the condo development are going to have their own serious issues.

That said, for the foreseeable future, I'm keeping my place in the city and will be building something way, way far away from Toronto.

P.S. Uncle Flav, we need to have a chat. I need your wisdom.

 

Ur totally right about the 3 points u said, we (here in woodbridge) just started that green box thing, and i hate it already...anndd the traffic isn't as bad (yet) BUT i know its going to grow...

from what i've seen, i think the city is spending moeny in the wrong areas, i know this is a smalll thing BUT, where i live, i've seen 3 traffic lights that went up, as if there isn't enough already, but thsoe three traffic lights are compeltely useless, i've never seen them change, and i read on city news' website that it costs 20 g's to put up one set of lights...

anotthherr thing i notice, is that AS SOON AS someone finds some open land somewhere, even if its a tiny lot, they throw houses up...if u drive around the city, out of the downtown core, but within toronto and not the gta, u'll see residential/commercial buildinds, with houses in btn them..

 

Move to Montreal!

 

just as bad and in some cases worse

 

Where do I start?....We've got a government that is worried about sorting our garbage,....and yet it's ok to educate doctors and allow them to leave to practice in another country. I heard somewhere last week that we are 20,000 doctors short in this country.....Well....Geeez...I wonder why? I have no problem with allowing immigrants to come to this country.....we by the most part are 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants. But,....how can we allow thousands of immigrants to come here every year....and from the first day they land here....they are allowed to use our health system? Some, or most of the people that come here.....are elderly and will never contribute a penny to the health system. On one hand the media is telling us how the people of Toronto are flocking to the 905 area to save money.....and yet we forget that we still have the same roads we had 30 or 40 years ago to bring them all back to the city every morning so they can get to work. (except for the 407)......and now....don't even let me get started on the bullsh!t scam that we are all led to beleive that there's a gas shortage because of a fire that occured at a refinery and because of it our gas is is now 30 cents a litre more than what it was a month ago!....That's enough for now...because as bad as we all think we got it here....it's sad to say....that the alternatives are even worse!!!....There's no place like home.

 

Environmentalists worry about damage to the environment from pollution and overpopulation. Yet we have huge growth year after year fuelled by growth from industry and people moving here. At what point will we have to stop or run out of room for more people?

 

This is happening at an expotential rate here in the suburbs of Vancouver. Only about two years ago, I could drive down my road two blocks and I would be in an area of small acreage properties - quiet, no traffic. One day while travelling down that road, I was stopped at a light, when I just happened to look to my right and I saw a horse grazing in the front yard of a house at the corner of that intersection! This wasn't a gigantic farm, just a small, (maybe two acre) property. It was literally at the front door of that house, casually eating away!

Now, I avoid travelling down this road after 3pm as it plugs up solid. Before and after that time period, there is a constant flow of traffic.

I have no choice but to agree that these areas do need to develop in order to meet this growth, but I don't agree with the city's planning to allow too many of these homes packed so close together. They also don't plan the infrastructure properly to handle the flow of this future traffic that'll flow - or crawl - from these areas. One of these developments that is in the final stages along this road that I mentioned look very nice, they're classy Tudor-style townhomes, but it looks awful as it is literally a wall of these things, stacked continuously down the road.

 

Not sure I agree with you Peter. We need immigration to keep our economy going with our aging DINK's (double income no kids) and singles. Just not the same number of kids being popped as we we used to have.

Now we're are we going to put all these people? Land value's climbing so high that we need higher density for anything to be affordable. Our first place was a wall-to-wall rows of townhouses - worked ok as a first place and wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it'd be. Perception.

but let's not put them on prime farm land, at least that's the idea with the ALR. But people want to live somewhere safe, green, and decent looking. Sounds a lot like your area.

So we build up where we've already saturated with houses and townhouses - just look at the condo's going in downtown, Port Moody, and richmond. And we build out where there's still a tree or two to cut down - like Langley and Surrey.

The road system hasn't been touched in, what, 40 or 50 years? It'll take a decade to fix, unfortunately. We have a new bridge on our side of the Fraser, with another one going up in a couple of years (Coquitlam and Pitt River). Looks like there's finally funding for Highway to be more of a highway than Barnett Highway. Rapid Transit to YVR is going in. Sea2Sky Highway is a big improvement. More embarassing that we can't even get buses over the Port Mann because traffic's too rough (although the commuter lanes added do help a lot).

Your road system in Langley is getting some help - you did get the 208th and 200th overpass built. You're also getting the new bridge over the Fraser - that'll be a huge help. And Translink being burned to the ground might allow for the Port Mann to be twinned (the additional lane does help- that's fairly new).

Sure looks a lot better now than it did 4-5 years ago.

 

The 905 region has more population than the 416, and it will continue this way until we run out of land. 1000's of new homes go up in the 905 every year (approx), as opposed to a few condos and small divisions in the 416.

At least we are getting the subway to hwy 7 and Jane st. excellent idea considering all the Vaughan and RichHill people can take the subway downtown from there. Its a good start, and very expensive! (150$ mil / km!!) but well worth it. Next step would be to push a subway into Mississauga.

IMO Mississauga is now the best "suburb/city" in Canada, although I don't live there, I am there often and come to the conclusion that its has been properly developed and built, with Peel region, the Mayor, developers and construction firms doing an excellent job in evenly distributing infrastructure and roads. Their transit system is great, it is clean, healthy and provides many, many jobs for its residents.

 

Heard L.L.'s name on the news today as his house was destroyed in Collingwood (house fire ?); apparently a summer home. Hope the Enzo and other toys weren't stored inside.

Chris

 

A 2M mess apparently...poor guy, hope he didnt lose too many personal items, cars and furniture can always be replaced, family pictures and peronal belongings cant.

 

Milton growth good.

 

Funny you mention this point, I was disucssing this with a freind of mine who is also a professional. The reason why we dont have many kids today is we want a better life style, not just for ourselves but for our children. I personall could afford to have another 3 kids ontop of my 2. Problem is, my educated wife with a good paying job would have to stay home, and we would struggle abit to put thorugh all 5 kids into University/College if they wished to attend. I think that is the fundamental reason here in North America. We prefer to live better with our families (vacations, toys, cars....) other countries jsut want to have kids then try to come here and want what we have for free.

Yes we need immigration, but not at the growth rate that we are acccepting them.

As for Joe (forza-italia) i tend to agree with you that if a family member comes to this country they should not have the "free right" to medical care. I do agree that families should be together and if they want to sponser a family member, if they are not a contributor to our way of life here and pay taxes, then the freebees like Medical, Dental, Workmens Comp and other things should not be made available. if they dont have the money, the sponser member should foot the bill.

 

No, his cottage was in Innisfil, we have a property a few streets down, neighbors said the explosion was heard from his place on Big Bay Point. Its on the lakeshore but secluded from other homes.

What a terrible situation.

Everyone is familiar with Mr. Leibel because he has a great Ferrari and car collection, as well as a Ferrari FXX.


His house "blew up". ???

I'm not in favour of tabloid threads, but here is the link since the news has already been posted.

http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=444335&catname=Local+News&classif=News+%2D+Local

 

gonna call and see how he is.

 

Canada is one of two countries with the lowest population density in the world, yet we are running out of space?

Come on...it's not immigration or the quoted "population explosion"...it's the fact that everybody wants to live in a city, or close by.

And, as the manufacturing sector (textile, pulp and paper etc.) continues to shrink, more people that previously would have stayed in places like Red Rock and Marathon will look for desk jobs in the GTA and the situation will get worse...

Just wait till QC has another referendum....TO will grow even faster still...

 

I think its important to remember that as citizens of this country, we have a responsibility to keep it in top shape. Not that I'm a huge environmentalist by any means, but we need to have managed growth. A good example would be my town, Oakville, the mayor says he wants smart growth. So limiting the number of house built, how tall buildings can be etc. Is it really worth sacrificing the character of your city for the sake of crazy growth? Just ask anyone whos lived in Calgary for more than 10 years. Sweet planning, Calgary itself is bigger landwise than the city of London, England but it has very low density. Do we want the same thing here???

 

Good point....Toronto wants to be the next "New York City" with all the aparments and condos being built. Still, Toronto's density is low compared to NY because the downtown was built with houses, not high density apartments like in NY. So the only way to get people in is with condos and apartments. (Which are being built by the dozens now!)

Regarding Calgary density...Its actually a disadvantage because the bigger the area of the city, the more people will have to communte because there is so much space in between. Yes, "sweet planning" is nice because of the room and extra space, but you will need more subways and buses to reach everyone in the city. NY can move 10 million people a day thru subway of only a few km reach(north-south), where Toronto can barely move 500,000 people with 15 km of subway (north-south) reach.

 

That's both sad and almost unbelievable. How often do houses explode (on their own, that is)?

 

When I said sweet planning, it was kinda meant sarcastically lol. I guess posting kinda takes that away. In regards to public transit, people need more alternatives to get out of their cars because stuff like the GO train sucks. I've taken it several dozen times in the morning when all the career people go to their jobs in Toronto. What a sardine can, not to mention the lack of parking at these stations and then leaving the parking lot without getting hit is a feat itself. I don't think its economically feasible to just keep moving people further and further out from the big cities. We need a plan....

 

I've got a great one--keep the club district clear of 905ers.

 

But I love clubbing!

 

Don't they have 'clubbing' in Oakville?

 

Hahaha, good one. Unless you count mostly ****ty overpriced bars, or the pub nights at sheridan, no we dont have any clubs here. Not a fair comparison either, as people dont commute on daily basis to go clubbing or sightseeing in Toronto. I think its fair to say most commuting during the week is done for work and commerce.

 

Damn, too bad Sharky's closed down, that was the best place in Oakville!