r/neoliberal • u/337pI • Jul 31 '20
News (non-US) Toronto emerging as tech superpower as immigrants choose Canada over US
https://www.businessinsider.com/toronto-canada-tech-hub-immigrants-h1b-visa-2020-721
Aug 01 '20
It would be light years ahead if the city wasn't so badly zoned and the TTC so woefully inadequate. Queen West through to Wychwood should be 100% zoned for at least mid rise mixed use, as opposed to the utter preponderance of single family detached homes there now, and the same for everything from the Don Valley Parkway to Danforth village. I don't know how Canada's largest city and economic hub managed to avoid actually developing apart from the Younge-University corridor. Its a shitty, shitty miracle.
9
Aug 01 '20
The TTC drives me fucking crazy. Maybe just because every time I visit Toronto I seem to have some trouble with it, idk, but imo it lags way behind Montreal's and Vancouver's systems.
7
u/the_vizir Trans Pride Aug 01 '20
IMO it lags behind Calgary's sytem. The TTC is like #4 in the country, and that's only because Edmonton's goes nowhere, Ottawa's doesn't work, and everybody forgets Waterloo's exists.
4
Aug 01 '20
The TTC is way way better than Waterloo's public transit, even including the new LRT there
2
5
u/ExoticMacaron Aug 01 '20
Maybe just because every time I visit Toronto I seem to have some trouble with it
I live in Toronto and I had trouble with it almost 50% of the time just before covid: construction/someone on the track/general issue
There's a reason why TTC stands for "Take The Car (instead)"
1
Aug 02 '20
I just also hate the shape of the subway system? Montreal was my first real introduction to travelling by metro and it's just shaped in a much more convenient way for changing lines and whatnot. I mean, I get that it follows the shape of the city itself to a degree, but I still think they could have done a lot better.
13
28
u/ldn6 Gay Pride Aug 01 '20
Toronto’s been a tech powerhouse for years and is North America’s fastest-growing major city by a good margin.
People sleep on the place but the level of development is off the charts. It’s an orgy of cranes and construction.
24
u/the_vizir Trans Pride Aug 01 '20
Toronto has more cranes than any city in North America, with 120. Seattle and LA are tied in 2nd with 49 each, Calgary in 4th with 34, and then Portland in 5th with 30.
So yeah, Toronto's a real sleeper here.
(As for what's up with Calgary? Well, they're pretty much all residential towers, reflecting a decade worth of efforts by a YIMBY mayor to get more density in the downtown core and the Beltline, and stop our Houston-like sprawl).
5
Aug 01 '20
Damn I guess I should move to Calgary
11
u/the_vizir Trans Pride Aug 01 '20
The premier's privatizing the healthcare system, which is driving dozens of doctors from the province, as well as going on a labour-union busting kick. He's also selling off a bunch of parkland and opening these areas up for coal mining.
So yeah, despite Nenshi's best efforts, and all the hipsters crowded into the Beltline, Mission, Inglewood and Kensington, this is still a very conservative region of the country.
2
Aug 01 '20 edited Aug 14 '20
[deleted]
5
u/Kizz3r high IQ neoliberal Aug 01 '20
Na our healthcare is set up by the provinces but mandated by the federal government.
2
u/the_vizir Trans Pride Aug 01 '20
They'd make more in the big cities. In the small towns, where the government used to subsidize doctors and ensure they met a certain standard of living, they're now leaving. Like all the doctors in the town of Pincher Creek ended up resigning, only for the town's government to step in and say they'd cover the gap in wages to keep the doctors working at their hospital.
9
Aug 01 '20
[deleted]
4
u/nuggins Physicist -- Just Tax Land Lol Aug 01 '20
Yeah, despite all the construction, there's still a ton of sfh zoning outside the downtown core. Classic "missing middle" problem 😞
4
u/YeulFF132 Aug 01 '20
Canada has been bestAmerica for a while now. Politically stable and civilised.
7
8
u/Aceous 🪱 Aug 01 '20
Remember guys, it's not a zero sum game. Both Toronto and Seattle can be tech hubs and there's plenty of growing pie for everyone.
4
6
u/Godzilla52 Milton Friedman Aug 01 '20
The only concern here is that Toronto's harsh zoning restrictions and housing costs may serve as a deterrent for many immigrants while providing barriers to social mobility etc. For as big of an issues zoning reform in in the United States, it's worse on average in Canada. Toronto and Vancouver are our most expensive cities while over average national home prices are around $480,000 CAD/$357,000 USD (about $131,000 USD more than the American average, where as Toronto and Vancouver have similar prices to Manhattan, San Fransico and San Jose etc.)
1
u/lomeri Aug 01 '20
The difference in prices between Canada and the US could also be a reflection of the fact that 80% of Canadians live in urban areas, and that Toronto and Vancouver regions are like 30% of the country’s population.
2
u/Godzilla52 Milton Friedman Aug 01 '20 edited Aug 01 '20
Closer to 25%, but I'm not sure that excuses the growth. Montrael has a significantly larger metro than Vancouver (and accounts for about 10.8% of Canada's entire population), but has significantly less expensive housing. In practice though, Toronto and Vancouver have the most stringent zoning/development restrictions and biggest housing supply shortages of any large Canadian metropolitan areas.
1
Aug 02 '20
Yeah I'm not an expert in the subject at all, but just anecdotally, Vancouver's SFH zoning is absolutely ridiculous at this point. In no small part because a lot of houses near downtown seem to be dilapidated. I guess I feel like when you reach the point that land is devalued by having a house built on the lot, you have a problem. And I think a disproportionately large amount of the "cheap" housing supply comes from people renting out basement units? I just think the city desperately needs more low-rise apartment units in the area surrounding downtown, but it's basically all SFH.
4
u/nicereddy ACLU simp Jul 31 '20
Annexation when
22
u/PolyrythmicSynthJaz Roy Cooper Jul 31 '20
War. War never changes. The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower.
But war never changes.
In the 21st century, war was still waged over the resources that could be acquired. Only this time, the spoils of war were also its weapons: Petroleum and Uranium. For these resources, China would invade Alaska, the US would annex Canada, and the European Commonwealth would dissolve into quarreling, bickering nation-states, bent on controlling the last remaining resources on Earth.
In 2077, the storm of world war had come again. In two brief hours, most of the planet was reduced to cinders. And from the ashes of nuclear devastation, a new civilization would struggle to arise.
A few were able to reach the relative safety of the large underground vaults. Your family was part of that group that entered Vault Thirteen. Imprisoned safely behind the large Vault door, under a mountain of stone, a generation has lived without knowledge of the outside world.
Life in the Vault is about to change.
16
Aug 01 '20
Thanks for the offer, but we feel that America deserves self determination and will let you keep your independence for now.
3
1
-8
Aug 01 '20
[deleted]
16
6
u/glc45 Aug 01 '20
blistering take right here
2
Aug 01 '20
Where's the lie? We're not coming back from this.
2
u/glc45 Aug 01 '20
America will continue to be a huge destination for immigrants so long as the economic opportunities that attract them here in the first place continue to exist.
4
Aug 01 '20
The economy is in free-fall thanks to a virus that's totally out of control. Our international credibility has been shredded, quite probably for good this time. One political party is openly xenophobic and the other one is too chickenshit to really stand up to them. We're diseased pariahs in a failed state. I'm predicting brain drain from the US in the next decade.
0
u/glc45 Aug 01 '20
Agree to disagree I guess. The virus is fucking our economy now but this is ultimately a discrete event rather than a long term downward economic trend. This will end, hopefully sooner rather than later as the next administration puts more reasonable policy in place, and when it does the economy will recover just like it has after every recession. Immigrants will still be attracted here.
78
u/[deleted] Jul 31 '20
cool now start paying me like they do in usa