Youtube's Watch Mojo finally does a Top Ten Skyline list

[pdxtex]

its all about angles too. downtown LA look the best looking to the NE where you can see all of its brick buildings and warehouses in front of the cbd. portland also looks waaaaay bigger looking to the SE from the north end of the pearl district. thats a hard angle to photograph though. from the top of the fremont bridge portland looks surprisingly massive as the topography slopes upward to the south. chicago has the "prettiest" skyline in north america. no doubt. i agree about new york, its hard to get a good clear view of all of it but it the density winner. toronto is probably number 3 in my book. that view looking south down younge is amazing...

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I always think of Toronto with the opposite skyline effect. If comparing to Chicago (probably the closest NA comparison), Toronto is notable in that the "core" skyline isn't huge, but the "metropolitan" skyline is. In short a much higher proportion of tall buildings are outside the core than in other NA metros.

North York City Centre is a long way from downtown, and totally suburban, yet has a very tall, impressive skyline corridor, all just a block or so from sprawl. It would be like building a massive skyline in Schaumburg, IL. In contrast, Chicago has a much bigger, more impressive core skyline, IMO.

And even within Toronto's core, it's more like there are different nodes around subway stops, rather than a unified skyline mass. There's the peak skyline in the financial district, then a bit of a gap until Bloor, another gap until Eglington, etc. It kind of waxes and wanes around subway stops.

Toronto's development policy appears to be very transit-friendly, and really utilizes a rather limited rail system to its fullest efficacy. Chicago has a larger rail system which doesn't seem intertwined with density or skyline development, at all. It's rather that the highrises hug the lake and the CBD.

Yonge Street in North York is pretty urban as far as suburban centres go. Almost all the buildings meet the street at the sidewalk with retail or sometimes office lobbies on the ground floor, and there's an odd mix of new highrises and old two storey shops. It does feel a bit cut off from the surrounding low rise areas. Schaumburg is a lot farther from Chicago than North York is from downtown Toronto. North York is more akin to Oak Park or Edgewater.

That being said, I was talking about the downtown skyline specifically. Downtown development has partially followed the subway stations, but not always. A lot of the towers being built aren't on the subway at all. Toronto's rapid transit system is so limited that it can't really be helped. And the transit projects underway are a long way from completion. As for gaps, it's actually solid highrises between the waterfront and Bloor-Yorkville, it's just that some areas are mostly smaller filler. Highrise development is mostly concentrated downtown now, especially in these "gap" areas. Around 70 highrises are under construction downtown at the moment.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Mister F

Yonge Street in North York is pretty urban as far as suburban centres go. Almost all the buildings meet the street at the sidewalk with retail or sometimes office lobbies on the ground floor, and there's an odd mix of new highrises and old two storey shops. It does feel a bit cut off from the surrounding low rise areas. Schaumburg is a lot farther from Chicago than North York is from downtown Toronto. North York is more akin to Oak Park or Edgewater.

Oak Park and Edgewater are old, prewar districts, built in the 1920's, not similar to anything outside of Old Toronto. North York dates from the 1970's/70's, exact same era as Schaumburg. They have the same housing stock too, and same built context, except North York grafted a massive highrise district in the area. You have 50 floor towers one block from sprawl.

Obviously equivalent areas in Chicagoland will be much further out than in Toronto, as Toronto was about Buffalo-sized up until the 1950's. Toronto has a relatively small prewar core, and you can walk to streetcar suburbia from downtown; in Chicago this kind of stuff is 10 miles out of town.

Originally Posted by Mister F

That being said, I was talking about the downtown skyline specifically. Downtown development has partially followed the subway stations, but not always.

OK, not "always", but I think there are clear development pattern differences. Toronto skyline clusters are almost always around subway stops; Chicago highrise clusters don't seem to have any relationship to rail stops, but rather focus on the regional core and lakefront.

This is probably, in part, why Toronto has significantly higher rail ridership despite a significantly smaller system. They have gotten the absolute maximum out of the transit investments.

[TownGuy]

Yeah that's quite true about Toronto. It keeps on going for quite awhile beyond the scope of this picture.

Toronto Skyline by steveve photostream #1, on Flickr

[Mister F]

^True, but it's only continuous up to a bit past Bloor. The Eglinton, North York, etc. skylines are completely separate from downtown.

Originally Posted by Crawford

Oak Park and Edgewater are old, prewar districts, built in the 1920's, not similar to anything outside of Old Toronto. North York dates from the 1970's/70's, exact same era as Schaumburg. They have the same housing stock too, and same built context, except North York grafted a massive highrise district in the area. You have 50 floor towers one block from sprawl.

Obviously equivalent areas in Chicagoland will be much further out than in Toronto, as Toronto was about Buffalo-sized up until the 1950's. Toronto has a relatively small prewar core, and you can walk to streetcar suburbia from downtown; in Chicago this kind of stuff is 10 miles out of town.

I meant in terms of distance to downtown. That part of North York was built in the early 1950s - that's when those older two storey commercial buildings were built, along with the surrounding residential neighbourhoods. Its status as a city centre didn't come until later.

Originally Posted by Crawford

OK, not "always", but I think there are clear development pattern differences. Toronto skyline clusters are almost always around subway stops; Chicago highrise clusters don't seem to have any relationship to rail stops, but rather focus on the regional core and lakefront.

This is probably, in part, why Toronto has significantly higher rail ridership despite a significantly smaller system. They have gotten the absolute maximum out of the transit investments.

Another reason is the the 1950s-80s tower in the park apartments that were built all over the city. They didn't follow subway lines at all, but they were built on suburban arterial roads with bus routes. These towers form a big percentage of Toronto's highrise stock are a big reason that bus ridership is so high. Those bus routes in turn feed the subways.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I always think of Toronto with the opposite skyline effect. If comparing to Chicago (probably the closest NA comparison), Toronto is notable in that the "core" skyline isn't huge, but the "metropolitan" skyline is. In short a much higher proportion of tall buildings are outside the core than in other NA metros.

North York City Centre is a long way from downtown, and totally suburban, yet has a very tall, impressive skyline corridor, all just a block or so from sprawl. It would be like building a massive skyline in Schaumburg, IL. In contrast, Chicago has a much bigger, more impressive core skyline, IMO.

And even within Toronto's core, it's more like there are different nodes around subway stops, rather than a unified skyline mass. There's the peak skyline in the financial district, then a bit of a gap until Bloor, another gap until Eglington, etc. It kind of waxes and wanes around subway stops.

Toronto's development policy appears to be very transit-friendly, and really utilizes a rather limited rail system to its fullest efficacy. Chicago has a larger rail system which doesn't seem intertwined with density or skyline development, at all. It's rather that the highrises hug the lake and the CBD.

Toronto's overall skyline is spread out and numerous but my complaint is that The tallest building in the financial core skyline are all neighbours which is not appealing to me. If the tallest were also spread out like the rest of the skyline, it would look much better.

[TownGuy]

I guess that's where it all comes down to personal preference. Some people like that there is a tall cluster in the heart of the skyline. Just as an interesting fact Torontos 4th and 6th tallest aren't anywhere near the core and if not for a couple cheat spires (Trump is specifically guilty of this) they would be 3rd and 4th tallest in the city.

Also..with all the new construction going on in Toronto the downtown cluster is being slowly blocked out (if being viewed from the lake) by new development. Is that for better or worse? Who knows.

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Tdot! by Cyclonic Niloy, on Flickr