I could be way off, but I always considered St. Louis to be more industrial than Cincinnati. Being across the river from East St. Louis might have something to do with that, whereas Covington and Newport are practically extensions of Downtown Cincinnati with a pesky river in the way?

st. louis is definitely more industrial than cincinnati...i always sort of marvel at how non-industrial (and how lucky) cincinnati is around downtown for an older midwestern city to the east of st. louis, whereas industry just sort of scatters to the horizon around st. louis, up the river to the steel mills and refineries, through the heart of the city, up to the northeast towards the airport like its industry was once on steroids (hence the detroit angle). throw in another 3/4 of a million people worth of sprawl that cincy doesnt have.

another way to look at it is st. louis is like louisvilles harder edged industrial bigger cousin.

Yonge is the only major commercial street in the favored quarter. So yes, obviously it's a typical commercial street. I have no idea what you mean by "many Yonge streets"; the wealth belt has one uber-dominant corridor.
In a discussion of Toronto street level feel, a Toronto aerial would be about as helpful as an aerial of the Moon.

^ Mount Pleasant Road and Bayview Avenue which parallel Yonge to the East also have lengthy commercial stretches serving the same area.

Cincinnati and Pittsburgh have a lot of similarities in terms of the topography and the relationship of the city to the hills and rivers. There's also a lot of similarities in the built environment. Large sections of Over-The-Rhine remind me of Pittsburgh, just 1-2 stories taller, if you know what I mean.

That said, I think it kind of breaks down on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis.

Hyde Park is in some ways analogous to Squirrel Hill, in that it's an affluent "suburb in the city." However, Squirrel Hill is a far denser, more urban neighborhood (nothing like this in Hyde Park that I can see), has a much larger business district, and is much more Jewish, Asian, and left-leaning.

Similarly, Clifton and other nearby neighborhoods have a bit of an Oakland vibe, and sort of an analogous position in the city (uphill from Downtown, and a bit separated). But nothing up thataway seems to serve as a secondary CBD in the same way that Oakland does.

On the flipside, Pittsburgh has nothing exactly like Over-The-Rhine. We demolished all of our first-ring urban neighborhoods more or less (though a whole lot of second-ring neighborhoods survived). Even if those areas remained intact, Pittsburgh's 19th century density peaked at rowhouse level, meaning there really wasn't ever any great stands of 19th century tenements like Cincinnati.

Cinci doesn't have anything truly analogous to the Mexican War Streets. Cinci never really did rowhouses much like Pittsburgh, pretty much going straight from a tenement core to detached "rowhouse style" buildings set a few feet apart. Some of Mt. Adams reminds me of it a bit, insofar as it's a wealthy white historic urban enclave close to downtown, but - as is generally the case in Cinci - it's a much more conservative neighborhood than the Pittsburgh analogues.

Really, the much more conservative nature of the city of Cincinnati is one of the biggest differences between the cities, along with the different ethnic mixes (Cinci's white population is much more heavily German, while Pittsburgh's "ethnic" populaton is a mix of everything, including lots of Jews and Eastern Europeans).

Some cities that remind me of each other (tons of differences of course)

Minneapolis and Edmonton
Milwaukee and Chicago
Camden and East St. Louis
Madison and Burlington, VT

definitely disagree, and i've lived in both.


atlanta: low density, meandering roads, fewer freeways, relatively hilly, wood frame housing, huge front lawns, (outside the core historic neighborhoods) tons of large trees.


dallas: higher density (suburbs), grids, mostly flat, shorter/more sparse trees, brick housing/spanish style architecture, small front lawns. much of this applies to houston too.

Not sure why you keep bringing up the "wealth belt" as if that were of any particular relevance. Unlike some cities where you have a favoured quarter and everything else is bombed out, Toronto's north end isn't any more notable than the east or west ends.

It's actually to the west that's the most urban, dense, culturally relevant, heavily visited, etc.

I would compare Gary and East St. Louis. Maybe Camden and Baltimore.

the map at the link below refutes your point about there not being a wealth belt in toronto:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...n-the-gta.html

Always found Kingston, Ontario and New Haven, Conn somewhat analogous.

Both major rail/population/highway corridors between major cities. Toronto-Montreal. NYC-Boton

Waterfront cities.

Prestigious old money universities Queens and Yale.

Colonial and historical cities.

Both have alot of limestone.

That's a bit of an unfair characterization. Even in Chicago, America's poster-child for the "tale of two cities" theme, there are lower middle/working class areas like little village, pilsen, bridgeport, etc. that are not in the favored quarter but are still quite intact, urban, and even thriving & vibrant in places. It's not all just Lincoln Parks or Englewoods here. LOTS of shades of gray out there.

While the difference isn't as drastic as say a rust belt city, the "favoured quarter" effect is still clearly present in Toronto. When talking wealth, the historically most desirable and expensive neighbourhoods pretty much run in a straight line from Rosedale -> Forest Hill -> Lawrence Park ->Bridal Path -> York Mills. No where in the West or East really has that phenomenon of uninterrupted wealth stretching straight from the core.

Even just looking at an aerial you can see the effect with how much leafier it appears than the surrounding areas given the grander streets, bigger lots, and less exposed concrete.

https://i.imgur.com/rDPLGDL.png

No doubt there are also tons of affluent areas to the West of High Park, but they are more disconnected from the core with the Humber River pretty much acting as the Western border of the core city in prewar Toronto.

I can see Gary and ESL, although Gary is not right across the river from the downtown of a bigger city.

Camden and Baltimore have similarities at street level, but in relation to to their metros they're very different.

Compton and Richmond (CA) also remind me of each other, but of course it's much easier to find similarities between non-core cities!

I was going to suggest Philly and Baltimore, and it took four pages for someone to beat me to it.

^ they are definitely very similar. Never understood the philly to New York comparison, nor does Baltimore look like dc.

I didn't mean that there's no wealth belt (which is absolutely the north end) - I just don't understand its relevance when talking about archetypal urban forms or commercial corridors.

Montreal's twin is Brooklyn.
Toronto's twin is Melbourne.
Calgary's twin is Denver.

Of all the cities I've been to, Denver is the one that seemed the most similar to Minneapolis. The climate is different but that is about it. East Colfax in Denver is like south Minneapolis' Lake St and Lyndale Ave had a love child and it moved west. You could switch out parts of the two cities and nobody would notice.