Why does Toronto have more "street-based" neighbourhoods than other Canadian cities?

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Hamilton actually has a lot of historic "main streets" as well - they just aren't as healthy as in Toronto, and some are just plain gone at this point and almost entirely vacant.

The healthy ones like Locke, Dundas, Westdale, Ottawa St, James North, and Concession St that are more well known.. But there are rougher ones like Kenilworth, Barton East, and Parkdale that have historic streetfronting storefronts that are basically just cooked at this point.

When I moved to Hamilton it surprised me at the sheer number of them for the size of city it is. It makes me feel like it's more of an early-20th Century Ontario thing, but Hamilton experienced depopulation leading to the degrading of a lot of the retail strips while Toronto grew massively keeping them generally healthy.

Seems like pre-amalgamation Hamilton has rather weak neighbourhood identity. Besides Westdale which is rather separated from the core and home to McMaster University it's hard to think of any Hamilton neighbourhoods offhand. Though there was historically a core/Mountain split.