Quote:
Originally Posted by counterfactual
I think it makes complete sense to measure Halifax on a CMA basis, given that our biggest struggle is business parks located within those boundaries. It really doesn't matter if Sheet Harbour or Cole Harbour are included in the Halifax "outside the core" metric, because office space there is negligible. Arguably, this approach best captures the city's challenges.
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Sure, but office space is distributed not according to city boundaries, but economic regions. The Halifax CMA is an economic region. The GTA is an equivalent economic region, whereas the City of Toronto is only a fraction of that larger region, equivalent perhaps to the peninsula and downtown Dartmouth/Bedford.
So if we look at the Halifax CMA and say "43% of the office space is downtown," we can only compare that by looking at the entire Toronto CMA and seeing how much space is downtown. Given that apparently only 53% of the City of Toronto's office space is downtown, once you include all the office parks and everything else in the 905, I'd wager downtown TO has something like one quarter of the region's office space. Vancouver is an even more extreme example, with the city proper representing an even smaller fraction of the office market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by counterfactual
By contrast, I don't think it's unfair to exclude other actual cities in Toronto's mapping, given that Brampton and Mississauga were previously stand alone cities just swallowed by Toronto's outgrowth of sprawl, and then connected for municipal administrative reasons. Admittedly, there are places that are caught in HRM, but saying Brampton should be included is like arguing Truro should be considered in Halifax's study boundary. Seeing as how I can get to Truro in a 40min commute, which is the same commute for coming downtown Toronto from Etobicoke on the Bloor line.
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I think Brampton and Mississauga are really more like Cole Harbour and Eastern Passage, etc. They were all standalone towns, which only grew to their present size due to urban proximity. They're directly adjacent to the city proper, connected by transit, and are a major part of the commuter shed. They're formerly independent towns that have become suburbs of the larger city. Whereas Truro, an hour's drive away and unconnected by transit, would be more like Barrie or something.
At some point, the huge size discrepancy between these places makes comparisons difficult (I mean, Mississauga alone is bigger than HRM). And there's no doubt that our business parks have become an impediment to downtown. But still, we've got to compare apples to apples.
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