Hat-tip to sometimes contributor Lenny Anderson for the pointer to this article from the Toronto Star (via Mass Transit Magazine) about how dwellers in new downtown condos in Toronto are crafting a mostly car-free lifestyle.
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They’re condos in the core of a major metropolis, one with a heavy-rail subway system. We shouldn’t be pleasantly surprised they attracted car-free people, should we? We only would have known something was seriously wrong with these developments if most of the residents did drive!
There seems to be a minor REBELLION over this concept.
They have a lot of poor people, like Buffalo. Buffalo has the highest rate of rail use per mile in the country. It’s not a good thing there, it’s because there are no jobs that aren’t crap there.
Toronto absorbs a lot of Canadian jobs that are lost due to border issues. Both sides get hurt from a lack of competition, and it’s no surprise that Toronto/the rest of the Golden Horseshoe has to do something to make things hurt less.
Toronto may be Canada’s largest city, but it’s still in a bad place.
Toronto hardly has a superfluity of poor people, compared to American cities–though it does have a much higher immigrant population than almost anywhere else you might go.
While I am not quick to defend the place (especially not in the middle of January!), the general acceptance of public transit is much higher here than in any city in the USA (always excepting New York, and definitely including Portland), and the condos the article refers to are definitely not for those unable to afford a car. I would actually say that, among the people I know, car ownership is exceptional, rather than typical.