Re: Is Canada Home?
 

I think you need to keep in mind that its the 3rd or 4th largest city in North America, and could be far worse relatively speaking, in many ways.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

Granted. I only threw that in so I could lump ocean in with Canadians who think highly of Toronto; I don't imagine he's one.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

6th I've heard.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

NY, LA, Chicago, then where?

TO city is 2.5M, GTA is 5.9M

Wiki says 5th for the greater area but links to a list with the GTA 4th in N America, just ahead of Philly and Dallas/FortWorth (not counting Mexico)

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

I do read the Toronto Star - and other Toronto based media - everyday. I also have StarChoice satellite TV and watch Toronto's local news - everyday. I also read Internet blogs regarding Toronto issues - everyday. And I have family living in the Golden Horseshoe. I'm more in touch with what goes on in and around Toronto than you could ever imagine.

BTW, the designated adult-trauma centre for downtown Toronto is St. Michael's Hospital. "Today, St. Michael’s Hospital is a world-renowned academic health science centre. Every year, our 4,800 staff and 600 physicians teach 1,800 students, perform 25,000 day surgeries, treat 600,000 patients in clinics, see 54,000 patients in the emergency room and provide round-the-clock care to 24,000 inpatients." But of course, it is your daughter the nurse who is mainly kept busy by shooting victims, even though shooting victims couldn't possibly comprise 0.1 % of the hospital's patients.

You have continuously exaggerated Toronto's social problems on this forum, while you choose to continue to reside in the greater Toronto area..... that must be terrible for you - having to dodge bullets and all. Then again you would have the benefit of your daughter's skill if you ever were shot, as she has as much experience treating shooting victims as a nurse working at the US Army trauma centre in Baghdad.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

Are you sure of that? Do stop by and meet the battered women, crack whores and beggars on this block.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

Now we move from shooting victims to "battered women, crack whores and beggars" - all on your block located in "the beaches", which is one of Toronto's more desirable residential areas. It would seem that either they all find you very attractive or you are greatly exaggerating once again. Reality is likely a combination of both.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

If dbd is posting mid-afternoon on a weekday, I'd guess he is at work. In a downtown area of TO, where there are battered beggars, women and some cracking whores. I have a rough idea where his office is. I went to that area once. Once was enough. It scared me.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

I live in an area called the Beach. It's only "the Beaches" to tourists and estate agents. However, as Souvenir points out, I'm not there now.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

Certainly there are social problems in Toronto, but I have seen no evidence that Toronto is any worse than other North American cities of similar size. Rather, the opposite is the case, Toronto has the lowest crime rate of any large city in NA. The magnitude of a city's social problems can be correlated with its crime rate.

Last summer I drove around downtown Toronto for several hours, while I know the types on dbd's list exist in downtown Toronto, I didn't see any of them.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

Depends on how crime is defined, tackled and reported.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

Not really, as long as everyone is doing it the same way or if studies are compensating insome way for any deficiencies of reporting.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

That's a huge problem with crime stats though. It's not valid to compare even the rates of homicides and assaults between different states and provinces because they're counted differently, never mind trying to use them as a measure of any underlying social condition. A perrenial argument on GU is "murder rate UK vs. US" and no one can even conclusively demonstrate which has the most "deaths at the hands of another" regardless of whether one country counts them as homicides and the other accidental deaths or suicides.

If you want to measure social problems you'd likely do better to measure the queues at the food banks.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

.... so if you triple the number of food banks thereby eliminating the queues, you will have eliminated the city's social problems? :huh:

... but if you did that and the queues remained, then I say you have a lot of people just looking for free food. ;)