http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=968793972154

For those of you who don't know Toronto, this is the equivelent of Oxford Street in London.

Why is it getting so bad here?

It is sad and it needs fixing.

Yet peeps still gravitate towards the 'centre of the known world'.....it baffles me, there are so many interesting and pleasant areas of Canada, small towns with low crime and a nice feel, crying out for skilled workers, investors, small business-people, families etc.

Rich.

We're in Buffalo NY now but yesterday afternoon we were at Sam the Record Man, a store into which a shooting victim staggered an hour later. I wish my other half had not told her mother this, now the mother's terrified and wants us to move to the safety of the US!

It's not actually "getting so bad" in Toronto, at least gun violence isn't. Less than 100 shooting deaths per year in a population of 3+ million is hardly cause for alarm, especially considering that Canada has one of the world's highest rates of gun ownership. This shooting is news due to the location and the timing, another similar incident in a Jamaican neighbourhood on a day with other news wouldn't make the papers.

The reason that people gravitate to Toronto is, of course, that in Montreal people speak French, in Vancouver everything moves unbearably slowly, and the rest of the country is undeveloped tundra. I can see that there's little point in moving to Toronto if the alternative is another large city; London, NYC, Miami, Paris, wherever but for people who have to live in Canada and want urban amenities in English the choice is simple.

Absolutely! Oakville, Bronte, Burlington, Waterdown! family life at it's best. Just far enough not to be enveloped by all that is bad in a big windy city yet close enough to pop in for an evenings entertainment or a day time shop.

...and every time a new British family moves to Oakville, an angel gets its wings

No, silly, they just live happily ever after!

I have a 50% interest in a house on Lorne Park Road (that's not as far out as Oakville but a comparable neighbourhood). I originally stopped living there because the commute drove me mad, I spent more and more time in a pied a terre and eventually just didn't go back, ninety minutes each way to get to a nice house in the middle of nowhere is just too long.

Over Christmas I saw my two university aged children who grew up there, one lives in the beach (east end Toronto), one in Montreal. Like many people who have lived in domitory communities they will never go back; urban or rural one can see, but suburbs such as Oakville, Milton Keynes, Plano, Richardson and Burlington are for cars, not people.

Of course it's a mere barren wilderness compared to the wonderfully chic and urbane sophisticata that is Toronto. The land of bling bling, poodle-dogs in Burberry coats, gang wars, and smog.

Ah, the wonders of metropolitan humanity.

Rich

God bless us everyone......

Dozzzzy

Getting?

If you could point them out I would be happy to move to them, as they aren't crying loud enough for me to hear them currently. I have had the opposite experience, in that I had to leave a smaller city with a great quality of life because neither the husband or I could land a career. Unfortunately, in smaller-town Canada it is pretty much accepted that people will leave for Toronto and the like, so I find they don't do very much to retain people.

It's not just poodles anymore - I recently saw a disgruntled-looking bulldog wearing rainbow booties.

Yeah, I agree for a large city, the gun violence isn't as bad as it could be. But it is the blatantness of the violence. This is the second time this year that people have started shooting at each other in the middle of a busy shopping area, and they don't seem to care who gets hit. Also, there was the shooting incident on the bus, where a young girl got hit in the crossfire, and several other shootings outside nigh clubs, restaurants, etc.

A few years ago Toronto was one of the safest cities in the world, wonder what it will be like in another few years?

That's a very personal preference. Thousands prefer to end up in a 'nice house' in a town like Oakville at the end of the day and at the weekends. The Halton area has so much to offer including Bronte Provincial Park, harbours, marinas (one in Oakville another in Bronte and a third soon in Burlington), trails, parks, ice rinks, swimming pools (the huge irregular shaped one in Bronte Park is fantastic), a long sandy beach and a boardwalk (Burlington) and a first class performing arts centre (Oakville, soon Burlington will have one too). Sailing, boating, horse riding, skidooing, camping,
running. The list goes on. You would have to include the extremely good schools and Sheridan College. Then there are places of interest (e.g. Crawford Lake Indian Village) and rich historical residential architecture. You also have beautiful countryside within a 15 minute drive of any of the town/city centres.
If you want sophisticated eating places you'll find many of them in the downtown areas. You'll also find diversity including Mediterranean, East Indian, French, Vietnamese and really decent fish and chips! Oh, you like pubs: the Queens Head, Kings Arms, Three Judges, Coach and Four, Manchester Arms, Emmas Back Porch, Charles Dickens, The Poacher, etc, etc.
All this and much more AND you can get to the airport in 20 to 40 minutes and downtown Toronto for an evening in 30 minutes (we drove to Nathan Phillips Square from downtown Burlington on the saturday night before christmas and got there in 30 minutes), parked in the Chestnut Hotel parking lot ($7) which is just at the back of the square. One other thing, tens of thousands of the working population around here don't have to commute, they work here. There's lots of work and there are many corporate head offices.


What possible relevance does the above quote have?

Only a blind man would compare old towns like Oakville and Burlington to the modern town planning disaster of Milton Keynes. Even north of the QEW far surpasses that place. I would say it's not very smart or educated for someone who lives in a traffic congested city full of frustrated, horn honking drivers to say these towns are for traffic not people.

Must go, my son is driving us down to Niagara Falls, it'll only take 40 minutes from here.[/QUOTE]

I joined this thread as just read the stat (on BBC News...) that Toronto has had 52 gun related murders this year. In a city the size of 3 million that seems high.

But - Vancouver and surrounding cities are also experiencing more gun crime. There have been two instances this year where people intervene to stop fights outside nightclubs, and then get shot and killed.

Clare