Actually, Toronto comes from a Mohawk word meaning "trees standing in the water" (tkaronto).

By coincidence, the Huron word toronton meaning "meeting place" looks similar, but the Huron people lived no where near what is now Toronto when Europeans encountered the place and learned its name from the Mohawk.

Seattle departed from the "enjoy being who an what we are" in the early 80's. That was our local/homegrown period where we cleaned up Lake Washington, held the World's Fair, passed the Forward Thrust Bond package, designated Pioneer Square an Historic District, saved the Pike Place Market ans successfully began the back to the city movement.

That phase was replaced in the mid 80's by a nationalization period characterized by trying to have what other cities had. That was, at first, subtle but clearly a transition away from our home-grown efforts.

In the early 90's (through today), we entered the Globalization phase of our dear City. "World Class" is the montra and bigger is better. It also signaled the change in city policies (or non-policies) from the "City for all" to the current "City for the wealthy and Tourists."

I could go on about what has been unleashed in our distinct neighborhoods to erode thier individual character, of the out-migration of the lower and middle income families that contribute to the sprawl that we all wanted to avoid. We also see a sea-change in our demographics to a less diverse mix and lessning of public education population and facilities.

So, wake up Seattle.....before you completely reverse all the good work that was done to start this locally driven success story. It's not too late.
Perhaps a good place to start is with our leaders.

Art

I agree with much of this article. There's much to love about Toronto.

Toronto's success isn't just size, but density. It grew in a denser format originally, and it's gotten a lot of infill, much of it far denser than Seattle would ever allow. Contrary to what others say, infill and upzoning are much easier in Toronto -- as seen in dozens of highrise (20-30-story) districts that have popped up over the decades.

They are selective in what they preserve. Most sacred seem to be the old "high streets," which are well preserved. They focus retail on relatively fewer streets in most areas, and that means retail and people are concentrated. Seattle, which requires spreads it retail on too many streets in neighborhoods like Belltown, could learn from this.

I'm jealous of Toronto's rate of immigration, which I believe is four or five times ours. Also, with pedestrian-oriented shopping streets, their cultures are more evident than ours. Our immigrant-heavy neighborhoods tend to be less walkable than our inner areas. That's because immigrant neighborhoods tend to be second-hand areas formerly in decline...and here those areas tend to be inner suburbs rather than denser urban districts. (As we grow more urban districts, perhaps some of our older urban districts will decline economically, making them good candidates for urban-style immigrant neighborhoods...)

(BTW, Toronto is about twice Seattle's size, not four times. Forget municipal boundaries, which aren't very relevant to how a city functions.)

AND - Toronto has the Gardiner Expressway and a rail corridor that create a canyon separating the city from the water, much as Seattle does.
Keep posted on their solution.

I enjoyed Anthony Robinson’s piece on Toronto. He observes an important aspect of cities. They really are all very different. While we can learn much from other cities of what not to do in urban planning, there is little wisdom in trying to mimic other cities because while most have some outstanding qualities not all of those qualities can be transplanted.

Start with the characteristics of things that can’t be changed in a city. The weather, the geography, the geology, the history, and for practical reasons most of the existing demographic. While it’s possible to change laws, tax policies and local customs it’s far from easy.

We can tweak land use, transportation, housing design and housing types and, to some minor degree, the culture and economics, but changing the character of a city is a bit like turning a 1000 ft. Oil tanker. If it happens at all it seldom happens quickly. Cities for a multitude of reasons acquire certain characteristics or life styles. Note Morrill’s notes on class. The reputation of a city’s livability spreads quickly. People who like or want that lifestyle migrate.

When cities get a good reputation it simply isn’t politically smart to tinker with what works. To do so damages the hopes dreams and investments of people who moved here for a reason. When politicians tinker with faddish land use notions that change the reason people came here, they play with fire. Changing what can be built where or tinkering with parking is equivalent to a two year old playing with matches in a dry forrest.

What always fascinates me is learning from those new to Seattle why they chose to live here. Other than a good job most say it’s the environment, the less crowded lifestyle, and having light and space to live. But always they remember characteristics of the place they left behind and want Seattle acquire some of the things they liked in the place they left.

As Robinson observes, trying to become what you aren’t more often ends in frustration and failure. Seattle has behaved like the adolescent with zits, trying to dab on a cosmetic fix to obscure the blemishes. We seem preoccupied with trying to become grown up and believing that “world class status” is important. And when adolescents mature they more often learn that their zits weren’t as important as they remembered and they saw more value in a city’s character and humaneness than adopting a new development plan.

I'd say the "faddish" land use notion is how we did it from the 40s to the 90s (and still do it today to a lesser extent), with low densities and separation of uses. For most of history we built compact, walkable neighborhoods with residential and commercial uses in close proximity.

Anthony, I found this article fascinating and excellently executed. I'll be sharing it with my own readers. Nicely done, sir, and thank you. Merritt Scott (Rusty) Miller, The Northstar Journal