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Speaking of increasing crime and violence in the GTA and especially Toronto proper, there still are longtime residents, sadly my aunt included, that cling to the notion that Toronto is the same safe city as before.
I have to admit I too, until fairly recently still held on to the notion Toronto is the same as it was before. When I used hear complaints about crime in TO I used to brush them off. Mainly because some Torontonians like to exaggerate their levels of crime. I have heard Torontonians say "we are becoming like Detroit".... That was before though, with the increasding incidents of violence on the subway that have been all over the news it's hard to ignore how bad things have gotten.
Well Toronto has a history of racial profiling by the TPS. A lot of black people were targeted by these campaigns for no good reasons. Actually even the gay community had no love for the TPS. so I don't think we can just sweep these things under the rug.
I'm not saying people should get special treatment - i'm just saying we do have examples in our society where people were wrongfully dismissed, accused, targeted just because of their skin colour or sexuality etc. I just feel now that some of these valid issues by some are being swept away under a collective woke label. Every case needs to be carefully examined with fairness.
On a public safety note however I do agree - people need to be judged accordingly by their actions. If you commit a crime which fare evasion is - it is a crime point blank. We do need to get back to that core common sense messaging. At the same time, having real conversations about what is happening to marginalized communities.
Oh yeah for sure, I am not denying that racial profiling exists, but if there is a growing problem with crime it should de dealt with quickly. If racial profiling and unfair treatment happens then it needs to be called out but we can't just label all law enforcement as bad or racist. We can't say more cops equals more racism. Society still very much needs thems, including transit. Maybe there needs to be a campaign to hire more cops from certain minorities? I don't know, it's just an idea.
Toronto - 67 with 3 million people
Chicago 695 with 2.7 million people
Boston - 40 with 700K people
Los Angeles - 382 with 3.7 million people
Montreal - 41 with 1.8 million people
Too bad there's not. This city desperately needs better rapid transit.
The murders on the TTC are concerning and if it continues i'd be definately concerned. Those stats however aren't necessarily indicative of 'how' bad it is getting in Toronto. For the size of the city - the violence index is not high even in Canada.
I hope Winnipeg gets it. Seems to be ignored too much for the 7th largest city in Canada.
As I stressed before, it's all about concentration, i.e. concentration of crime in certain locales. A city like Toronto could be large enough and populated enough to lessen the crime average but the average or mean is not going to do you any good if the frequency of crimes tend to happen in the locations you live, work, or congregate in. Population statistics are also biased because because every city's population is defined differently. Boston proper may have a higher average crime rate due to its smaller population and Chicago and LA are worse but probably some 80-90% of all three cities' neighborhoods hardly witness any crime at all and everyone goes to bed and wakes up without anymore worry than the commute to work. Actually, I like to base population off of the metropolitan area instead of the city itself but even then you invite bias, which is again is why we cannot simply look at averages. Honestly, I really don't like how the average is overly used as an interpretive tool and it really is overly used. What about the median, the mode, the derivative, the integral, the Herfindahl index and so on?
And for the record, Toronto remains my favorite Canadian city to visit and I won't stop visiting anytime soon. Change is inevitable. The quieter and simpler Toronto of the 1990's and the sparking clean and relatively uncrowded TTC of 1998 when I first rode it are gone and not coming back. We all just need to adapt to the new and changed Toronto that's all.
The murders on the TTC are concerning and if it continues i'd be definately concerned. Those stats however aren't necessarily indicative of 'how' bad it is getting in Toronto. For the size of the city - the violence index is not high even in Canada.
I hope Winnipeg gets it. Seems to be ignored too much for the 7th largest city in Canada.
Yeah some people assume Toronto is the worst simply because it's the biggest city in the country. Not true.
Winnipeg is estimated to reach a million in ten years. It really needs to start planning ahead and improve transit now. In the monring it takes me between 20 to 30 minutes to drive to work, depending on traffic. On the way home it can take up to an hour on a bad day. If I had the option of good transit I would use it.
Edmonton was slightly smaller than Winnipeg is now when they started building their LRT system. Quebec and Hamilton both have LRT sytems in the works.
As I stressed before, it's all about concentration, i.e. concentration of crime in certain locales. A city like Toronto could be large enough and populated enough to lessen the crime average but the average or mean is not going to do you any good if the frequency of crimes tend to happen in the locations you live, work, or congregate in. Population statistics are also biased because because every city's population is defined differently. Boston proper may have a higher average crime rate due to its smaller population and Chicago and LA are worse but probably some 80-90% of all three cities' neighborhoods hardly witness any crime at all and everyone goes to bed and wakes up without anymore worry than the commute to work. Actually, I like to base population off of the metropolitan area instead of the city itself but even then you invite bias, which is again is why we cannot simply look at averages. Honestly, I really don't like how the average is overly used as an interpretive tool and it really is overly used. What about the median, the mode, the derivative, the integral, the Herfindahl index and so on?
And for the record, Toronto remains my favorite Canadian city to visit and I won't stop visiting anytime soon. Change is inevitable. The quieter and simpler Toronto of the 1990's and the sparking clean and relatively uncrowded TTC of 1998 when I first rode it are gone and not coming back. We all just need to adapt to the new and changed Toronto that's all.
Well aside from the TTC and some violence around the east end of the city that have spiked recently, I'd hardly say Toronto as a whole is really dangerous anywhere. The concentration of violence anywhere in Toronto would likely be less than most concentrations of violence anywhere in peer American cities.
It is likely, not guaranteed but likely the city and metro will continue to grow fast and continue to densify. Yes, the quiet Toronto of the past is gone. It is becoming more brash, big and after the pandemic, people have changed. I've noticed a big difference just in 2 years since I moved out of the city. I'm concerned much more about housing affordability than I am violence. I don't mean to be dismissive of it - but if Toronto and by ext the Province/Country can start addressing this issue in the country than I have high hopes for the city. It is really starting to come together in many ways in transit development, lakeshore improvements etc. It is just becoming a big, tall and kick a$s place.
I have to admit I too, until fairly recently still held on to the notion Toronto is the same as it was before. When I used hear complaints about crime in TO I used to brush them off. Mainly because some Torontonians like to exaggerate their levels of crime. I have heard Torontonians say "we are becoming like Detroit".... That was before though, with the increasding incidents of violence on the subway that have been all over the news it's hard to ignore how bad things have gotten.
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My home city of Boston is often lauded as the "Athens of America" due to its high concentration of colleges and universities and sheer amount of brainy professionals working in all sorts of high paying industries from finance to health sciences and pharmaceuticals. You can see just as many cranes going up as you would in Toronto, in fact both cities have a lot of similarities. Beneath the veneer of the sparkling highrises, the luxury condominiums and apartments, the various beer gardens, and the popular tourist attractions such as Fenway Park however, there is a highly schizophrenic environment. You have homeless sleeping just blocks from five star hotels, you have a growing number of drug addicts wandering everywhere in desperate need of mental help, you have a once reliable subway system on the edge of collapse and then you have the old guard and new guard clashing like oil and water. Toronto is not that bad yet but the most important thing is to not let the guard down. Neither Boston nor Toronto is as bad as Philadelphia, LA or San Francisco where shoplifters have become so brazen as to gang up and rob entire stores clean in one swipe, and I mean high end stores in high end districts. It's ironic really, decades ago, residents wanted to keep the poor out saying the poor will spoil their neighborhood charm but nowadays it's gone the other way around and they want to keep the rich out and saying the same thing. There is a grain of truth to that I suppose, Boston has the South End and Toronto has Regent Park. What were those two neighborhoods like four decades ago compared to now? Apples to oranges. Well we can't have both ways so we have to come to a resolution but how can we as a society do that when fingers keep getting pointed only? All we can do is learn to adjust and not let our guard down.
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