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You do realize that the highway you speak of, the Kennedy, is some 6 miles west of the lake on the North Side at some point, and it even has an El train running down the middle of it at some points. It actually is to most Chicagoans very much part of the urban fabric.
And for what it's worth, there is a good chance that the downtown section of the highway will be decked at some point Deck This! - The Architect's Newspaper
And for the sake of argument, couldn't it be said that the Chicago River also breaks up the urban fabric?
I would give Toronto higher points in a lot of catagories: it is a cleaner, safer, more attractive city. Toronto has friendlier and more polite people. Both are fantastic restaurant and nightlife towns , my guess Toronto slightly beats out Philly in nightlife, but Philly slightly beats out Toronto in restaurants.
Philadelphia scores higher in culture. Here is why: our museums are much better, larger, more impressive. Philly has no fewer than 5 fine arts colleges including the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the oldest art academy in North America. There are something like a dozen art museums in Philly, and with the opening of the Barnes, there are now more French impressionist and post-impressionist (Renoir, Cezanne, Monet, Van Gogh, Matisse, Gauguin, etc.) works than even in New York or Washington or any city in the world outside of France itself. The Philadelphy Symphony Orchestra always was one one of the tops in the world (it was the home for giants like Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy) as was the Philadelphia Pops (directed by Peter Nero). So many brilliant artists were from Philadelphia such as Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, Maxfield Parrish, etc.
Without going on and on about it I want to point out that Philly is also home to arguably the best archeological/anthropological museum in North America (the Univ. of Penn. Museum - they have the world's third biggest Egyptian Sphinx) and also Curtis Institute, which vies with NYC's Julliard as one of the best music schools on the continent.
Last edited by Clark Park; 10-20-2013 at 04:20 PM..
Also, someone claimed Philly is growing 1.4% per year, while Toronto is growing by 0.4% per year. Toronto is actually growing about 2% per year. There are 164 highrises under construction in Toronto according to Emporis, and that's not even counting the suburbs. If you add the suburbs in, it's probably around 200.
Toronto definitely does the highrise thing, but like I said, two different cities completely. Philly is more of a lowrise city and the urban development runs for miles upon miles on end and even into the suburbs in some cases.
You get the point, and that's not including the large handful of suburban downtowns all across the Philly metro area: Ardmore, West Chester, Media, Conshohocken, Doylestown, Newtown, New Hope, etc.
Philly has two satellite cities in the metro with significant skylines as well.
Yes. I was talking about East-West. grapico claims that Toronto turns into a "subdivision" just north of Bloor Street. That's about 2.5 miles from the lake. But in Chicago the continuous east-west fabric extends not even 2 miles inland (at least downtown) before you hit a massive freeway that breaks it up.
that freeway does not really break it up though, you walk over one of many bridges into the west loop or greek town...
Toronto DOES turn into a subdivision lol
Just for the record, this is what you are considering that is breaking up the "urban fabric" ... please man... please...
Courtesy: Joseph Zekas
I just wanted to post it to see how silly you sound comparing this to a subdivision area of windy streets big yards and houses. Hopefully posters won't take you seriously anymore, if they ever did.
Guess this is what people mean by Toronto having subdivisions close to downtown lol: http://goo.gl/maps/g4eU2
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