Toronto's beautiful east cliffs

[BrandonTO416]

About 10 or so miles east of downtown lies the beautiful cliffs of Scarborough. Toronto isn't a flat city, but a heavily forested region in a beautiful part of southern Ontario.

You'd never know you are only a few miles from the center of a major world city.

Here ya go guys, these pics were taken in winter though.

[Allan]

Great pics! I had no idea such a place existed so close to the city!

[swags]

Ahh yes, the Scarborough Bluffs. Gotta love 'em. Nice pics..

[wolfdawg54]

That is really neat. Is it a national park?

[G W North]

>>Toronto isn't a flat city<<

I find it amazing how many idiots on the internet think Toronto is flat. Toronto is one of the hilliest major cities in North America, with a 700 foot difference in elevation between it's highest and lowest points. That is a greater elevation variation than Vancouver and Seattle. It's probably a greater elevation variation than even San Francisco, but I'm not certain of that.

There are ravines nearly 400 feet deep less than 1/2 mile from neighborhoods of over 50,000 people per square mile.

[Neo]

There are ravines nearly 400 feet deep less than 1/2 mile from neighborhoods of over 50,000 people per square mile.

Oh, c'mon! 50k people per square mile? I know Toronto is dense but isn't that number a little out there?

[monsoon]

[BrandonTO416]

But, Toronto has these elevation changes within the city itself - its fair to say Atlanta's real hills are Stone Mountain out east of the city in the far east suburbs and then others like Kennesaw Mnt.

By comparison, the Don Valley is literally a mile or two east of downtown Toronto and has a beautiful scenic atmosphere of hills.

Toronto is definately gifted with a coastal great lakes location and hilly forested terrain to boot. I'd never been to the Scarborough cliffs until this visit - I always find something new to enjoy here. I've spent almost two weeks in Toronto this time around and can't get enough.

[monsoon]

[BrandonTO416]

I certainly won't argue that Atlanta does not have hills within the city, its rather irrelevant to the discussion really. I don't care to get into the details of various city topography because its such a sensitive topic.

I've driven around most of southwestern Ontario, Ohio, Southeast Michigan thanks to my travels in the past few years. Ontario is flat in the very southwest tip - but its quite a rolling hilly terrain from Hamilton and north. The drive to Barrie from Toronto is nothing but rolling hills and ravines for example. Ohio and Michigan are relatively flat, especially in the Detroit and Cleveland areas. Toronto is a bit different, and people mistake the topography of Toronto for other great lake cities like Cleveland when there is quite a difference north of the border.

Toronto has a diverse geographical difference combined with a waterfront that makes it quite attractive. Most people think Toronto is flat because so much of the great lakes region is flat - such as Chicago and Detroit. That is simply not the case however.

These pictures show just some of that natural beauty, and its quite literally 10 miles east of downtown. Atop the cliffs lie urban neighborhoods and directly to the west lie the Beach neighborhoods along East Queen - it has the 501 streetcar line and is quite urban. Again, Toronto has a little of everything - true blue urban neighborhoods and natural beauty.

Another perk of Toronto is the weather. Yes, you heard me right - WEATHER. I have spent the better part of two weeks here in August. Its been nothing but temperate, comfortable, and downright beautiful. There've been a couple days of rain, but it wasn't badly stormy. In fact, most the year is comfortable. The only negative is a bitter cold during January and February. I've been here during those months and while its cold and snowy - it isn't unbearable and is the minority of the year. Being on the north side of Lake Ontario also has its advantages - Toronto receives barely half the snowfall of Buffalo, New York - or any upstate NY community due to their positions south and east of the lake.

I'll take many, many months of comfortable temperatures and far milder storms with a few bitter cold months in the winter to the tulmultuous storms and wretched humidity and heat of the southeast anyday. We've had a mild summer this year - but anyone who lives in the south knows how unbearable the summers can be. Its longer and causes me to stay indoors far longer then a Canadian winter in Toronto!

[BigCityAttitude]

I certainly won't argue that Atlanta does not have hills within the city, its rather irrelevant to the discussion really. I don't care to get into the details of various city topography because its such a sensitive topic.

Sensitive topic... Okay

[G W North]

Oh, c'mon! 50k people per square mile? I know Toronto is dense but isn't that number a little out there?

Toronto has loads of neighborhoods over 50,000 per square mile. In fact, there are several neighborhoods over 90,000 per square mile, and the densest is 180,000 per square mile. As I showed in another thread, there are 1.83 square miles of census tracts over 50,000 per square mile.

The old city of Toronto overall is 19,000 per square mile, but there is huge variation within that: large areas completely unpopulated, as well as several neighborhoods (St. Jamestown, St. Lawrence, Harbourfront) over 80,000 per square mile, and other areas over 50,000 per square mile (such as most of midtown).

[G W North]

Actually that is not that great an elevation change. Atlanta has elevation changes that exceed 1000 ft, and here in Charlotte we have Crowders mountain which rises to 1800 ft above sea level whereas the average elevation here is about 600ft.

Nice photos!

monsoon, that 700 feet of variation change is just in the city limits. If you included the suburbs like you have for Atlanta, the change would be much greater. How much variation change is there within Atlanta city limits? I'm guessing it's less than 500 feet.

[Neo]

and the densest is 180,000 per square mile.

How about a full square mile of this? It isn't really per square mile if it's only based on if it was actually filled to potential capacity. You can't relate it to .003 sq. miles and add it up to get a full square mile potential, doesn't work like that.

[G W North]

How about a full square mile of this? It isn't really per square mile if it's only based on if it was actually filled to potential capacity. You can't relate it to .003 sq. miles and add it up to get a full square mile potential, doesn't work like that.

Well, obviously there are no full square miles that dense, but I didn't say that. I said that's the densest neighborhood. It has about 20,000 people over 1/9th of a square mile. There ARE neighorhoods though with over 50,000 people over an entire square mile. Downtown Toronto has about 180,000 people in 3.5 square miles, which is a little over 50k/square mile. The neighborhood immediately south of my work (St. Lawrence) has about 90k-100k/square mile, but only covers a fraction of one square mile. Amazingly, it only has a maybe 1 building over 15 stories tall too.

I'm guessing the densest full square mile would probably be 80k or so, but I'm not sure.

>>San Francisco has some of the most beautiful vistas in North America. No offense, but I have seen no photos of Toronto showing cliffs or ravines, etc that would compare to those around the Golden Gate.<<

I wasn't talking about how "beautiful the vistas are", as that is subjective anyways. I was talking about the elevation variation. And I'd bet Toronto's is close to as large, if not as large as San Francisco's.