Cityscape

The CN Tower is the world's tallest free-standing structure.

Skyscrapers in Toronto's Financial District.

Toronto's Financial District as seen from Roy Thomson Hall.

Downtown remains the most densely-populated section of Toronto. At the heart of Downtown lies the city's Financial District along Bay Street. The district contains the largest cluster of skyscrapers in Canada, including the First Canadian Place, Toronto Dominion Centre, Scotia Plaza, Royal Bank Plaza, Commerce Court and BCE Place. From that point, the Toronto skyline extends northward along Yonge Street. Downtown, Midtown and Uptown also contain many historically wealthy residential enclaves, such as Yorkville, Rosedale, The Annex, Forest Hill, Lawrence Park, Moore Park, and Casa Loma. These neighbourhoods generally feature upscale homes, luxury condominiums and high-end retail and services. At the same time, the Downtown vicinity includes neighbourhoods with a high proportion of recent immigrants living in social housing and rental highrises, such as St. Jamestown, Regent Park and Parkdale.

The inner-city districts of York and East York are older, traditionally middle-class sections that became ethnically diverse in recent decades. Many neighbourhoods in the inner suburbs experienced accelerated gentrification as a result of increasing population and a housing boom that ran through the late 1990s and early 2000s. The first neighbourhoods affected were Leaside and North Toronto, gradually progressing into the western neighbourhoods in York. Much of the housing in these areas consist of post-World War I single-family homes, but many of them are in the process of being replaced or remodelled.

The outer districts of Etobicoke, Scarborough and North York are generally suburban, although they largely retain the grid patterns of the streets laid before the post-war suburban development. Upscale neighborhoods include Bridle Path in North York, the area surrounding the Scarborough Bluffs in Guildwood, and most of central Etobicoke, such as Humber Valley Village, and The Kingsway. Other sections contain large apartment blocks of low-income families, mixed with typical detached housing found in suburbia. More recently, North York Centre and Scarborough City Centre have emerged as secondary business districts outside the downtown core. Highrise development in these areas have given North York and Scarborough distinguishable skylines of their own.

Many Toronto neighborhoods have a simple symbolic layout of side streets lined with post-war semi's, and covered with tree's, and main streets with older home's, several stores and streetcars. Good examples are The Beaches, Riverdale and much of Midtown.

Demographics

A street sign on College Street in Toronto's Little Italy.

The last complete census by Statistics Canada estimated there were 2,481,494 people residing in Toronto in 2001. The city's population grew by 4 percent between 1996 and 2001, at an annualized rate of 0.8 percent. Persons aged 14 years and under made up 17.5 percent of the population, and those aged 65 years and over made up 13.6 percent. The median age of the population was 36.9 years. As of July 1, 2006, the population is estimated at 2,629,030.

With a long history as a major destination for immigrants to Canada, Toronto is one of the world's most multicultural cities. As of 2001, more than 40 percent of the city's residents belong to a visible minority group, and visible minorities are projected to comprise a majority in Toronto by 2017. According to the United Nations Development Programme, Toronto has the second-highest percentage of foreign-born population among world cities, after Miami, Florida. While Miami's foreign-born population consists mostly of Cubans and other Latin Americans, no single nationality or culture dominates Toronto's immigrant population.

This diversity is reflected in Toronto's ethnic neighbourhoods, some of which include several Chinatowns, Little Italy, Little Jamaica, Little India, the downtown Chinatown, Koreatown, Malta Village, Greektown, Portugal Village, Corso Italia, Augusta Avenue and Little Mogadishu.

Christianity is the largest religious group in Toronto. The 2001 census reports that 31.4 percent of the city's population is Roman Catholic, followed by Protestants at 21.2 percent, Eastern Orthodox Christians at 4.9 percent and other Christians at 3.9 percent. Islam is the second largest religion in the city, with Muslims accounting for 6.7 percent of the population, while Judaism comprise 4.2 percent, Hinduism comprise 4.8 percent, Sikhism comprise 0.9 percent, Buddhism comprise 2.7 percent and other Eastern Religions comprise 0.2 percent. Another 18.9 percent of the population profess no faith.

While English is the predominant language spoken by Torontonians, a few other languages have considerable numbers of local speakers, including Italian, Chinese, Portuguese, Tamil, Persian, Spanish and Punjabi. After English, Italian is the second-most widely-spoken language used at work. As a result, the city's 9-1-1 emergency services are equipped to respond in multiple languages.