Toronto (Ontario)
Toronto is the capital of Ontario, and Canada's largest city with one-quarter of the nation’s population located within 160 km. With 2.6 million residents, Toronto is also the 4th largest city in North America. The city has upwards of 240 distinct neighbourhoods within its boundaries, meaning that apartments can be found in many diverse communities. In 1998, Toronto grew to encompass the former municipalities of York, East York, North York, Etobicoke, and Scarborough, although most still maintain their own distinct identity and names. Toronto’s public transit system is the second largest in North America and has the highest per capita ridership rate on the continent. Any commute while searching for apartments around the city is easily done with the help of more than 2,400 subway vehicles, buses and trains. The uniquely Torontonian bay-and-gable housing style is common throughout the original city, although the rental condominium market has exploded in popularity in recent years. The "inner ring" suburbs of York and East York are older, predominantly middle-income areas, and ethnically diverse. Much of the apartments in these areas consist of old pre-war single-family houses and post-war high-rises. Many of the neighbourhoods in these areas were built up as streetcar suburbs and contain many dense and mixed-use streets. The "outer ring" suburbs of Etobicoke, Scarborough, and North York are more suburban in nature.