BEING THERE: TORONTO
It’s small, bitterly cold in winter, and far from beautiful – but also a likeable, even lovable city. Tim Rostron moved there from London a decade ago and hasn’t looked back ...
From INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Autumn 2009
Every morning I use the subway to take my four-year-old son, Frank, to school. We’re travelling during the rush hour, so there are often as many as a couple of dozen other people on the platform and on the train there’s not always a spare seat. This being Toronto, though, someone always gives up theirs for my boy.
Frank, a Torontonian himself, likes to chat with the other Torontonians. He’s been known more than once to ask a black stranger whether he’s the father of one of his school friends. Racist outbursts are unusual in this most mixed of cities, where 49% of the populace were born in one of a wide range of other countries. But so is any sort of unpleasant behaviour, and none of the three men challenged by my son so far has done anything but laugh.
We alight at Spadina subway station and walk to the school. The strangers who are using the same sidewalk smile at us and some even say good morning. That kind of behaviour—civil, decent—and the trees in this street, and the 1960s and 1970s houses, and the Victorian schoolhouse in view, give me a feeling I often have in this city: that I’ve travelled back to the Britain of my childhood, or rather an idea of a lost Britain collaged together from bits of old Ealing comedies and films with Kenneth More in them. It’s the lack of menace here, of imminent violence, of binge drinking. It’s the sunshine.
It’s summer here as I write, a brief season book-ended by biblical rainstorms and followed by a long and increasingly brutal winter. I arrived from London ten years ago and I’ve never lost my appreciation for how emphatic the weather is here. The summers are for the most part hot and sunny, and the winters are reliably white and cold. But the novelty of icy sidewalks, deep and ever-dirtier snow banks and life-threateningly low temperatures definitely wears off by February, which is also the harshest month. Torontonians develop meteorological amnesia in order fully to enjoy what there is of summer. If Frank and I were walking to school in February—well, we wouldn’t be walking, we’d be in one of Toronto’s bargain-fare cabs—but if we were walking to school in November, strangers would be shouting to us: “Can you believe how cold it is?” or “Can you believe it’s snowing?” By February, of course, the coin has dropped, and these people have remembered that they live in Canada.
At school a couple of other besuited dads are hanging around the playground, but mostly the parents are dressed in casual attire like their children’s. My superb English tailoring (Marks & Spencer) and accent are admired as usual. An English accent wins you the warmest of this warm-welcoming people’s welcomes. It also raises your IQ by a good ten points.
There are several examples of Roots-brand sportswear in the school yard—sweatshirts, sweatpants, t-shirts—bearing maple-leaf motifs and/or an explicit “CANADA”. One mother is in her vintage Barack Obama 08 t-shirt. Conspicuous Americana would not have done for this crowd until recently. Torontonians—liberal, left-leaning, never happier than when voting to have their taxes raised in order to improve schools and health care and standardise municipal recycling bins—were down on Bush’s America.
America has been a problem for a long time. It’s a country that’s very near—Ontario borders New York state—and superficially similar. Canadians sound very like Americans, look like them, watch American television and live in towns and cities full of American chain stores and fast-food outlets. Toronto plays New York and Chicago in American movies starring Canadians playing Americans. (How do you break the ice with a successful Canadian actor? “So, how do you like living in America?”)
Canadians are far more aware of this cultural takeover than the average Briton is of the one going on at home. It’s a big talking point here. Tiny differences between American and Canadian English—there’s an Oxford Canadian Dictionary—are treasured (colour, not color; centre not center, but tire for tyre: Canadians lost that one). At the same time, there’s an active, covert preference for things American. My Torontonian wife is dismayed when the movie we’ve rented turns out to be Canadian: “Did you see the money he snatched from that till? It had the Queen on it.” Moderate enthusiasm from the New York Times tends to mean far more to the authors whose books I edit here than a rave in the Globe and Mail. “Canadian identity” is often discussed.
It’s time to go edit a book. I duck back into the subway and head downtown, requiring a change on the world’s least confusing underground system, comprising a u-shaped line dissected by a straight one. (You fill in the gaps with street cars—trams on electric rails.) The subway station at my downtown destination is connected, as a lot of them are, to the vast subterranean shopping mall that lies beneath the city. If I didn’t have a pressing deadline on “100 Greatest Hockey Arguments” I could walk for miles and miles and miles in any direction down here, Gap after Gap after Gap, popping up into department stores through their basements, nipping into the department store next door by way of a connecting walkway on the 14th floor, and burrowing down again to explore the Chapters Indigo books emporia, the Shoppers Drug Marts, the vast food halls.
The underground city really comes into its own when the city above is too cold and slippery for human perambulation. On this sunny day I emerge on to King Street at Yonge, once the longest street in the world and another reason why this city is so easy to navigate. Yonge’s a handy thoroughfare and point of reference, dividing the city into east and west, and providing a major artery from the far north to the downtown shore of our most awe-inspiring sight, Lake Ontario, half a mile from my office as the seagull flies.
It’s summer hours at work, it’s Friday, and that means an early cut at one o’clock. Hardly worth coming in, except to sample the home-made muffins brought in by one of my colleagues and the chocolate brownies by another. Soon I’m back on the streets.
The architecture in this part of town is in some cases unusually old, nearly as old as the country itself: the turn-of-last-century St Lawrence Market, the wacky flatiron Gooderham Building of 1892. Looming in the background are some of our more interesting skyscrapers. It would be wrong to suggest, though, that Toronto is on the whole a beautiful city. Architecturally, it is a city for people who can’t stand Venice. I find it an encouraging and hopeful place. It doesn’t intimidate or remind you of your insignificance with all its grandeur and immortality. You can look it straight in the eye, as an equal. There are large parts of Toronto that you can look forward to outliving. Honest Ed’s discount store, for example, is surely the ugliest building in North America.
Much of Toronto looks as though it was put up in a tremendous hurry and on a tight budget in the 1970s. There’s a good reason for that. Until 1976, Canada’s number-one city was Montreal. But then the scary separatist Parti Québécois came to power in Quebec, creating an exodus of businesses and Anglophones. They headed for dreary, second-fiddle “Toronto the good” (until the 1980s, it was illegal to walk with a drink in hand in an Ontario bar, or buy one at all on a Sunday). Up went the skyscrapers, out went the anti-social licensing rules, in came over-compensation.
When I first came here ten years ago there was more than one occasion in a public house—they can look deceptively like British ones—when I would look at the clock and think, ah, 10.30, one more and then home. Then last orders would be called, at ten to two the next morning.
Buying alcohol in a shop requires planning—the Liquor Control Board of Ontario has the lucrative monopoly on off-licences—but otherwise Toronto is catching up very well as a city that never sleeps. There are clubs here, there are bars that fit only a dozen very thin, young people, there is probably a whole other underground I don’t know about.
Our nanny is picking up Frank. She came here from the Philippines on the Canadian government’s Live-In Caregiver Program, a fast first step to residency and citizenship.
The Canadian embassy in Manila does little else but process the daily queues of nannies seeking economic refuge. All over Toronto, Filipino women are helping to raise Canadian children, and are organising for their own children—being looked after by grandparents in the old country—and for their husbands to become Canadians too. Knowing that the future is Filipino helps middle-class Canadian parents overcome their guilt.
Tonight we’re having a few other parents over for dinner, including a male married couple—nothing unusual about that here. Toronto supports numerous first-rate restaurants, but the dinner party thrives here too (thanks to our hospitable nature and spacious, more-bang-for-buck properties). If there’s a new person at the table I’m likely to be asked a question that betrays the average Torontonian’s slight uncertainty about their civic pride: “You came here from London? Why?” Don’t get me started, I say. I love it here.
GOING NATIVE
WHERE TO STAY
Throughout the year, but especially when there’s a big tourist draw happening—the Film Festival or, say, or Pride—Torontonians in droves let out their city properties, often through Craigslist, and go cottaging. In Canada that means spending time at the country residence so many middle-class folks own in this vast and inexpensive land.
If that’s too native, also on offer are groovy bohemian hotels like the Gladstone —every room designed by a different artist—and Drake; higher-end boutiques like the Soho and Cosmopolitan; and the old-school Royal York and King Edward , with their opulent public spaces. My preference is the Park Hyatt, a refurbished art deco pile in the centre of all the downtown action.
STREETWISE
Toronto is a great walking city—safe and uncrowded—and there is subtle sightseeing to be done. Walk down Queen Street West (above) between Dufferin and University streets for a sample of Toronto’s gentle edginess.
WHERE TO EAT
Toronto is packed with superb restaurants. Invest in a Toronto Life magazine restaurant guide and you won’t need telling about C5 (416-586-7928), for example, part of Daniel Libeskind’s mountainous, aluminium-clad extension to the Royal Ontario Museum. But don’t miss one of my regular haunts, located in a more typically banal setting: down an alley within Delisle Court, a plain brick block near St Clair subway on Yonge, past Bruno’s supermarket, is Cava, a tapas bar with a seriously good chef and wine list (416-979-9918).
WHAT TO SEE
The rooftop bar at the Park Hyatt, is a deeply cushioned, leathery, dark-wood room. Its patio—also open in the winter, but you won’t want to linger out there—offers one of the best views of the city.
The CN Tower is a sad sort of tourist attraction—it looks like a flying saucer impaled on a shaft of concrete. It used to be the world’s tallest (freestanding) building. It’s now second tallest. To be fair, the view from the glass bottom of the UFO is fun for braver children, but avoid the revolving restaurant. The panorama is not enough to distract from the food.
Toronto has an opera house these days. Parts of it have a car-showroom feel, but it has world-class performances and acoustics as good as Glyndebourne’s.
(Tim Rostron is a senior editor at Doubleday. He grew up in Reading.)
Picture Credit: Ian Muttoo, duchamp (both via Flickr)
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Comments
Toronto is one of the
September 22, 2009 - 06:25 — Nicolas (not verified)Toronto is one of the greatest places to live. Interesting history, wonderful places to go, etc.
A pleasant but rather
September 23, 2009 - 02:07 — Jeff (not verified)A pleasant but rather inaccurate read. Those winter sidewalks remain white because no one, neither the property owners nor the city cleans them. The underground city closes up tight at 630pm. The subway may be simple, but it is a death trap with few exits, a sullen/apathetic staff and woefully undermaintained cars that malfunction with great punctuality. The friendly pedestrians are more often than not panhandlers. The anti American Torontonians all vacation in Florida, the wealthy ones paying for medical care that is untimely or unavailable in Canada's socialized health care system, and their wealth mostly derived from a U.S. business connection. The 49% of Torontonians who are born outside of Canada are marginalized in overpriced suburban ghettoes by an undynamic economy firmly in the hands of a WASPy elite. A good number of them who don't return home, leaving their families behind, flee south, as soon as they become Canadian citizens, to work in the U.S. under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Yes, I am an American, but not anti Canadian by any means. I worked in Toronto for almost three years and my mother's family is from Canada. Canada is better in its rural, non Toronto parts.
Jeff's not wrong about the
September 23, 2009 - 08:00 — Richard (not verified)Jeff's not wrong about the downsides of Toronto, but he's writing from an American perspective and Tim is a Brit. I'm also a Brit happily moved to TO six years ago, and I love it for the contrasts to the land of my birth: space, friendly people, "emphatic weather", space, lack of crime...did I mention the space?
The health system may not be as good as the UK's public/private combo, but sure beats being one serious illness away from bankruptcy (take that Jeff!) The subway may be old and the staff over-unionised, but Tim's comparing to the Tube not DC's subway! New immigrants may live in the suburbs, but they live in large, modern new house, not the tower blocks of Tower Hamlets or Glasgow. Toronto's business elite may be inward looking and WASPy, but the bankers look pretty smart just at the moment.
As for anti-American, we (yes, I became a citizen a couple of years ago) define ourselves by being 'not American' and really wish you would just notice us occasionally.
Response to Tim Rostron
September 23, 2009 - 09:09 — Former Toronto Resident (not verified)Tim's article about Toronto is remarkable for its unrealistic portrayal of a cold, dreary city.
How lovely that Tim takes the subway to work. I had to spend three hours every day travelling to a suburban ghetto called Mississauga which makes Reading look like Venice. Public transport is virtually non-existent with four trains in the morning travelling to the suburbs and four more in the evening travelling back again. The bus stop was a fifteen minute walk from the railway station! Never did I expect to hanker for the dowdy and much maligned Thameslink line but at least that tried to arrive four times an hour - not four times a day.
And how charming that 49% of Toronto's population is available to look after Tim's child and drive him around in cheap taxis. The reality is that Toronto is full of qualified professionals whose credentials are not recognised and end up in dead end jobs before returning disheartened and dispirited to their homeland: http://www.triec.ca/news/story/144
The apparent strength of the Canadian banks in fact reflects the fact that there is virtually no investment in small businesses to grow the economy. I should know because I ran my own company and was faced every day with a society which is happy to live parasitically on the United States while failing to nurture its own talent. There is a reason Los Angeles is the third biggest Canadian city.
Which leads me to the appalling weather. Not even Tim's rosy glasses can gloss over this. If Tim wants to spend half his year in an underground Brent Cross shopping centre which closes at 6pm then good for him. I for one am very happy to be in the UK.
Dull, dull, dull
September 23, 2009 - 10:35 — Visitor (not verified)Toronto is one of the most boring cities I have ever been to. My dad lived there for ~5 years and I visited on a number of occassions. Frankly as a place to visit it is like over-dosing on ketamine and having a lobotomy. It is desperate for some kind of edge!
Dc metro ? You write as if
September 23, 2009 - 11:36 — Niraj (not verified)Dc metro ? You write as if DC's metro is the envy of the world. Yes, it's new and relatively clean (they don't let you eat inside) - but it must be the most poorly managed mass trasit system in the western world. There are trains crashing into each other. There is hardly any maintenance. The trains are always behind schedule.For much of this summer, the largest station in the system had no ac and was cooled by giant fans.
I was in London in the summer using the tube all the time. Compared to DC, it was pure bliss.
Bang to rights
September 23, 2009 - 13:33 — Richard (not verified)OK Niraj, DC's was the best US subway I could come up with off the top of my head. It's nearly 20 years since I worked there, and 7 since I last visited. My point was that most mass transit systems suck, and using the tube in the summer when passenger numbers are lower is not a good benchmark. Were you commuting at rush hour?
As for FTR, well first of all Mississauga sure ain't Toronto. Just 'cos the airport's misnamed, don't blame us for your choice of commute. On skilled immigrants, you are absolutely right. It took me (white, male, blue chip educational and employment qualifications from the UK) 18 months to find paying work because of my lack of 'Canadian experience'. I could bore you for hours with horro stories, let's just say that I now act as a mentor for TRIEC and sit on the board of another non-profit helping new immigrants.
Finally, the banks aren't strong becasue they don't lend to small business, they're strong because they are an oligopoly, protected from takeover in return for heavy regulation. Lack of small business lending may be a side effect, but RBS and Wachovia shareholders would probably consider that a desirable side effect.
Oh, and another thing, given the choice between an underground Brent Cross and the real thing in the driving rain, I'm with Tim every time.
To Sum Up
September 24, 2009 - 11:12 — Visitor (not verified)Toronto:
The prices are American (i.e., low)
The taxes are french (i.e., high)
The health care is British (i.e., decent)
The women are Italian (i.e., beautiful)
The cops are Dutch (i.e., live and let live)
The politicians are Norwegian (i.e., clean)
The weather is Russian (i.e., extreme)
All in all not too shaby
Friendly ? I beg to differ..
September 24, 2009 - 12:19 — Niraj (not verified)I was in Toronto once - at the height (or depth ?) of winter. I enjoyed my stay - but the people did not strike me as particularly friendly. Maybe it was the weather - but many times I asked for directions, they would not even look at me. Maybe it was because I look like a bum and they were thinking ( what with my accent they probably could not understand me) I was just asking for money.
I was finally able to get directions later - but only from my 'fellow' 'bums' and they also quickly extracted a gew Canadaian dollars out of me.
Unresolved
September 28, 2009 - 11:00 — cbap (not verified)It's interesting that U.K.-types tend to hate the city initially, but grow to love it. I think over time, Toronto tends to be good to Brits.
Exhibit A: architect Will Alsop who created the crazy OCAD building and declared that Toronto was 'crap'. Most cities would set the man on fire and run him out of town. But 5 years later he's unemployable in the U.K. (despite winning the nation's highest honour for architecture) and has become a professor in Toronto. He loves the city.
Rostron probably loves the city for exactly the same reason as Alsop. It's still a bit colonial, and it's mostly unresolved. But the unresolved part is more interesting than the colonial part.
Knowing that, let's revisit a few criticisms:
1. TORONTO IS BORING
- It's not like New York or Las Vegas or London. In places like that, events tend to find you. It doesn't take anything resembling work to have an interesting night in NYC. Toronto's not like that. It's more like LA - you have to know where to go, or, ideally, you have to know someone who knows where to go. That 'underground' scene described in the article is vast, but also easy enough to crack. There's not much of a velvet rope to get past. For example, the hottest hip-hop artist on the planet, Drake, is from Toronto, and, a brief scan of the alt-rock roster on the local Arts & Crafts label is all you really need to know about where the city is, culturally. There's a good chance you will never encounter any of this as a citizen or a tourist, but it remains true that cutting-edge work is possible in an unresolved, accidental city.
2. PEOPLE ARE NICE
- This is incorrect. People in Toronto are not nice. They think they are nice, of course. They actively promote the 'good Canadian' bullshit. But they are not nice. Or even good. An incredible amount of suffering and pain originates in Toronto, often in the form of mining companies exploiting the third world. But the citizens are civil. You have to be civil to survive in the city. Particularly, to survive the winter. Everyone needs someone to help push their car out of the snow on occasion.
2. MULTICULTURALISM
The only benefit of Toronto's diversity is the mixed-race generation slowly emerging. There's no solid concept of race here yet, so 'interracial' is kind of a laughable term. But that's not to say that race isn't an issue, and a significant one. But, again, people are civil, because they have to be. Everyone has friends from all corners of the globe. That we happen to be of the same (more-or-less) provincial mindset despite our origins is probably an indictment of the city. This isn't exactly a cosmopolitan place. For example: I'm inclined to think that your British accent probably inspires a learned response of "oh crap, another boring bastard who will pontificate on some irrelevant subject for 15 minutes and consider it witty small-talk". We know about Brits. There are also things to know about Jamaicans (do not provoke) Indians (east and west), Chinese-born-Canadians vs. F.O.B. Chinese... Italians, Iranians, Tibetans, Sri Lankans, Croatians, Serbians... (this is a long list). I would say there are borderline 'racist' schema that the average Torontonian uses to navigate a life lived with people from different origins. I'm not sure it's an entirely positive thing.
4. WASPS
Pretending that an over-class of WASPS somehow rules the city is a bit quaint in 2009. Let's admit that the WASPS are idle, and their kids resemble Paris Hilton in an non-entrepreneurial way.
A more accurate picture of Toronto would feature a quiet minority of Jewish and Chinese players pulling the strings. In the corporations it's mostly the descendants of Indian immigrants rising through the ranks.
5. WASP NANNIES
The growing underclass of Philipino nannies is a moral disgrace. I can't really believe that it is included in this article as something resembling a virtue. Enjoy your wage slave for the time being. But, hopefully the immigration department will do something about the ongoing exploitation, as they did, (reluctantly) with Russian strippers.
6. GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION
Yeah, we're terrible at it. In a positive sense. Possily. Good luck finding prescriptivists in the Linguistics departements here... But that's also why we need editors from England.
As an American who moved to
September 29, 2009 - 17:14 — Pravit (not verified)As an American who moved to Toronto a year ago, I have to ask where all these friendly Torontonians are that I keep reading about. I live 5 minutes from Spadina station and I have never been smiled at by anyone on the street, let alone wished a good morning, or even spoken to, apart from collectors for Sick Kids, beggars, or people bumping into me. Though I do love the way Canadians say "sorry."
Lack of overt friendliness aside, I love the city's diversity, especially as it's reflected in all kinds of eating options. Whle Toronto may not have the world's best restaurants, it's certainly a top contender for choice - Vietnamese pho, Ethopian kitfo, Chinese BBQ duck, South Indian dosa, Indo-Carribean roti, Hungarian paprikash, Korean bibimbap... I work in one of the big five banks and would say that 30% of conversations in the office are held in Mandarin.
Besides that, though, the city (the downtown core at least) just feels very safe. It's very walkable, and impossible to get lost - unless you venture down into the PATH of course; I was still getting lost down there even weeks after I started working. The PATH really is something special though.
Completely agree on the Canadian inferiority complex. Every time I mention I'm from the US people always ask why I bothered coming to Canada. In my own experience it wasn't difficult at all to find work despite lacking "Canadian experience", though that may be because I did a postgrad degree at UofT.
All in all I really like Toronto. It's a big city with a decidedly unpretentious feeling (unlike London or Stockholm for example), incredibly diverse, safe, and clean, at least when the garbage collectors aren't on strike.
O Blan-ada
September 30, 2009 - 15:02 — Rachel (not verified)I'd like to see Toronto before judging, having been unimpressed by Vancouver from the large portion of my relatives who are Canadian. BUt I suspect from this article that the author's just saved me travel money - Canada is like sugar-free sweets. It looks pretty, it might be safer than the UK, but it's blooming boring and bland.
bang on cbap
October 3, 2009 - 15:05 — Visitor (not verified)bang on cbap
sounds like a glass
October 4, 2009 - 19:22 — Visitor (not verified)sounds like a glass half-empty kind of guy
It all depends...
October 5, 2009 - 01:45 — Ash (not verified)If you were not born & raised in Toronto, whether or not you like/love/hate/are indifferent towards it is going to depend on two sets of factors:
1) The cities/places you have lived in before, which will form the basis for comparison (together with your personal experiences living in those places, which, in turn, will be driven to a large extent by your socio-economic status, among other things)
2) Your personality, interests/passions, and life experiences ["There is an internal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines all our lives. Those who are lucky enough to find it ease like water over a stone, over its fluid contours, and are home. Some find it in their place of birth; others may leave a seaside town, parched, and find themselves refreshed in the desert. There are those born in the rolling countryside who are really only at ease in the intense and busy loneliness of the city."]
Right. So where do I come out on the article and the comments that have been posted to date (by rough count, more negative than positive)?
1) Places I have lived other than Toronto
(a) > 1 year (continuous): Bombay, rural wealthy college-town Tennessee, suburban wealthy college-town New Jersey, Manhattan (GV), Beijing, Singapore
(b) > 3 mos (continuous): Delhi, Long Beach CA, DC, Monterey CA, Bangkok, London, Shanghai, Hong Kong.
Based on my experiences, Toronto does pretty well in terms of all the factors raised above: health care, schooling, friendliness/prevalance of overt/tacit racism, housing value for money, transportation (to Former Toronto Resident: dude, if you live in Miss, you need a car).
If I were 22 and fresh out of undergrad, my first choice would likely be NYC (or Shanghai), sure. But if I were 30-40, middle income*, with a kid or two... (*NYC median family income in '07: ~US$75-80K), can't say for sure, but GTA sounds like it could be the better deal. Still, I know people who would live nowhere else but the Big Apple, even if they don't make that much.
Too many of the comments engage in flawed inductive reasoning ("my experience was bad, so X is better than Toronto/Toronto sucks").
On the comment that Toronto is boring - what makes a city exciting to you - the theater? opera? ballet? live sporting events? classical indian/chinese/western music recitals? jazz/blues? rock/pop/alternative? clubs/pubs/bars/lounges/discos and other assorted nightlife destinations? book clubs? yoga? a city's seedy under-belly? outdoor activities? swinging? BDSM? parks/green spaces/zoos? beaches/waterfront destinations? robbing banks? sun 'n surf?
It's not just Toronto - I have heard the "boring" comment about other cities in which I have lived, but people rarely get specific about what it is that makes a city "exciting" for them. For my own part, I find *people* boring or exciting, not places. The key to enjoying living in any given city is to associate with interesting/exciting people.
I had this debate once with a guy who was big on the "excitement" factor of Hong Kong, and thought that Singapore was "boring" (he was native to neither, being an Indian from Calcutta/Delhi who had immigrated to Canada). When I pressed him on it, and kept drilling down into what specifically made HK exciting for him (he was not a theater/opera/ballet/classical music of any kind/jazz blues fan/reader of books/you get the picture), it boiled down to (drum roll, pls)...... women/a more "exciting" night life.
It's a city of neighbourhoods
October 14, 2009 - 02:12 — Lord Denning (not verified)My background: Born and raised in Toronto (T.O. or T-dot), also lived for several months in Asia and Europe and have travelled to many places
Toronto is a city of neighbourhoods. You don't really appreciate Toronto until you discover the neighbourhoods - Little Italy, Chinatown, Little India, Koreatown, Annex, Cabbagetown, Leslieville, Bloor West Village, Beaches, Queen West, Queen West West, King West, Liberty Village, Entertainment District, Yorkville, Parkdale, Junction, Kensington Market, Forest Hill, Rosedale, Moore Park, Leaside and others.
A few years back, I found myself quite bored with the city and wanted to get out - still considering it - but, since then, I've come to appreciate the city as I made an effort to discover it by visiting parts of the city I had previously never visited. I also think in some of the neighbourhoods (Queen West West, Junction and Leslieville) a cultural and bohemian revival is taking place - new and interesting art galleries, cafes, restaurants, bars, design stores, clothing shops and delis are constantly popping up.
The city also remains a destination point for many as evidenced by the staggering number of condos that have been and are being built throughout the city. I see more development taking place in Toronto than most other places I've visited.
So, although I can agree that Toronto is no New York or London, it can be an interesting place and it is a city on the rise.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/travel/17hours.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/realestate/commercial/14toronto.html
Quiet places food security and neighbourhoods
November 3, 2009 - 00:04 — SayBlade (not verified)As "Lord Denning" has commented, one of Toronto's strengths is its neighbourhoods. He has named many.
Toronto has also done very well in preserving nature within the city. There are small parkettes, beautifully manicured expansive garden parks and quiet wilderness areas with forests flowing streams and wildlife not far from the bustle of traffic jams. One can go camping, canoeing, picnicking, cycling, skiing, skating and sailing within the city limits.
There is also a growing movement to strengthen food security in these uncertain times. Beyond food banks there are community lunches, community vegetable gardens, urban fruit harvests, backyard garden sharing, farmer's markets, plans for more urban agriculture and public orchards. These contribute to an improved quality of life for all residents, not just those who struggle with low incomes and poverty. These also contribute to the building of community in the many and diverse neighbourhoods in the city. This community building is rewarded during the winter months with camaraderie at gathering points while parks and gardens lie dormant waiting for another season.
I am so thankful to have grown up in Toronto.
November 4, 2009 - 00:41 — Visitor (not verified)These comments are hilarious.
Half of these comments were unnecessarily very negative and from people who haven't even given Toronto the time of day. I'm not surprised most of you have found this city boring and not enjoyed your stay, because it's true that you kind of need to get off your ass, do some research and get cultured. There is always something new and exciting to do in the city.
Every.
Single.
Day.
And you can actually find something fun to do year round that's FREE.
-I've lived here all my life and I still find new neighborhoods to discover. Whether it's a stretch of undiscovered restaurants, or a hot new trendy area to party.
-The architecture is pretty fascinating. Seeing different styles from different decades, and contributions from international architects really completes the mosaic look of our unique city.
-Torontonians are pretty wonderful people. Obviously people aren't going to smile and wish you a pleasant day right after smelling the roses on your sunshine filled walk... get real. But we are really quite intelligent, happy people who are very friendly and caring.
-We are very liberal and we are proud of it.
-I'm also very surprised that no one has mentioned the fact that Toronto is striving to be a GREEN city. Canadians used to be known for being environmentalists. Now we're kind of too closely linked to the United States, which is probably why we've put that on the back burner, but Toronto has become a leader in taking initiative and setting an example for the rest of Canada in new green bylaws and programs.
-Multiculturalism is something that makes Toronto very international and unique. We embrace different cultures and love learning about them.
So if you're not from Toronto, next time you visit you should really try looking at things a little more positively and creatively. There is always something going on that I can guarantee is unique to our city. Remember to do some research, or maybe try asking tourism services what's up in Toronto, as opposed to random strangers on the street.
And we all know that Canada is the BEST country, and if you're going to be anywhere in Canada, it's got to be Toronto!!
Oh and the weather is fantastic!
Seasonal change is exciting, and not to mention stunningly beautiful. As long as you're properly equipped with winter gear, the cold months can be very enjoyable.
One more thing, the guy who complained about his commute to Mississauga... are you serious? That's just poor planning on your part and no one else's fault.
luggage
November 6, 2009 - 16:23 — luggage (not verified)Sounds like a great city. I would love to visit Toronto.
Since I have some family
November 8, 2009 - 13:54 — Jack K. (not verified)Since I have some family there, I've visited a number of times. Toronto achieves its greatness not through dominating cathedrals and outlandish displays of elitism and wealth. It has a lot of great Modern architecture and some gorgeous pre-Modern landmarks. The culture is quite varied, and its quite affordable. It's really still maturing after really becoming relevant basically in the last half century.
I've found people to be polite and friendly, holding doors and it's easy to get directions somewhere. It's easy to find things to do with a lot of different clubs in different parts of the city and museums (suburbs not so much). It's not missing anything and I'd move there if I could.
As a Torontonian, I agree
November 8, 2009 - 16:04 — Matthew (not verified)As a Torontonian, I agree that we're way too concerned with what other people think of us, especially those from bigger, flashier cities. If there's anything limiting us, it's this obsession with our reputation. Fact is, Toronto is a great city. Rather than endlessly compare ourselves with still-greater cities, we should acknowledge our strengths and cultivate some real civic pride.
But the article got me defensive on a few points. First, I doubt anyone writing about New York or Moscow or St. Petersburg would have spent so much time lamenting the cold, even though Toronto's weather is pretty similar. (And in fact, while we have a few suffocatingly hot, muggy days in summer, NYC has it far worse.)
Second, the cutline below the photo says Toronto is small and far from beuatiful. As far as beauty, it's a jumble, like most North American cities, but it holds its own. Second, The Toronto metro area is the fifth largest in North America. It's not remotely small.
Definitely a city on the
November 9, 2009 - 15:10 — Sam (not verified)Definitely a city on the ascendant. I've lived all over the world & came here 2 years ago. Hated it at first, but it grew on me very quickly.
I find it funny that there's
November 10, 2009 - 13:44 — Visitor (not verified)I find it funny that there's so many complaints about the cold. -5 degree celsius is not cold. -20 or more for a week straight in Ottawa is cold. Toronto is only moderately colder than say Boston.
Toronto is boring. And
November 10, 2009 - 16:31 — KBL (not verified)Toronto is boring. And that's why I love it.
What can we say? We didn't build a city as the capital of a colonial empire that pillaged the world. We didn't even make it the capital of our own country. It's a boring city in a boring country. And that's what makes it an awesome place to live. With boring comes affordable housing (in comparison to more 'global' cities), crime rates that New Yorker's could only dream about, low taxes, cheap transit (Londoners may not think so but the Tube is bloody expensive to the rest of us), good schools, and social harmony. Forget that diversity and multi-culturalism BS. Every major city has that. What we don't have that they do are incredible socio-economic divisions, terrible ghettoization, racial tensions, etc.
In sum, Toronto is boring. Toronto is definitely not my favourite place to visit. Heck, it's not even my favourite place to visit in Ontario or Canada. And I say that as a proud Torontonian. But for the average Joe, it's without a doubt one of the best urban areas to live in, on the planet. And this is exactly the lesson that Tim Rostron has understood through experience and captured in his article.
Toronto is also incredibly shabby
November 10, 2009 - 18:05 — pman (not verified)Tim Rostron's article was a nicely balanced picture of a city that hasn't managed to capture the imagination of its own citizens, let alone that of the rest of the world. As a native Torontonian, I think we need to listen a lot more to outsider perspectives on the city, so I guess I disagree completely with Matthew's post. It's not that we should be obsessed with our reputation. It's simply that we do so many things so badly, we really do need to consider outsider views if we're ever going understand how to improve anything here.
If anything, most of the non-Torontonians who posted here let us off far too easily - the city is a shabby dump with no discernable concern for public space. Or as Jan Morris once said, "Second Prize in the Lottario of Life." But on the plus side - at least for subarctic Toronto - as you can see from the elevated motorway, we are doing everything humanly possible to warm up the earth's climate.
Yes we know dear, Brits are
November 10, 2009 - 18:20 — Visitor (not verified)Yes we know dear, Brits are rarely impressed with much that isn't their dreary little isle. In fact I venture to guess the first thing they do when they travel is look for the nearest pub, just to feel like their at 'ome.
It's difficult to explain to
November 12, 2009 - 17:04 — Oliver Tweed (not verified)It's difficult to explain to people who aren't from here how Toronto works. Here are a few observations that might help.
It's a city of neighbourhoods. That's the first thing that you have to understand. Each is like a small town in itself and the city functions that way. Much of the best stuff happening in the city is kind of "underground," which is why tourists aren't generally blown away. The nightlife is very much this way but, once discovered, is fantastic.
It's the most culturally diverse city imaginable. That's a big reason why people stick to themselves on the street. There is no guarantee you will have anything in common with the person you are passing, or that he or she will even speak English. But we get along, and we all have a connection deep down. That's where the pride comes from. We're like an experiment in multiculturalism that's working arguably better than anywhere else on Earth.
Torontonians, and to an extent all Canadians, are generally very two-faced. We might say, "why would you ever come here if you're from [country/city]??" but not really mean it. It's Canadian politeness. It's true that we're not particularly warm at first. We wait until we know you before being truly friendly. If you are okay, we might show you the cool places to go. If not, have fun on your own and hope your flight takes off soon.
Toronto is coming of age. It's still growing and somewhat awkward. There are still very large swaths of land that are underdeveloped or vacant, but that's changing quickly. The transformation just in the past ten years has been enormous, and in ten more it will be a different city again. People here are excited about the future of the city, but frustrated that the changes are taking place so slowly.
Hope this helps.
Not so cold
November 14, 2009 - 14:11 — Tj Mann (not verified)Well, the average coldest day in Toronto is slightly warmer than the coldest day in Chicago, but Chicago has more diverse street food (though this may soon change).
Canada's liberalism is to some extent a function of its political structure, where top down reform can occur with less obstruction as is the case in the States, where a few powerful senators from Texas, for example, can keep the whole nation in the 1950's.
As for Canadian anti-Americanism, it's really just a kind of self-hatred.
nothing for the eye
November 15, 2009 - 22:21 — iceboxlogic (not verified)I've lived in London and New York and Vancouver; I commuted to Toronto daily for nearly three years and know the city well since my university days. Here's the thing: it's great if you have money...which is really what the place is all about. It's about financial services. And media, I suppose. The restos are great and the neighbourhoods are startlingly diverse, with Leslieville and the Annex two truly funky stretches of shops and bars. (Indiatown and Chinatown are both the real thing, likewise the Danforth, the Greek neck of the woods, and my favourite, Roncesvalles, the East European patch. All good and in toto damned diverse. But so's Chicago and that's one hell of a town in comparison.)
But for my money, for Canadian cities, it's not a patch on Montreal, which is where most of the folk who made the Toronto renaissance in the mid-1970s hailed from. Montreal's Metro blows the TTC away and the city itself actually has a history and an architecture...and a point of view that's not predicated on consumption. (In Toronto's defence, it is indeed a friendly place, far more so than the brutality of NYC...but without the Apple's fantastic street theatre.)
Montreal is one of the world's best kept secrets as cities go: culturally deep, historically fascinating, and a place that works. (Except for the traffic jams on the bridges. Yikes.) And it's undergoing a renaissance after decades of somnolence, on the strength of a boom in entrepreneurialism by the young French. It ain't Paris but there's far more for the eye--these people know how to dress and drive and eat---than Toronto. No comparison. Period.
Best thing about Toronto? You can bike through the residential laneways for miles and never hit a stop light. Great way to eavesdrop too.
My 0.02.
Tourist
November 16, 2009 - 17:45 — Dupont (not verified)I can understand how Toronto would not be an exciting place for a tourist since it isn't filled with sunny beaches or landmarks that people recognize from television- but as a place to live, I find it to be unmatched.
I used to live in London and it was nice but it is too much of a struggle and so much of the prime land seems under seige to tourists. I wouldn't trade my spot here in Toronto for anything.
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