Great Segway to my question that I was about to post. We all have opinions of our city. However I wonder what visitors think of our city?! I have not heard any feedback.
I read one Berliner say... " a lot of bland buildings everywhere" .
I've hosted scores of visitors from out of town (mostly from Europe and the US), and have found their feedback very interesting (and diverse), and there's actually quite a bit of recent, travel-focused, non-Canadian media talking about Toronto if you want to poke around for it. Here are some common themes among my visitors:
- Amazement with the calibre and diversity of our food scene, both in terms of "cool", yuppie/hipster-ish locales and in terms of "less flashy" ethnic cuisine. I've had people from Paris, New York, Chicago, and London marvel at the quality of bars and restaurants in Toronto. The New York Times also has two recent-ish features looking at the city's ethnic cuisine that are worth reading. A recent Guardian article had a similar focus.
- Disbelief with the overall cleanliness of the city despite its size (most people, in my experience, equate "Toronto's population" with that of the GTA, so more than 6 million). One of my visitors reiterated what I think was a line from 30 Rock: "Toronto - it's like New York run by the Swiss", which I find rings true in more ways than one.
- Love of the diverse nature of our neighbourhoods, thinking not about multicultural diversity, but about the sheer number of "different" neighbourhoods all packed so tightly together - think Kensington beside Chinatown beside U of T St. George beside Annex beside Yorkville beside Church/Village beside Yonge beside Financial beside Waterfront, and so on and so on. There's really a massive difference in a lot of different elements as you progress through that one half day's walk. They think it's pretty cool. And, to that end, I've had Americans express jealousy at the fact that those such neighbourhoods (along with many others, obviously) are
right in the downtown core, rather than relegated out as inner suburbs as is the case in so much of America. And Europeans express surprise that Canada isn't like the States in that regard.
- Confusion over the fact that "there seems not to be a centre of the city." They're looking for a Times Square or a Ramblas or a Trafalgar Square and find it difficult to get oriented as a tourist.
- Love of the massive and impressive collection of Victorian single family homes right in the core.
- Distaste for the general blandness of the contemporary architecture ("the skyline is Dallas-sur-Lac, said one visitor"), to a few of the comments expressed on this thread. Opinions change a bit if I take them to, say, the ROM, AGO, Aga Khan, past Picasso on Richmond
- Admiration of Nathan Phillips Square. Everyone loves the Toronto sign and thinks City Hall is neat and looks like a building from the future. The sign is the one thing that some of them have seen before if it's their first time in the city (other than the CN Tower). Shame on our selectively penny-pinching councillors for not realizing the branding value of it.
- Love of the some of the most heavily trafficked pedestrian areas, notably Kensington, Yorkville, the Waterfront, King West, St. Lawrence, Trinity Bellwoods, Bloor West, etc. They feel the city is alive in those places and a bit soulless in many others (which is true of many cities, but also a good reminder that people don't connect with dead areas with lots of cars, or devoid of transit/pedestrians - let's get that King priority corridor built, permanently pedestrianize Kensington, and make some significant public realm improvements to Yonge St. south of Bloor).
- Discussion of Drake and Justin Bieber/Ryan Gosling (both of whom they assume are from Toronto).
And I could go on, but those are some of the most consistent impressions I hear from first-timers.
