Torontovibe
Senior Member
http://www.thestar.com/yourcitymycity/article/866124--seven-words-to-describe-toronto
Seven words to describe Toronto
What words evoke your city? Let us know and we’ll report back on Toronto’s core DNA
*(check out all the hate for Toronto in the reader's comments. Where does all that hostility come from? Toronto always seems to incite a lot of passion in this country.)
TALOTTA/TORONTO STAR
By Jennifer Wells
Feature Writer
“It’s very vulnerable, the city,” muses Bruce Kuwabara as he eases into what could be described as his regular therapy session on a black leather couch in a downtown loft. He stretches out his legs. He looks a little weary.
Such a captivating word, “vulnerable.” As if the city were susceptible to emotional injury (dictionary talk). Or existential crisis.
“Delicate,” Kuwabara then adds, watching the play of light across a triptych of dove grey window blinds.
“Delicate” is not a city sort of description one quickly conjures in these times. Certainly not in this election, listening to the mayoralty debates and the hammy sound bites of the candidates. But then, the conversations have been so small, so wizened, so uninspiring.
Kuwabara feels lost, which may seem surprising seeing as how the celebrated architect has just come off the triumph of the unveiling of the TIFF Bell Lightbox, and is due to fly to Berlin in a matter of hours and is chuffed that his firm, KPMB, has recently been shortlisted for a project we are forbidden to discuss.
Bruce Kuwabara isn’t culturally lost. He’s civically lost.
He describes himself as “really disappointed” in George Smitherman. Sarah Thomson has brought “grit” to the race, he notes admiringly, “but she won’t win.” Joe Pantalone? Points for likeability “but he won’t be mayor.” Rocco Rossi? “The tunnel thing,” sighs Kuwabara, giving his head a soft shake. “And now the Sopranos thing,” he continues, speaking of those ads. And if Rob Ford were to win? “It’s going to be a circus.”
“I don’t know who to vote for,” Kuwabara frets. “I think the mayor has to have a big view. I really like Michael Bloomberg.”
Michael Bloomberg is mayor of New York City.
Across the past four months, Kuwabara has been having a bigger conversation than the ones the mayoralty candidates have held in community centres and school gyms across the city.
He’s been talking to radio host John H. Tory, who on this morning has the slumped-in-a-corner, wrung-out look of someone who can’t quite believe that the mayoralty race has turned into such a dispirited affair. And with Huwaida Osman, who has done so much in galvanizing young Somali women in this city through an organization called Gashanti UNITY. And Ainsworth Morgan, who is currently working on the gargantuan task of closing the achievement gap for racialized students for the Toronto District School Board. And Vanessa Keall-Vejar, who runs a design firm in addition to full-time parenting and who lists “sleep sometime” as one of her daily objectives.
In an instant, Noella Milne, a partner with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP who can’t possibly ever sleep, stepped in to join the group when chef Lynn Crawford became swamped with the demands of her Ruby Watchco restaurant and other chefly commitments.
These are busy people who care passionately about the city and who hope to spark engagement with Toronto Star readers by — this will sound odd — cracking the city’s genetic code, its “Blueprint.”
As the natural skeptic in the room, may I state right here that at least initially the exercise had the gossamer feel of dandelion snow.
The “Blueprint” process, developed by Ken Aber and Ian Chamandy, is actually a business exercise, tailored to corporations as a way to define their so-called “core proposition,” which, if I may be so crass, translates into knowing themselves better and thus selling themselves better. Case in point: “When You Can’t Afford to Lose,” the tough-as-nails mantra that brands Jaime Watt’s public relations firm Navigator, was developed by Blueprint.
What Aber and Chamandy promise corporations is that this core proposition can be defined in seven words or less. The magical phrase then becomes an articulation of the business’s DNA, affecting every decision the company makes going forward.
Why not do the same for a city? How else can the city know where it’s going and how it’s going to get there if it doesn’t know who it is? Says Aber: “There is a DNA to Toronto as there is a DNA to New York as there is a DNA to Paris.”
But what is it? What is Toronto’s core proposition?
“What you want to smoke out,” Tory said in the group’s first meeting in the beginning of July, “is people who don’t have an answer to that.” He was referring to the candidates. (Tory absented himself from the second meeting as he chewed over, and rejected, the prospect of joining the mayoralty race.)
The question could equally be: Why do you want to be mayor? Developing personalized transit maps and pledging fiscal rectitude are insufficient answers. “Shouldn’t that be the basic minimum?” Morgan wonders aloud about promises to rid the city of financial profligacy. To which Tory responds: “I don’t think you should be offering yourself up if you can’t keep the books straight.”
Back to Morgan, poetically: “We live different lives within the city. We are trying to find out where the intersections are. What is the greater vision?”
Points of intersection: Huwaida Osman was born in Abu Dhabi to Somali parents, moved to Toronto at the age of 4, was raised in Markham. “I really don’t feel I’m part of the city until I get to Finch station,” she says. Ainsworth Morgan arrived from Jamaica at the age of 7 and a decade later watched sprinter Ben Johnson devolve from “Canadian” sprinter Ben Johnson to “disgraced Jamaican” sprinter Ben Johnson. “At what point do you become Canadian?” Morgan wonders aloud. Bruce Kuwabara, Canadian born, long ago relieved himself of the hyphenated Japanese-Canadian handle he had been hauling around like an overstuffed university knapsack, a point he refers to a number of times in conversation with these people he has just met.
That’s Toronto: finding comfort in the company of strangers. Talking about what defines the city on the world stage (streetcars; the “whacked out” — Kuwabara’s phrase — OCAD building). Talking about what marks the city’s soul in a good way (neighbourhoods). What we do badly (opening our doors to immigrants and then breezily wishing them good luck). What we do well (the revitalization of Regent Park.) There isn’t a hint of ego in the room.
Vanessa Keall-Vejar describes herself as being “on the fence” politically. She wants to play a role in inspiring debate. “I don’t know enough about why I want to live here,” she says. It’s a useful question to put to any candidate: Why do you want to live here?
John Tory, you may not be surprised to hear, is the pragmatist in the group. “Toronto will carry on,” he says. “It will be fine. The question is, do we want to create a distinction between being an ordinary city and an extraordinary city?”
Noelle Milne wonders: “Why do all the candidates seem so nervous to step out?”
On a lovely weekday, the group disperses, off to their various corners of the Toronto universe, words playing in their heads. Seven words for Toronto. A game in progress. We will report back on their progress. In the meantime: Toronto in seven words or less. What are yours?
CALLING ALL ADJECTIVES!
Ken Aber and Ian Chamandy have convinced the Star that they can transfer the conceit of defining a company in seven words or less to our very own city.
Make the mistake of calling this a branding exercise and one of the two partners behind “Blueprint” will bite off your head.
Okay, my head.
Ken Aber (who conceived the Hero Certified Burger chain) and Ian Chamandy (background in marketing) have convinced the Star that they can transfer the conceit of defining a company in seven words or less to our very own city.
Okay, we’ll bite.
An enormously committed group of six have committed to the process and the Star has stepped in and out of the process to see what progress they are making.
In two weeks’ time we will unveil the result of their hard labours — and yours.
Yes, gentle readers, we want you to contribute seven words that best describe your Toronto. Please email them to insight@thestar.ca, or comment at the bottom of this story online by going to the Your City My City section at thestar.com.
Even if it’s funny. “Stop the gravy train,” says John Tory of the Rob Ford campaign. “You do it in seven words; he’s done it in four.”
Jennifer Wells
Toronto Star Reader's Comments
7 word blend
Aware (we know our ups & downs), Insecure (we crave feedback), Comfortable (we live for the moment), Stressed (a lot on our plate), Progressive (ever forward thinking & planning), Welcoming (we'll have you if you'll have us).
Agree 4|Disagree 9|! Alert a moderator
Not a good list
1. Broken infrastructure 2. Transit system that is an embarrassment for a city that wants to be worldclass 3. High taxes 4. Traffic gridlock with roads that haven't been improved since the 1960s (think DVP) 5. Hodge podge of architecture reflecting no particular style 6.High rents and high purchase prices for small properties 7. Toronto the Good..simply no longer is that.
Jesse Ewles
Sep 26, 2010 9:07 AM
7 words
Rich old people, poor creative young people.
Agree 4|Disagree 7|! Alert a moderator
roomiller
Sep 26, 2010 10:40 AM
7 words
Passive-aggressive, glimmering, crystalline, car-addled lonely, cancerous, garden
Agree 9|Disagree 2|! Alert a moderator
gwyn plinth
Sep 26, 2010 11:09 AM
you have a 150 word maximum
narcissistic corporate chumps stuck in low gear
Agree 13|Disagree 1|! Alert a moderator
Sanity
Sep 26, 2010 11:10 AM
Voters have the political IQ of a toilet seat
Agree 15|Disagree 3|! Alert a moderator
mdlm
Sep 26, 2010 11:10 AM
On the cusp?
My city is now like a non-directional compass..will this ever change?
Agree 14|Disagree 1|! Alert a moderator
Marilyn
Sep 26, 2010 11:10 AM
I COULD WRITE A BOOK
Broke, crime-ridden, over-crowded, transitless, egotistical, non-world class, homeless-haven.
Agree 15|Disagree 4|! Alert a moderator
onlinecomments
Sep 26, 2010 11:10 AM
7 Words
Its Best Days Were In The Past!
Agree 13|Disagree 2|! Alert a moderator
oscarcat63
Sep 26, 2010 11:11 AM
An Outside Observation...
If your current mayoral polls hold true, in four years time, you'll have seven completely different words for the city. Perhaps words that have yet to be said!
Agree 6|Disagree 3|! Alert a moderator
jjb
Sep 26, 2010 11:11 AM
Two words is all you need...
Delusional and backwards.
Agree 16|Disagree 2|! Alert a moderator
ratpacker
Sep 26, 2010 11:14 AM
ONLY 7 WORDS
Traffic, congestion, left-wing, elitist, rude,bicycles,over-taxed.
Agree 12|Disagree 3|! Alert a moderator
John33
Sep 26, 2010 11:16 AM
Seven words first pop up in my mind
CONCEITED – Talk a lot, but nothing is done. SPENDTHRIFT – A billion for streetcars, 2 billions for a 2km subway, unsustainable pay packages for the people in city hull, Police, TTC, etc. CRUMBLING – Broken infrastructure, particular the roads, never get fixed. NEPOTISTIC – Can’t get a job from the City, TTC and its agencies unless you know someone inside. ARCHAIC – Inefficient, bureaucratic. SMALL-MINDED – Self centered and turf fighting instead of doing good for the people, such as TTC’s new electronic fare system, focus disproportionate amount of resources on downtown Toronto and neglect all other parts of the city. North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke are also part of Toronto. COLD-HEARTED – Increase taxes and fees with no concern of limited and fixed income citizens and seniors.
Agree 18|Disagree 2|! Alert a moderator
705 Bill
Sep 26, 2010 11:18 AM
7 words
scarborough, poverty, congestion, expensive, nimby, lefties,saladbowl
Agree 15|Disagree 3|! Alert a moderator
Zacharius
Sep 26, 2010 11:18 AM
The city
Absolutely brutal but forgiving, true and living
Agree 2|Disagree 7|! Alert a moderator
jewel bocks
Sep 26, 2010 11:18 AM
Toronto: a soul-less place
I have lived in 7 different Canadian cities. Torontians can be nice, but the really truly nice ones are far and few between. I don't think there are a lot of happy people in Toronto. The words, uptight, touchy, crabby come to mind.
Agree 13|Disagree 7|! Alert a moderator
mesonto
Sep 26, 2010 11:22 AM
In honesty:
disheveled (because our infrastruture is crumbling), sold (condos all along what could have been beautiful waterfront) and disorganized (city's politicians (left and right) with their own agenda's not speaking for the people) -- I wish I could be more positive than this
Agree 14|Disagree 1|! Alert a moderator
jewel bocks
Sep 26, 2010 11:22 AM
Condo Hell Coming
If the point of this is to give Toronto something it lost, or never had, then it is pointless. Toronto is fast becoming a generic condo staturated bland (was always bland) North American city of no more importance than Boston and other such cities.
Agree 11|Disagree 4|! Alert a moderator
whodowhat?
Sep 26, 2010 11:24 AM
Torontonian, or not Torontonian...ah! that is the question.
How will you guarantee you only get responses from Torontonians. As we see daily, the rest of the country is so fascinated by us, they like to speak for us regularly.
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jewel bocks
Sep 26, 2010 11:26 AM
Canada's most disliked city
It would be wiser to take a national poll. Then you will have the rude awakening of finding out what people really think about Canada's most disliked city. Otherwisw, you are going to get nothing but politically correct opinions from those who actually have to live in the place.
Agree 9|Disagree 6|! Alert a moderator
jewel bocks
Sep 26, 2010 11:27 AM
Bland. Condo. Hell.
My Compliant, Apathetic, Indifferent City ...
The people of this city need to stop being such pushovers. If something City Hall does bugs you, protest and cause a riot. Case in point: the Toronto Land Transfer Tax Grab. If this had been implemented in any European city, there would've been daily riots. Torontonians, on the other hand, keep walking forward off the cliff like the rest of the lemmings.
Agree 5|Disagree 3|! Alert a moderator
Seven
1) Broken 2) Broken 3) Broken 4) Broken 5) Broken 6) Broken 7) Broken ............... Bonus tracks: 8) and 8a) A tax-you-to-death / parking-ticket-you-to-death non-functioning hellhole run by sniveling, visionless imbeciles.
Agree 12|Disagree 4|! Alert a moderator
Typical Canadians......
I've lived in the States for over 3 decades, and most Americans I've met who have been to Toronto have complimentary things to say. But typical of self-loathing Canadians, today's comments are full of negativity. All the criticisms of Toronto can be applied to any American city. Crime? Traffic? Too many immigrants? Let's look at some U.S. cities.... New York! Well, ummh, yeah, lot's of crime, lots of traffic, and lots of immigrants. LA? Same thing! Chicago? Ditto! Silicon Valley? Absolutely nothing to do! So why do you Canadians go all gaga over these places when you're visiting the States? Oh, I get it, the old colonial mentality...everything in Canada sucks.
Agree 5|Disagree 9|! Alert a moderator
Seven words?....hmmmmmm...me thinks for a sec...
T for Traffic....O for Offensive....R for Ripoff....O for Oneirodynia (Nightmerish)....N for Nulliverse (Looked it up in the dictionary..meaning a world devoid of any unified principle or plan....go figure eh!)....T for Tetchy (Easily annoyed or irritated; peevish) ....O for Ooawful ( my made up word meaning awful)...
...hmmmm thats all I could come up with at the moment!...
Agree 9|Disagree 6|! Alert a moderator
So many negative Comments...
Why so many negative comments from other Canadians? Oh right, you know someone that came here and hated it! Ha... My seven words, Just not enough hours in the day. I've been here for 17 years and I'm never going back. Started my family here and we are happy, we love it.
Agree 6|Disagree 4|! Alert a moderator
A Collection Of The World's Worst Spellers.
A Collection of the World's Worst Grammarians. A Collection of the World's Worst "Sports-teams". A Collection of pretentious "wannabes". Face-it Toronto. This is "Muddy York", Cabbagetown" and will never be greater than the sum of it's inhabitants....Rob Ford, Smitherman, even Harper came from here (aren't you proud?). I can't go on....T.O. is B.O.
Agree 7|Disagree 4|! Alert a moderator
from a frequent visitor
unfriendly, self centered, egotistical, unsafe, expensive, snobbish, green.The people of Toronto have forgotten how to help one another , not monetarily but by being kind.Too busy with the rush of self absorbency.
Agree 15|Disagree 3|! Alert a moderator
Toronto = World Class Dump
I know quite a few small business owners, mainly in the indy coffee scene, and I have learned from talking to them just how hard it is for a small business owner to succeed in this city. The city works against you. Then again, The people have let governments at all levels slip away from them, for a number of reasons. The evil, taxing governments that the people ignore are used by the happy capitalists. And they are used by the bigger capitalists to also make life hard for the smaller capitalists, because that's what 'free' markets really mean in a world in which the dominant paradigm is 'riches for the strongest'. And all of that focus by a minority within a minority has been at the expense of visioning and building a city (etc) that works for everyone.
Agree 12|Disagree 4|! Alert a moderator
Why don't you ask the genie in the bottle. The same few words may just keep coming back. Boring. Tasteless. Regimented.
One has Only to Look..
..at the overhead streetcar wires and electricity poles dotting the city which have long been buried underground in other major North American cities to come up with the two words which best describe Toronto: "Frontier Town".
Agree 7|Disagree 4|! Alert a moderator
Marching On
Sep 26, 2010 1:09 PM
Toronto has deteriorated substantially
Whether it be the policies of left wingers such as David Miller (and those before him) who have missed the core essentials to make Toronto a nice place in which to live or the self absorbed intent of many to turn Toronto into a "world class" city (thus ending up more like Moscow or Delhi than London or Paris), the seven words/phrases that now characterize Toronto are 1) congested 2)excessive crime 3) dated atmosphere 4) out of touch with its roots 5) politically correct 6)poor urban planning and 7) emphasis on growth rather than livability.
Agree 9|Disagree 3|! Alert a moderator
to the pessimists
If any of you actually lived in other cities around the world (not just your small home town) you would see how amazing a city Toronto actually is, how many opportunities there are here, how pleasant the people are, and how clean it is. And if you really hate it so much why live here? if you don't live here why comment on our newspaper articles? I don't comment on Ottawa newspaper articles, Chicago articles, etc. Why do you spend your (assumingly valuable) time, commenting on things that have no bearing in your life?
Agree 7|Disagree 6|! Alert a moderator
Toronto...
the city that nobody loves. It's not the city that's embarrassing, it's the people who bitch about it.
Agree 8|Disagree 3|! Alert a moderator
Toronto is micro managed
'Street food from officially approved carts only'. Way too much red tape and bureaucracy that works against many small business. Take the street food initiative. Instead of guidelines it's pages of micro managed rules and regulations that govern every aspect of a business. This much bureaucracy and interference reflects too much management and staff at city hall. Is all that paperwork really necessary.
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This is easy.
Where rational thought is rebuked and reviled.
Agree 2|Disagree 1|! Alert a moderator
Here's seven words: A city that no one will support... How about we take some pride in our city. Yes it is not perfect, yes there are issues that need to be addressed, but can we not appreciate a lot of the good things this city has to offer. I'm NOT saying put on a pair of rose coloured glasses and naively assume that everything is fine the way it is. I am saying appreciate what you have in this city or try to make it into something you appreciate. Get involved with making the city better, don't just sit behind your computer, a city is only as good as the people that it's made of. And finally give Toronto a chance to have its own identity that isn't defined by negativity.
A city no one will supports... A city is only as good as the people who make it up. If you're not actively doing anything to help the city, what's the point of bashing it here. If you feel Toronto is so uninhabitable either you don't live here, which gives you little merit to comment, or you shouldn't be living here anymore, so move.
Agree 1|Disagree 1|! Alert a moderator
embarrassing to read readers' suggestions
I'm amazed how much people hate this city. If you hate this city, THEN GET OUT! Leave us alone and go crap all over another city.
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Seven words to describe Toronto?
I've been to Toronto! From me, it would be the same seven words that made George Carlin famous.
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* Even when the Toronto Star tries to get the conversation going in a good direction, it always turns nasty. There are almost 100 comments on that site and the vast majority are hateful towards Toronto. Most surveys say Toronto is one of the best places in the world to live. We have a great arts scene. The city is safer than almost any other large city in North America. We have so much going for us, I don't understand why so many people passionately hate Toronto.
Seven words to describe Toronto
What words evoke your city? Let us know and we’ll report back on Toronto’s core DNA
*(check out all the hate for Toronto in the reader's comments. Where does all that hostility come from? Toronto always seems to incite a lot of passion in this country.)
TALOTTA/TORONTO STAR
By Jennifer Wells
Feature Writer
“It’s very vulnerable, the city,” muses Bruce Kuwabara as he eases into what could be described as his regular therapy session on a black leather couch in a downtown loft. He stretches out his legs. He looks a little weary.
Such a captivating word, “vulnerable.” As if the city were susceptible to emotional injury (dictionary talk). Or existential crisis.
“Delicate,” Kuwabara then adds, watching the play of light across a triptych of dove grey window blinds.
“Delicate” is not a city sort of description one quickly conjures in these times. Certainly not in this election, listening to the mayoralty debates and the hammy sound bites of the candidates. But then, the conversations have been so small, so wizened, so uninspiring.
Kuwabara feels lost, which may seem surprising seeing as how the celebrated architect has just come off the triumph of the unveiling of the TIFF Bell Lightbox, and is due to fly to Berlin in a matter of hours and is chuffed that his firm, KPMB, has recently been shortlisted for a project we are forbidden to discuss.
Bruce Kuwabara isn’t culturally lost. He’s civically lost.
He describes himself as “really disappointed” in George Smitherman. Sarah Thomson has brought “grit” to the race, he notes admiringly, “but she won’t win.” Joe Pantalone? Points for likeability “but he won’t be mayor.” Rocco Rossi? “The tunnel thing,” sighs Kuwabara, giving his head a soft shake. “And now the Sopranos thing,” he continues, speaking of those ads. And if Rob Ford were to win? “It’s going to be a circus.”
“I don’t know who to vote for,” Kuwabara frets. “I think the mayor has to have a big view. I really like Michael Bloomberg.”
Michael Bloomberg is mayor of New York City.
Across the past four months, Kuwabara has been having a bigger conversation than the ones the mayoralty candidates have held in community centres and school gyms across the city.
He’s been talking to radio host John H. Tory, who on this morning has the slumped-in-a-corner, wrung-out look of someone who can’t quite believe that the mayoralty race has turned into such a dispirited affair. And with Huwaida Osman, who has done so much in galvanizing young Somali women in this city through an organization called Gashanti UNITY. And Ainsworth Morgan, who is currently working on the gargantuan task of closing the achievement gap for racialized students for the Toronto District School Board. And Vanessa Keall-Vejar, who runs a design firm in addition to full-time parenting and who lists “sleep sometime” as one of her daily objectives.
In an instant, Noella Milne, a partner with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP who can’t possibly ever sleep, stepped in to join the group when chef Lynn Crawford became swamped with the demands of her Ruby Watchco restaurant and other chefly commitments.
These are busy people who care passionately about the city and who hope to spark engagement with Toronto Star readers by — this will sound odd — cracking the city’s genetic code, its “Blueprint.”
As the natural skeptic in the room, may I state right here that at least initially the exercise had the gossamer feel of dandelion snow.
The “Blueprint” process, developed by Ken Aber and Ian Chamandy, is actually a business exercise, tailored to corporations as a way to define their so-called “core proposition,” which, if I may be so crass, translates into knowing themselves better and thus selling themselves better. Case in point: “When You Can’t Afford to Lose,” the tough-as-nails mantra that brands Jaime Watt’s public relations firm Navigator, was developed by Blueprint.
What Aber and Chamandy promise corporations is that this core proposition can be defined in seven words or less. The magical phrase then becomes an articulation of the business’s DNA, affecting every decision the company makes going forward.
Why not do the same for a city? How else can the city know where it’s going and how it’s going to get there if it doesn’t know who it is? Says Aber: “There is a DNA to Toronto as there is a DNA to New York as there is a DNA to Paris.”
But what is it? What is Toronto’s core proposition?
“What you want to smoke out,” Tory said in the group’s first meeting in the beginning of July, “is people who don’t have an answer to that.” He was referring to the candidates. (Tory absented himself from the second meeting as he chewed over, and rejected, the prospect of joining the mayoralty race.)
The question could equally be: Why do you want to be mayor? Developing personalized transit maps and pledging fiscal rectitude are insufficient answers. “Shouldn’t that be the basic minimum?” Morgan wonders aloud about promises to rid the city of financial profligacy. To which Tory responds: “I don’t think you should be offering yourself up if you can’t keep the books straight.”
Back to Morgan, poetically: “We live different lives within the city. We are trying to find out where the intersections are. What is the greater vision?”
Points of intersection: Huwaida Osman was born in Abu Dhabi to Somali parents, moved to Toronto at the age of 4, was raised in Markham. “I really don’t feel I’m part of the city until I get to Finch station,” she says. Ainsworth Morgan arrived from Jamaica at the age of 7 and a decade later watched sprinter Ben Johnson devolve from “Canadian” sprinter Ben Johnson to “disgraced Jamaican” sprinter Ben Johnson. “At what point do you become Canadian?” Morgan wonders aloud. Bruce Kuwabara, Canadian born, long ago relieved himself of the hyphenated Japanese-Canadian handle he had been hauling around like an overstuffed university knapsack, a point he refers to a number of times in conversation with these people he has just met.
That’s Toronto: finding comfort in the company of strangers. Talking about what defines the city on the world stage (streetcars; the “whacked out” — Kuwabara’s phrase — OCAD building). Talking about what marks the city’s soul in a good way (neighbourhoods). What we do badly (opening our doors to immigrants and then breezily wishing them good luck). What we do well (the revitalization of Regent Park.) There isn’t a hint of ego in the room.
Vanessa Keall-Vejar describes herself as being “on the fence” politically. She wants to play a role in inspiring debate. “I don’t know enough about why I want to live here,” she says. It’s a useful question to put to any candidate: Why do you want to live here?
John Tory, you may not be surprised to hear, is the pragmatist in the group. “Toronto will carry on,” he says. “It will be fine. The question is, do we want to create a distinction between being an ordinary city and an extraordinary city?”
Noelle Milne wonders: “Why do all the candidates seem so nervous to step out?”
On a lovely weekday, the group disperses, off to their various corners of the Toronto universe, words playing in their heads. Seven words for Toronto. A game in progress. We will report back on their progress. In the meantime: Toronto in seven words or less. What are yours?
CALLING ALL ADJECTIVES!
Ken Aber and Ian Chamandy have convinced the Star that they can transfer the conceit of defining a company in seven words or less to our very own city.
Make the mistake of calling this a branding exercise and one of the two partners behind “Blueprint” will bite off your head.
Okay, my head.
Ken Aber (who conceived the Hero Certified Burger chain) and Ian Chamandy (background in marketing) have convinced the Star that they can transfer the conceit of defining a company in seven words or less to our very own city.
Okay, we’ll bite.
An enormously committed group of six have committed to the process and the Star has stepped in and out of the process to see what progress they are making.
In two weeks’ time we will unveil the result of their hard labours — and yours.
Yes, gentle readers, we want you to contribute seven words that best describe your Toronto. Please email them to insight@thestar.ca, or comment at the bottom of this story online by going to the Your City My City section at thestar.com.
Even if it’s funny. “Stop the gravy train,” says John Tory of the Rob Ford campaign. “You do it in seven words; he’s done it in four.”
Jennifer Wells
Toronto Star Reader's Comments
7 word blend
Aware (we know our ups & downs), Insecure (we crave feedback), Comfortable (we live for the moment), Stressed (a lot on our plate), Progressive (ever forward thinking & planning), Welcoming (we'll have you if you'll have us).
Agree 4|Disagree 9|! Alert a moderator
Not a good list
1. Broken infrastructure 2. Transit system that is an embarrassment for a city that wants to be worldclass 3. High taxes 4. Traffic gridlock with roads that haven't been improved since the 1960s (think DVP) 5. Hodge podge of architecture reflecting no particular style 6.High rents and high purchase prices for small properties 7. Toronto the Good..simply no longer is that.
Jesse Ewles
Sep 26, 2010 9:07 AM
7 words
Rich old people, poor creative young people.
Agree 4|Disagree 7|! Alert a moderator
roomiller
Sep 26, 2010 10:40 AM
7 words
Passive-aggressive, glimmering, crystalline, car-addled lonely, cancerous, garden
Agree 9|Disagree 2|! Alert a moderator
gwyn plinth
Sep 26, 2010 11:09 AM
you have a 150 word maximum
narcissistic corporate chumps stuck in low gear
Agree 13|Disagree 1|! Alert a moderator
Sanity
Sep 26, 2010 11:10 AM
Voters have the political IQ of a toilet seat
Agree 15|Disagree 3|! Alert a moderator
mdlm
Sep 26, 2010 11:10 AM
On the cusp?
My city is now like a non-directional compass..will this ever change?
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Marilyn
Sep 26, 2010 11:10 AM
I COULD WRITE A BOOK
Broke, crime-ridden, over-crowded, transitless, egotistical, non-world class, homeless-haven.
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onlinecomments
Sep 26, 2010 11:10 AM
7 Words
Its Best Days Were In The Past!
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oscarcat63
Sep 26, 2010 11:11 AM
An Outside Observation...
If your current mayoral polls hold true, in four years time, you'll have seven completely different words for the city. Perhaps words that have yet to be said!
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jjb
Sep 26, 2010 11:11 AM
Two words is all you need...
Delusional and backwards.
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ratpacker
Sep 26, 2010 11:14 AM
ONLY 7 WORDS
Traffic, congestion, left-wing, elitist, rude,bicycles,over-taxed.
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John33
Sep 26, 2010 11:16 AM
Seven words first pop up in my mind
CONCEITED – Talk a lot, but nothing is done. SPENDTHRIFT – A billion for streetcars, 2 billions for a 2km subway, unsustainable pay packages for the people in city hull, Police, TTC, etc. CRUMBLING – Broken infrastructure, particular the roads, never get fixed. NEPOTISTIC – Can’t get a job from the City, TTC and its agencies unless you know someone inside. ARCHAIC – Inefficient, bureaucratic. SMALL-MINDED – Self centered and turf fighting instead of doing good for the people, such as TTC’s new electronic fare system, focus disproportionate amount of resources on downtown Toronto and neglect all other parts of the city. North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke are also part of Toronto. COLD-HEARTED – Increase taxes and fees with no concern of limited and fixed income citizens and seniors.
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705 Bill
Sep 26, 2010 11:18 AM
7 words
scarborough, poverty, congestion, expensive, nimby, lefties,saladbowl
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Zacharius
Sep 26, 2010 11:18 AM
The city
Absolutely brutal but forgiving, true and living
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jewel bocks
Sep 26, 2010 11:18 AM
Toronto: a soul-less place
I have lived in 7 different Canadian cities. Torontians can be nice, but the really truly nice ones are far and few between. I don't think there are a lot of happy people in Toronto. The words, uptight, touchy, crabby come to mind.
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mesonto
Sep 26, 2010 11:22 AM
In honesty:
disheveled (because our infrastruture is crumbling), sold (condos all along what could have been beautiful waterfront) and disorganized (city's politicians (left and right) with their own agenda's not speaking for the people) -- I wish I could be more positive than this
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jewel bocks
Sep 26, 2010 11:22 AM
Condo Hell Coming
If the point of this is to give Toronto something it lost, or never had, then it is pointless. Toronto is fast becoming a generic condo staturated bland (was always bland) North American city of no more importance than Boston and other such cities.
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whodowhat?
Sep 26, 2010 11:24 AM
Torontonian, or not Torontonian...ah! that is the question.
How will you guarantee you only get responses from Torontonians. As we see daily, the rest of the country is so fascinated by us, they like to speak for us regularly.
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jewel bocks
Sep 26, 2010 11:26 AM
Canada's most disliked city
It would be wiser to take a national poll. Then you will have the rude awakening of finding out what people really think about Canada's most disliked city. Otherwisw, you are going to get nothing but politically correct opinions from those who actually have to live in the place.
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jewel bocks
Sep 26, 2010 11:27 AM
Bland. Condo. Hell.
My Compliant, Apathetic, Indifferent City ...
The people of this city need to stop being such pushovers. If something City Hall does bugs you, protest and cause a riot. Case in point: the Toronto Land Transfer Tax Grab. If this had been implemented in any European city, there would've been daily riots. Torontonians, on the other hand, keep walking forward off the cliff like the rest of the lemmings.
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Seven
1) Broken 2) Broken 3) Broken 4) Broken 5) Broken 6) Broken 7) Broken ............... Bonus tracks: 8) and 8a) A tax-you-to-death / parking-ticket-you-to-death non-functioning hellhole run by sniveling, visionless imbeciles.
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Typical Canadians......
I've lived in the States for over 3 decades, and most Americans I've met who have been to Toronto have complimentary things to say. But typical of self-loathing Canadians, today's comments are full of negativity. All the criticisms of Toronto can be applied to any American city. Crime? Traffic? Too many immigrants? Let's look at some U.S. cities.... New York! Well, ummh, yeah, lot's of crime, lots of traffic, and lots of immigrants. LA? Same thing! Chicago? Ditto! Silicon Valley? Absolutely nothing to do! So why do you Canadians go all gaga over these places when you're visiting the States? Oh, I get it, the old colonial mentality...everything in Canada sucks.
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Seven words?....hmmmmmm...me thinks for a sec...
T for Traffic....O for Offensive....R for Ripoff....O for Oneirodynia (Nightmerish)....N for Nulliverse (Looked it up in the dictionary..meaning a world devoid of any unified principle or plan....go figure eh!)....T for Tetchy (Easily annoyed or irritated; peevish) ....O for Ooawful ( my made up word meaning awful)...
...hmmmm thats all I could come up with at the moment!...Agree 9|Disagree 6|! Alert a moderator
So many negative Comments...
Why so many negative comments from other Canadians? Oh right, you know someone that came here and hated it! Ha... My seven words, Just not enough hours in the day. I've been here for 17 years and I'm never going back. Started my family here and we are happy, we love it.
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A Collection Of The World's Worst Spellers.
A Collection of the World's Worst Grammarians. A Collection of the World's Worst "Sports-teams". A Collection of pretentious "wannabes". Face-it Toronto. This is "Muddy York", Cabbagetown" and will never be greater than the sum of it's inhabitants....Rob Ford, Smitherman, even Harper came from here (aren't you proud?). I can't go on....T.O. is B.O.
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from a frequent visitor
unfriendly, self centered, egotistical, unsafe, expensive, snobbish, green.The people of Toronto have forgotten how to help one another , not monetarily but by being kind.Too busy with the rush of self absorbency.
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Toronto = World Class Dump
I know quite a few small business owners, mainly in the indy coffee scene, and I have learned from talking to them just how hard it is for a small business owner to succeed in this city. The city works against you. Then again, The people have let governments at all levels slip away from them, for a number of reasons. The evil, taxing governments that the people ignore are used by the happy capitalists. And they are used by the bigger capitalists to also make life hard for the smaller capitalists, because that's what 'free' markets really mean in a world in which the dominant paradigm is 'riches for the strongest'. And all of that focus by a minority within a minority has been at the expense of visioning and building a city (etc) that works for everyone.
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Why don't you ask the genie in the bottle. The same few words may just keep coming back. Boring. Tasteless. Regimented.
One has Only to Look..
..at the overhead streetcar wires and electricity poles dotting the city which have long been buried underground in other major North American cities to come up with the two words which best describe Toronto: "Frontier Town".
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Marching On
Sep 26, 2010 1:09 PM
Toronto has deteriorated substantially
Whether it be the policies of left wingers such as David Miller (and those before him) who have missed the core essentials to make Toronto a nice place in which to live or the self absorbed intent of many to turn Toronto into a "world class" city (thus ending up more like Moscow or Delhi than London or Paris), the seven words/phrases that now characterize Toronto are 1) congested 2)excessive crime 3) dated atmosphere 4) out of touch with its roots 5) politically correct 6)poor urban planning and 7) emphasis on growth rather than livability.
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to the pessimists
If any of you actually lived in other cities around the world (not just your small home town) you would see how amazing a city Toronto actually is, how many opportunities there are here, how pleasant the people are, and how clean it is. And if you really hate it so much why live here? if you don't live here why comment on our newspaper articles? I don't comment on Ottawa newspaper articles, Chicago articles, etc. Why do you spend your (assumingly valuable) time, commenting on things that have no bearing in your life?
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Toronto...
the city that nobody loves. It's not the city that's embarrassing, it's the people who bitch about it.
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Toronto is micro managed
'Street food from officially approved carts only'. Way too much red tape and bureaucracy that works against many small business. Take the street food initiative. Instead of guidelines it's pages of micro managed rules and regulations that govern every aspect of a business. This much bureaucracy and interference reflects too much management and staff at city hall. Is all that paperwork really necessary.
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This is easy.
Where rational thought is rebuked and reviled.
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Here's seven words: A city that no one will support... How about we take some pride in our city. Yes it is not perfect, yes there are issues that need to be addressed, but can we not appreciate a lot of the good things this city has to offer. I'm NOT saying put on a pair of rose coloured glasses and naively assume that everything is fine the way it is. I am saying appreciate what you have in this city or try to make it into something you appreciate. Get involved with making the city better, don't just sit behind your computer, a city is only as good as the people that it's made of. And finally give Toronto a chance to have its own identity that isn't defined by negativity.
A city no one will supports... A city is only as good as the people who make it up. If you're not actively doing anything to help the city, what's the point of bashing it here. If you feel Toronto is so uninhabitable either you don't live here, which gives you little merit to comment, or you shouldn't be living here anymore, so move.
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embarrassing to read readers' suggestions
I'm amazed how much people hate this city. If you hate this city, THEN GET OUT! Leave us alone and go crap all over another city.
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Seven words to describe Toronto?
I've been to Toronto! From me, it would be the same seven words that made George Carlin famous.
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* Even when the Toronto Star tries to get the conversation going in a good direction, it always turns nasty. There are almost 100 comments on that site and the vast majority are hateful towards Toronto. Most surveys say Toronto is one of the best places in the world to live. We have a great arts scene. The city is safer than almost any other large city in North America. We have so much going for us, I don't understand why so many people passionately hate Toronto.
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