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Re: Anti-Toronto rants

What was his purpose for being in Toronto, anyway? Sounds like it was more or less to "hook up"--if that was the case, I'm not sure if he'd be satisfied *anyplace*. (Sort of an "undue expectations" logic, cf. Yonge + Eligible in the 1970s...)
 
Re: Anti-Toronto rants

I'm not really sure but if the boy came to Toronto to get laid, he needs a few lessons on charming the pants off of men. (and let's face it, in the village, that ain't too difficult) That guy was working everyone the wrong way. Well, accept for a Montrealer friend of mine who hates Toronto and was excited to tell me he was moving home to beautiful Montreal in Sept. Funny thing is, the people who tell me they hate Toronto, never really give good reasons on why. For instance, my buddy from Montreal who hates Toronto, claims it's boaring but he never goes out anyway. Even when we lived in Montreal he never wanted to go out to events or museums. The man is a homebody who likes to stay in and watch tv. I think, if he just wants to stay home and watch tv, why is he complaining about boardom? He forgets how much he complained about Montreal when he lived there 8 years ago. I am sure after a year, he will complain, "oh, Montreal has changed, it got boaring" when all along, it's he who is boaring. I think people need excuses why they are not happy and it's really easy to blame the city they are in. I truely find it impossible to understand how someone can HATE Toronto. Yes, I understand if they said it was too conservitive, boaring, NIMBY, uptight, unattractive, the people are unfriendly or even just too small of a city but It's hard to understand how some people can so passionatly hate it. What is there really to HATE and how many other North American cities are measurably better? In just about every way, I think Toronto ranks near the top for me. Then again, what do I know! lol
 
Re: Anti-Toronto rants

boaring
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Oak-Grove-Hunting-Preserve-2.jpg


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Re: Anti-Toronto rants

Factor in, I guess, the psychological effect of being displaced from one's familiar environs, and maybe the forced obligation to "go out and see things/do stuff". Y'know, we don't travel as homebodies; yet if we're that awkward at breaking out of "homebody mode", then why bother travelling?

If more people thought in such terms, then maybe the old WWII-era credo "is this trip really necessary?" makes sense all over again...
 
Re: Anti-Toronto rants

Another interpretation: When faced with endless numbers of Torontonians, all fishing for compliments about their city, what tourist could resist the temptation to put them in their place?
 
Re: Anti-Toronto rants

True but I find Montrealers and New Yorkers worse at that. Every time I go to NYC everybody askes me if I am enjoying the city and what I think of New York. Montrealers on the otherhand always seem ready for a debate, as in Montreal is way better than Toronto, don't you think? After living in Montreal for 10 years, I must have heard that over 1000 times. Even when I go back now, everyone asks if I like the new Montreal and when am I moving back, assuming I'll get sick of Toronto sooner or later. I'm one of those rare people who love both cities equally but Montrealers don't want to hear that. lol
 
Re: Anti-Toronto rants

I heard Montreal filmmaker say on CBC radio the other day, with what I can only assume to be a straight face, that if his (Toronto-based) interviewer had travelled to there he would know that "Montreal is a combination of New York and Paris."

If a Torontonian tried to say something like that in public he or she would be rightly pilloried. So why can the Montrealers get away with all manner of hyberbolic boasting but we can't? I mean, Montreal is nice...but I really wanted the interviewer to ask if said filmmaker had ever visited either city.
 
Re: Anti-Toronto rants

^ Interesting you bring that up, because I had a similar thought recently... except that I was thinking that Montreal is like a combination of New York and Europe. Montreal doesn't remind me of Paris but it does remind me of 2nd-tier French cities like Lyon or Marseille... maybe even Brussels. And parts of it really do resemble New York. A lot of the residential neighbourhoods have a Greenwich Village feel to them and the corner of Maisonneuve and Peel is a spitting image of midtown Manhattan. I don't think the filmmaker's description was that much of a stretch. For a New York-Toronto comparison, I found Houston St. in New York to be a spitting image of Spadina Avenue south of Chinatown in Toronto.
 
"So why can the Montrealers get away with all manner of hyberbolic boasting but we can't?"

They don't ask questions like that, they just go ahead and say it.
 
I think it's normal and natural (and good) for people to be curious/hopeful about visitor's impressions of their city. I do find in Montreal they have a bit of an obsession (albeit mostly negative) with Toronto, I usually take that as an underhanded compliment. Montreal European? I always feel that's the equivalent of Toronto being the centre of the universe. I've actually considered this question while in Europe, and frankly, standing anywhere in any city in Europe and thinking about it, Montreal seems awfully ... Canadian.

The place I find irksome in this regard is Vancouver, because they tend to phrase their question in the affirmative, as in,
"you must love it here". That gets tiresome very very quickly.
 
I find most of my Montreal friends and family incapable of mentioning, visiting, or otherwise having anything to do with Toronto without making a sneering, condescending comment about it. I always figured it was insecurity.

And, as someone on this board has said before, Montreal looks a hell of a lot more like Toronto than Paris.

Is it possible that maybe the answer to Toronto's woes of self-representation is just to plough ahead and boost the city even by exaggerating? I'm not sure...
 
I agree that the Paris comparisons are a bit of a stretch but remember that not all of Europe is cobblestone alleys and 18th century Baroque architecture, so when someone describes somewhere as feeling European, they're not necessarily referring to those things. There's the patio culture, the laid back attitude, the early 1900s apartments, the balconies everywhere filled with flowers and greenery, the old-world European businesses and of course the French language. I've heard Boston and San Francisco described as feeling European as well. I didn't get that feeling when I visited those cities; for me there's no question Montreal is the most European-feeling large city in North America. If not Montreal, then what city? It sure ain't Houston.

There's also the issue of where in Montreal you've been exposed to. The downtown core could be any "big city, USA", parts of it very Manhattanish, the Western more English neighbourhoods such as NDG and Westmount resemble North Toronto and the Eastern boroughs such as the Plateau have more of a Euro feel to them. And of course, Old Montreal could easily be a European city centre.
 
Actually, g., I was actually thinking almost not at all of the built environment, but rather the very things you're describing. Montrealers cite their more relaxed attitude to liquor laws, for instance, as being more European. Except in Europe in most places you can just bring your beer onto the sidewalk and hang out, patio or not, the bars don't have obvious closing hours at all (as opposed to 3 and get out) and - how to put this gently - there are activities occuring in the bars that I haven't ever seen happening in Montreal in such an - organized fashion. We ought not overlook a series of raids of Montreal bars just a few years ago to ensure that those very activities didn't occur.

I'm not trying to trash Montreal or say that they are just like Ontario - I love the differences there and they are real. I just feel that they are way overstated, Montreal is firmly Canadian with a few wrinkles that make it distinct within Canada.
 
I find San Francisco feels very 'european', and more so than Montreal, for example. Boston feels English rather than european, naturally enough.
 
There is something to be said for Montreal having a slightly more European outlook on life...though minus the French San Francisco is similar as you say.

Boston is the most architecturally "European" city on the continent by a country mile.

Then again, I've had visitors to Toronto from both the States and Europe say that they found it very European...go figure.

But I find that the use of the term "European" risks being an oversimplification of what that means. In the case of Montreal, it seems to be shorthand for "French," but that doesn't even come close to encompassing what "Europe" is. No one is saying that Montreal is like Munich, for example.

On the other hand, I find the similarities between Toronto and London very striking.
 
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