Pfloyd
New Member
So?
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So?
hbl33
Active Member
Tewder
Senior Member
Really good point. In the last century Britain lost its international economic standing, its empire (for the most part) and its cultural status becoming fusty and irrelevant compared to an exciting and booming America. In the meantime they have been busting their chops to try and get back a little something something but it usually falls fairly flat. Just watch some X factor and you'll get what I mean. Still, not to fall into the same trap as the comments of those British twits there is undeniably lots of cool stuff going on there right now and Britain is transforming in many ways... but so is Toronto. Shame they are so jazzed about it there but unwilling to appreciate it here. Just another reason perhaps why it may be time that Canada grow up and cut those ties (to monarchy and commonwealth etc) that clearly have as little meaning to them there as to us.
edited to add for Hipster Duck:
I was in France this year and have to say that as amazing as it is it all feels a little flat and fusty there too, and there was absolutely nothing different on offer in terms of style, design, food, pop culture, music etc. that we don't have just as much of in Toronto. In fact, there is something of an oppressive weight to all that heritage and French ' cultural superiority' that felt limiting and somewhat 'sad', and very bourgeois quite frankly. The French also seemed just as 'New York' obsessed as the British, far more likely to look across the ocean for liberating new inspiration in music, fashion, and yes even food, all the while fighting it and hating themselves for it. Toronto feels much more relaxed and chill with all this, a city on the rise accepting new possibilites rather than clinging to old rules. Far more exciting in my opinion.
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OttoSchloss
Active Member
Completely agree about cutting those ties. Everyone is still able to enjoy their heritage such as it is but Canada really does not need to have a Queen as its head of state and belong to that joke of a faded empire leftover, the Commonwealth.
Sometimes I think the hold overs in Canada forget which continent we live on and the cultural ties we share. They certainly aren't British.
And I venture to guess a referendum to end the Monarchy would get the 50 plus one votes needed to pass. And whether you care or not I'm sure 6 million French Canadians would be happy to see the rest of the nation finally serious about nation building versus playing grown up colonials.
Tewder
Senior Member
Yep, agree. Also time to ditch the Multiculturalism which basically functions in the same way. We need to stop clinging to these supposedly better or more authentic homelands that increasingly have less relevance to life here and get on with building our own identity which will somehow organically grow to embrace a little bit of all that we are.
jn_12
Senior Member
I would argue Toronto has as much to offer a tourist as a place like Chicago (maybe more depending on the niche). You can certainly find comparisons in Toronto of nearly anything in touristy in Chicago. The main difference is that we have this huge inferiority complex whereby we believe no one wants to come here, when it simply isn't true. We've suffered from poor marketing and we're willing to live and die by gas prices and the state of the dollar. It's a shame because Toronto (and really Ontario as a whole) is a truly amazing place and those in charge of attracting people here seem to be content with their poor efforts.
Also, we're assuming everyone is into mass tourism, which is changing. People are becoming far more interested in realistic experiences and they aren't getting that by going to the CN Tower. It'd be like saying you've experienced Paris because you went to the Eiffel Tower. People aren't buying it anymore. Luckily, Toronto is extremely strong at providing experiences thanks to our really vibrant neighbourhoods, so if the powers that be capitalize on that it could be really great for the tourism sector here.
Pfloyd
New Member
Total non-sense in your mind maybe.
All of them are cities in the year 2009. NYC gets compared to London, Paris and Tokyo all the time, and nobody mentions this BS that one is so much younger than the other.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
I generally agree with the author. His style is somewhat deprecating, but that's hardly unusual or a sign of disrespect. There isn't much he says that can be disagreed with, though. Our weather is abysmal compared to the cities we claim to compete with (not Winnipeg, think Madrid or Sydney), we really aren't a pretty city by any stretch of the word, we do have a particularly annoying brand of anti-americanism and all sorts of weird cultural hangups that result from it, the LCBO is completely retrograde and we are by most standards rather boring, if in a good way. I'd also note that, on balance, he does seem to like Toronto. Not for us spamming up starchitect museums to prove our cultural bona fides, but for being Toronto. Any city has its good and bad aspects, it takes a certain maturity to accept both as your identity and move on. So, in a way, I'm disappointed people are taking anything less than a fawning description of Toronto filled with boiler plate from some City website as a negative. By way of example, L.A. has (I think?) accepted itself as a modern, sprawling mega-city with all the negatives, and positives, that entails. It's no longer out to become a West Coast New York or Boston.
EDIT: I also agree that Toronto is a "small city." If you look at our metro area then, yea, we are the 5th largest in North America or whatever (which really isn't so impressive either, I might add). In terms of what most Torontonians consider "Toronto" though, we are really only talking about old Toronto. Nobody for the most part suggests tourists should go to Mississauga or Scarborough, even if tons of people live there. There isn't any there, there. When Torontonians talk about Toronto, things get pretty quickly distilled into what is south of Bloor. Even large parts of that are totally residential. If you compare SOB to, say, Manhattan or Inner London there is really no comparison. Most major cities have multiple employment hubs, multiple shopping areas in multiple demographics ranges, multiple entertainment areas and so forth. Even our downtown built form, along Queen for instance, is distinctly "small town."
EDIT: I also agree that Toronto is a "small city." If you look at our metro area then, yea, we are the 5th largest in North America or whatever (which really isn't so impressive either, I might add). In terms of what most Torontonians consider "Toronto" though, we are really only talking about old Toronto. Nobody for the most part suggests tourists should go to Mississauga or Scarborough, even if tons of people live there. There isn't any there, there. When Torontonians talk about Toronto, things get pretty quickly distilled into what is south of Bloor. Even large parts of that are totally residential. If you compare SOB to, say, Manhattan or Inner London there is really no comparison. Most major cities have multiple employment hubs, multiple shopping areas in multiple demographics ranges, multiple entertainment areas and so forth. Even our downtown built form, along Queen for instance, is distinctly "small town."
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Pfloyd
New Member
That is such flawed logic; so a city's size is defined by what parts of town tourists might find interesting?? If that is the case then any city anywhere would be a fraction of their actual size.
In addition, we all know that the top Alpha cities in the world: Tokyo, London, Paris and NYC stand on their own and far apart from the rest. That doesn't diminish the case that Toronto is a major city.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
No, a city's size is whatever the census says it is. A city's feeling or vibe though is different. We consciously go about trying to paint Toronto as "a city of villages" and retaining small town character, so to speak, so it really isn't surprising that someone who moves here and lives a Spacingist lifestyle will think Toronto is small. "Urban Toronto" is actually quite small, we only become big when you start living and working in Etobicoke or Richmond Hill. Civic thinkers don't want to put a little cul de sac or stripmall on our tourism website though, so we just focus on the quite small cluster of Queen West, the Annex and Riverdale.
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EnviroTO
Senior Member
Well the Canadian head of state has no power so it doesn't really matter who the head of state is. It could be a randomly selected moose for all I care. I just hope that if we get rid of the Queen as our head of state that the replacement isn't given any power because doing so just makes getting anything done more complicated. Seriously I would want to get rid of the senate far more than I would want to get rid of a powerless Queen.
Northern Light
Superstar
In regards to the original article, I don't think its terrible or anything to get overly worked up over. I don't agree with everything said, to be sure, but everyone has an opinion...blah blah.
***
In respect of the broader question of Toronto's significance or whether its boring or what have you.
Needless to say, I find it both more significant and less boring that the author might imply.
One needs to have perspective in both directions.......
Which is to say:
Toronto is not among the 10 most populous cities in the world.
Nor is the this city the theatre capital, nightlife captial, great architecture capital or financial capital of the world.
On top of which it lacks some of the public realm splendour of Paris, the canals of Venice, or mountains of Vancouver.
YET
It is the third largest theatre centre in the english speaking world.
It is among the most beautiful cities in respect of phenomenal wilderness preservation relatively close to the City core. (no Coyotes or Deer in Paris!)
It does have among the best range of ethnic cuisines found anywhere, few places have not just fine Italian or decent 'Chinese' food places but wonderful mix of Korean and Greek and Polish and Mexican.
It does have by any measure the second most important and the most accessible film fesitval in the world.
It is among the most prosperous, safe, clean and high quality of life places to live on the planet.
And it clearly has an exciting future.
*******
Any evaluation must involve relativity. A sense of what one values (which is different for us all); what one has experienced; and what one is comparing things to.
In this sense Toronto is a great place, with many wonderful attributes; but it is not the unequivocal best place, nor a place without its material drawbacks or flaws.
I woudn't spend too much time worrying about what any 1 ex-pat Brit has to say, without dissing ex-pat Brits in the least.
I would say, we should do what most of us came to this forum to do. Learn, exchange ideas, and work to make this City not the same as any other, but better than it is, as good as it can become, sooner.
***
In respect of the broader question of Toronto's significance or whether its boring or what have you.
Needless to say, I find it both more significant and less boring that the author might imply.
One needs to have perspective in both directions.......
Which is to say:
Toronto is not among the 10 most populous cities in the world.
Nor is the this city the theatre capital, nightlife captial, great architecture capital or financial capital of the world.
On top of which it lacks some of the public realm splendour of Paris, the canals of Venice, or mountains of Vancouver.
YET
It is the third largest theatre centre in the english speaking world.
It is among the most beautiful cities in respect of phenomenal wilderness preservation relatively close to the City core. (no Coyotes or Deer in Paris!)
It does have among the best range of ethnic cuisines found anywhere, few places have not just fine Italian or decent 'Chinese' food places but wonderful mix of Korean and Greek and Polish and Mexican.
It does have by any measure the second most important and the most accessible film fesitval in the world.
It is among the most prosperous, safe, clean and high quality of life places to live on the planet.
And it clearly has an exciting future.
*******
Any evaluation must involve relativity. A sense of what one values (which is different for us all); what one has experienced; and what one is comparing things to.
In this sense Toronto is a great place, with many wonderful attributes; but it is not the unequivocal best place, nor a place without its material drawbacks or flaws.
I woudn't spend too much time worrying about what any 1 ex-pat Brit has to say, without dissing ex-pat Brits in the least.
I would say, we should do what most of us came to this forum to do. Learn, exchange ideas, and work to make this City not the same as any other, but better than it is, as good as it can become, sooner.
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
Far more exciting for you, perhaps, but how do we quantify excitement in the aggregate? The only thing we can say is that Toronto is more culturally meaningful to more people than Paris. That is simply impossible. One is the dominant cultural centre for 24 million Anglophones in a decentralized country that shares linguistic and cultural similarities to an empire of 300 million people directly south of it. The other is the dominant cultural centre for a highly centralized country of 60 million people and the de facto cultural centre for a Francophonie of 200 million +. No offense, Tewder, but what you experience as a week-long tourist is but the tip of the iceberg in the cultural output of a world metropolis like Paris. I don't imagine you went to a Haitian neighbourhood party or attended a Senegalese rap battle or any number of cultural offerings that fly completely under the radar for the average Parisian, let alone tourist.
Also - and Whoaccio is completely correct on this front - the metropolitanism of a city is highly dependent on the concentration of people in an urban space, not the sum total of its population in the region. Phoenix and Atlanta have 4 million people but are they as exciting as Montreal or Berlin or Rome, all of which have 4 million people? Toronto has 5 million people, of which maybe 1 million live in what might be loosely defined as an urban environment. In Paris, 2 million people live in urban conditions that exceed practically any corner of Toronto and an additional 2-4 million people live in "suburbs" with urban densities and a socio-spatial context that might approximate what we find south of Bloor. Maybe not all of these are "exciting" people, but their living arrangement forces them to interact with their public realm in greater ways than the average Torontonian and that's what adds to Paris' vibrancy.
I seriously cannot believe the amount of Toronto adulation that is going on in this forum these days. I think I've heard it all: Toronto is more exciting than Paris; Toronto has better skyscraper architecture than New York; Toronto has comparable shopping to anywhere in the world. I almost expect to turn my head one day and read that Toronto has better dim sum than Hong Kong and more nightlife than Tokyo.
Toronto is a good city, but let's put it in perspective: as mentioned, we are the cultural centre of one of the most decentralized countries in the world with a broad similarity to the most influential and hegemonic country on earth. We also were not even the dominant city in the country as recently as 40 years ago. Given all those constraints, I'd say we're doing pretty well for ourselves - I'll even admit that we're a more culturally exciting place than Chicago, despite the fact that that's a bigger, historically more important city and the cultural nexus of a region of the United States that is substantially larger in population than Canada. But to say we're more culturally relevant than Paris? That is absolutely preposterous.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
^
He did like it here, he said that several times. That he also pointed out some of the limitations of the City doesn't mean he hates it. There are literally thousands of articles dedicated to how NYC smells bad, is full of homeless people and muggers, but still go on to show how the author loves it despite that. The same could be said for any City. Someone pointing out our weather sucks, which everyone here knows, doesn't mean he is stupid.
He did like it here, he said that several times. That he also pointed out some of the limitations of the City doesn't mean he hates it. There are literally thousands of articles dedicated to how NYC smells bad, is full of homeless people and muggers, but still go on to show how the author loves it despite that. The same could be said for any City. Someone pointing out our weather sucks, which everyone here knows, doesn't mean he is stupid.
Tewder
Senior Member
... but I'm not trying to speak for everybody in the aggregate. I'm just giving one person's impression, mine.
No but I loved bopping around each morning to Show Ce Soir by Bisso na Bisso!
Admittedly I only breezed through Paris for a few days this time, preferring to stay in the countryside but I've been many times before and went to school in the south of France. Regardless, I of course understand that there is more to Paris than meets the eye, but I also understand this to be so with Toronto, and in fact moreso given how Toronto does fall more under the radar.
But do you have any idea just how prohibitavely expensive and nigh on impossible it is to afford living in Paris, or Manhattan for that matter? Those cool areas that we all fantasize about are essentially tourist sites for people who cannot afford to live there, having to commute in from la banlieu (or Queens) in order to hang out and be so urban and hip. Toronto is more real in some ways. Many people in the city still live in attainable housing (relatively speaking) in real urban environments that still have a human scale and that are still able to accommodate real family life and a diversity of population demographics. It may not be as glamourous on the surface or the centre of the universe the French believe Paris to be but it does offer a realistic urban lifestyle rather than a fantasy version of one.
No, I bitch about Toronto *all* the time. I'm a huge critic, though hopefully a constructive one as I try to be. At the end of the day I like Toronto though despite its flaws. Again, the fact that it is a growing city with huge potential and less encumbered by tradition is exciting.
Who's to say? ... and more importantly who cares anymore? The fact is we are more culturally relevant to 'ourselves' than Paris. That Haitian rap band you talk of may pack them in at Bercy but would hardly cause a blip of interest in the Toronto music scene. Does this make French colonial music objectively more compelling than that of a Toronto indie group? Non, and in many ways the international cultural influence of music in Toronto is probably far greater than anything on offer in France, relatively speaking.
... but this is not a tit for tat issue. My only point is that Toronto is not as 'provincial' or culturally starved as many would like to believe it to be, and in the City of Light you are far more likely to be blown away by the centuries of history and heritage all around you, and by the unparalleled urban beauty, than by any overwhelming perception of unattainable cultural superiority.