[adma]

I don't hate how things work here. I just think there are things that can be improved.

You will be surprised by how many people actually hold similar social view as I do (well, we do have a conservative majority) and you over estimate the popularity of left socialism. It is only due to the fact that people who are left tend to express their views more easily, because they usually sound "the right thing to do".

Sure, it sounds nice and correct to say "let's give the poor and seniors more money so that they can have a better life". Nice slogan! The liberals and NDP do that all the time, as if money just grows from trees. How come they never say "hey average workers, let's all pay more taxes and cut expenses for your own househodd, so that those old folks who didn't save enough when they are young can have more income now, and those who didn't study well and didn't learn enough skills to find a job can have a good life!". These essentially means exactly the same thing, how come liberals never cry out slogans like that?

The conservative are sometimes less vocal, because, you can imagine, it is always harder to say "We need to cut expenses on this and that" than to say "let's allocate $25million to this program and that initiative". Essentially, the money we have is the same amount, isn't it? It is not like you want to spend more and then there will automatically more money available.

No, I am not from here, but that doesn't make me a minority. The fact that we have a conservative majority, and Canada's largest city elected a conservative mayor somehow indicates no matter how things were, they are changing. Liberals and socialists will always keep talking as of they are the only noble people on the planet who care about the poor, the senior and the humanity, they just need to show where they get the funding from. Forcing every working people to pay increasingly more taxes is the only way to go, yet even a maniac like McGuity keeps falsely promising there will be no tax hike (I guess he will pull money out of his own ass). Do they really have to lie all the time? I guess they do, since most voters are stupid and they don't really understand the economics here. They think when the governments wants to spend $50m on some social program, it can simply print more money, or tax "greedy corporations" more heavily (since they are evil by default and anything done to punish them sounds right) so that they can afford offering fewer jobs or worse, stop operating and move to other countries where tax region is more competitive.

If we're to apply this reasoning to Canadian art, he'd be more prized than they are.

 

[spider]

If we're to apply this reasoning to Canadian art, he'd be more prized than they are.

The application of any sort of reasoning would probably yield that conclusion as well.

 

[adma]

And in that light, let's consider kkgg7's standpoint: essentially, he's been projecting himself as someone coming from someplace with "more centuries of history", ergo, an inherently richer culture--right?

Yet if that were the case, then those "new Canadians" from places of "rich culture" wouldn't be displaying such godawful taste in their choice of residence or whatever else, whether new-subdivision or McMansion-teardown. In fact, a lot of the time they should be more properly viewed as "refugees from culture"--i.e. they came here because it was apparently a place less burdened by that "cultural thing" than their homelands. They came for a clean slate: they came for freedom--and they're carpetbagging on their "richer culture of origin" as an ironic alibi for said freedom.

Essentially, they're no different from the kinds of yahoos who say "that ain't historical; there's stuff in xxxxx that's centuries older than this"--except that they actually come from said xxxxx, which they think gives them "authority" (even though the more reputable culturati from xxxxx would likely also dismiss such yahoo arguments--then again, they represent what these yahoos are refugees from, so who are they to talk).

It's that element which I feel Harper/Ford tapped into: the polyglot philistines.

 

[adma]

The application of any sort of reasoning would probably yield that conclusion as well.

Of course, that's spider talking.

 

[kkgg7]

To be absolutely honest I came to Toronto from my previous city primarily due to three reasons

1) Toronto is a cheaper place to live, especially when it comes to housing
2) Toronto is a much smaller and less busy city where life is less stressful
3) Canada is relatively easy to immigrant to compared with equally or more desirable places in the world

Really has nothing to do with culture or "freedom". I haven't met a single immigrant who came to Toronto because he thinks there is more freedom, as many imagine to be the case. Very few really cares about the right to vote for the president or to protest in public. In the end, people care more about practical things a lot more.

In fact, most people have more freedom in their own country. Being an immigrant means you will always be more or less an outsider (no matter what some might say otherwise) due to cultural and linguistic barriers and the difficult of establishing new social circle, and that's the sacrifice we all need to make.

As to "culture", I highly doubt many would automatically associate Toronto or canada with either old or cutting edge modern culture. won't bother commenting on that. It is a young country yet to gradually develop its own culture, which may take at least another 200 years I would say.

 

[vz64]

kkgg7, if you don't mind--what is your previous city? You often complain that Toronto has very expensive housing, but now you are saying that it was one of the reasons for you to come... Last question--in your opinion, which are these more desirable places to live?

 

[Lenser]

As to "culture", I highly doubt many would automatically associate Toronto or canada with either old or cutting edge modern culture. won't bother commenting on that. It is a young country yet to gradually develop its own culture, which may take at least another 200 years I would say.

How very silly. Two hundred, schmoo hundred. You needn't wait that long. The culture is already here. Wherever you have people you have culture - all the more so when we're talking about a city of millions. The problem for you may be that you simply don't care for the culture you encounter here - that I can buy. But to pretend that this city exists in some kind of cultural vacuum is absurd.

 

[EMP1729]

We are in the Globalization era. Toronto's culture reflects that.

 

[GKW]

I'm still waiting for a quality music festival before I will call "World Class"

 

[CDL.TO]

The Economist released their Hot Spots: The Global City Competitiveness Index today.

As usual, Toronto doesn't exist in their summary.

But in the actual report Toronto scored:

Overall: 12th
In North America: 5th (Behind New York, Washington, Chicago, and Boston.)

Categories (with weights):
Financial maturity (10%): 2nd
Institutional effectiveness (15%): 7th
Social and cultural character (5%): 11th
Global appeal (10%): 16th
Human capital (15%): 22nd
Environment and natural hazards (5%): 32nd
Physical capital (10%): 36th
Economic strength (30%): Not in top 60

 

[kkgg7]

The Economist released their Hot Spots: The Global City Competitiveness Index today.

As usual, Toronto doesn't exist in their summary.

But in the actual report Toronto scored:

Overall: 12th
In North America: 5th (Behind New York, Washington, Chicago, and Boston.)

Categories (with weights):
Financial maturity (10%): 2nd
Institutional effectiveness (15%): 7th
Social and cultural character (5%): 11th
Global appeal (10%): 16th
Human capital (15%): 22nd
Environment and natural hazards (5%): 32nd
Physical capital (10%): 36th
Economic strength (30%): Not in top 60

that seems fair to me.

 

[kkgg7]

kkgg7, if you don't mind--what is your previous city? You often complain that Toronto has very expensive housing, but now you are saying that it was one of the reasons for you to come... Last question--in your opinion, which are these more desirable places to live?

Toronto is expensive compare with US cities, but is actually affordable if you look at large cities outside North America.
In my previous city, new-ish condos in the city center sells at about CAD 800 per sf living space or higher (nothing luxury at all), condos located 30 minutes drive/1 hour by subway to downtown charges $600/sf. And I was making 20% less money on an after-tax basis. With $800/sf you can pretty much buy every condo in Toronto (ex Shangri-la, Four Season etc), right? That's why I found Toronto housing to be still affordable.

To own a single family house with a private yard for as little as $500-600K anywhere near an large urban area can only happen in dreams.

 

[adma]

How very silly. Two hundred, schmoo hundred. You needn't wait that long. The culture is already here. Wherever you have people you have culture - all the more so when we're talking about a city of millions. The problem for you may be that you simply don't care for the culture you encounter here - that I can buy. But to pretend that this city exists in some kind of cultural vacuum is absurd.

I think if you look at kkgg7's explanation...

To be absolutely honest I came to Toronto from my previous city primarily due to three reasons

1) Toronto is a cheaper place to live, especially when it comes to housing
2) Toronto is a much smaller and less busy city where life is less stressful
3) Canada is relatively easy to immigrant to compared with equally or more desirable places in the world

Really has nothing to do with culture or "freedom". I haven't met a single immigrant who came to Toronto because he thinks there is more freedom, as many imagine to be the case. Very few really cares about the right to vote for the president or to protest in public. In the end, people care more about practical things a lot more.

There you have it. Practicality wins out over culture--and perhaps, the euphemism of "culture" as being the kind of thing that subliminally renders life "stressful" elsewhere.

Contrary to the Trudeauian "multiculturalism" mythos, what kkgg7 and his chosen immigrant peers reflect is more of an aculturalism--and probably more along the mindset lines of a Torontonian who'd opt to move to Barrie or Red Deer (i.e. it isn't so much that they're bringing so-called Torontonian "sophistication" to those places; rather, they're fleeting the stresses of said "sophistication").

The cultural vacuum isn't Toronto's. The cultural vacuum is that of kkgg7 and his immigrant buddies. (And the claims of their place-of-origin being more "cultural" is but a smokescreen for their own philistinism. And philistinism transcends place of origin.)

 

[Lenser]

The thing is, I don't see why "culture" and "practical things" can't mean one and the same thing. Silly me.

Seriously, I dread a world where culture is considered impractical. How frigidly clinical and "proper" can you get? Just shoot me now, please.

Libertarian prescriptions for a better society are usually cooked up on the hotplate of rosy hypotheticals.

 

[adma]

Well, maybe not so much "impractical", as a "presumptious imposition". "Culture" as a euphemism for holier-than-thou elitism.