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Seven ways to make Toronto a world-class city again

MTown said:
Now, about that authenticity: I think Toronto is very authentic in its odd frontier town gone mad sort of way. It's this large, important city that I refer to as the world's largest airport terminal (owing to the variety of people here) yet it has this awesome frontier town feel. I'm talking the much-maligned overhead cabling, the shabby streetscapes, the grime. I've said it before, but I love that about Toronto. That just IS its character. Sure, you can call it sad, ugly, terrible, but it is what it is and some people love it for what it is and not despite what it is.

Besides, when it's the middle of a snowstorm and it's minus 30 out, it really is like some forsaken frontier outpost. Personally, I think that is what makes Toronto authentic. It was never a globally important city, it was just a forgotten backwater outpost. Well, it still retains that feel and sensibility to it while also having exploded into a world not its own.
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Paris was once an outpost town too, of the Roman Empire. I don't know, I appreciate your enthusiasm for an aspect of Toronto that many of us abhor, but I do feel we need to evolve on from any lingering colonial/outpost/frontier town type mindset. It's a stage most cities have in their past at some time or other but move on from... and Toronto just isn't an outpost anymore. It's Canada's largest city and one of the largest in North America. No harm in starting to act and look like it!
 
I fully agree, and I think it is doing just that. It's in a state of massive change right now. I just wanted to point out that it does have an authentic character to it, and I love it, because it is what it is and that just appeals to me.

Let's not forget, Roman outpost towns like Paris and London were such 2000 years ago, Toronto started as an outpost town 300 ago. Big lag. For now, I find its outpost town qualities endearing, while also recognising that it is undergoing massive change that is moving it away from that. We live in an interesting time, I think is what people in 500 years will think. For now, just enjoy Toronto's schizophrenic nature. There's beauty even in death and so I think there is beauty even in decay, chaos, and grime.
 
I would also like to point out the serious number of festivals in this town. In the last few years, I've started complaining about there being too much to do and that I can't manage to get around to half of it. People who think there's nothing to do here are the ones who are boring. God, reminds me of my friends when they complain of being bored. Only boring people get bored.
 
Question: Is there a website like UrbanToronto for Vancouver? Or do they all just huddle on SkyScraperCity?

It would be interesting to lurk and see the kind of things they say about their own city. Observe at what things they grumble at and whether if over there they make comparisons of 'falling short' of Toronto.
 
People in Vancouver spend their time bitching about Toronto, while people in Toronto spent their time bitching about New York, London and similar top tier cities. That tells us quite a bit about how each city views their position in the world.
 
The only place in the world where I've had people tell me they were sorry that I was from Toronto, told me straight up that it was a shithole, and laughed at me for it. Not even in Montréal does this happen to me, ffs.
 
I'm at NPS right now, enjoying wikkid sunset music. Austra. Live and direct. A Tribe Called Red later.
Toronto is so frikkin boring, I could cry. Wah.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
People in Vancouver spend their time bitching about Toronto, while people in Toronto spent their time bitching about New York, London and similar top tier cities. That tells us quite a bit about how each city views their position in the world.
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Torontonians are mostly bitching about their own city. The grass is greener elsewhere.
 
You will hear people from smaller cities/towns talk about their dislike of Toronto - sometimes based on actual experience - but that's mainly because they don't like the traffic/crowds/"big city" vibe. But then people from, say, St John's don't tend to worry about their identity or "world class" status. People from Vancouver, though, should stay in their 500 sq ft condo and blog about how great the new sushi place downstairs is. Then maybe they can try to avoid VanCity's awful traffic by taking one of their little toy Skytrains/Canada Line.

I really like the energy around "tourist" areas like Yonge and Dundas, but the really interesting places are to the east and west. Experiencing Toronto is about riding the 504 up Broadview or going to a "storytelling" show at Dundas and Ossington (and getting there on the 505). Or just exploring any neighbourhood you might think of. Neighbourhoods, after all, have always been the city's strength, yet you'd be hard pressed to see that theme in tourism material. To the extent that TO needs "branding", that would be it.

With respect to someone mentioning London above, I actually have to agree - of all the cities in Europe I've spent time in, London feels the most like home. I suppose that's to be expected, but it's a big, big city, which can be experienced on a small scale.
 
One thing that really bothers me with our awesome city is our public transit. I mean... if you go to Hong Kong, Singapore, etc... their public transportation is so much better in every way from buying fares to cleanliness, technology, to sheer convenience. I mean... like Holy Christ, the TTC and GO together are like archaic trains from the 1970s. HK's metro was more convenient, better in everyway since the 90s.

We can't be a world class city without world class public transportation.
 
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