I am from BC/Vancouver. I was inculcated with the myth of the best place on earth. Anything east of the rockies seemed horrible in my mind (no mountains! Cold!).
Leftists hated Toronto's financial centre and business focus. Populists hated the financial sector. Conservatives blamed high taxes and social programs on Toronto. Toronto got too much attention and money (!) - no one can comprehend Toronto's population relative to BC (much less Ontario + Quebec). Basically all points on the cultural spectrum agreed that "the east" (read: Toronto) was the boogyman.
Then I moved here for grad school. I did miss the mountains. But I loved the U of T. I loved the diversity. I loved the massively more active cultural scene. I took to the avenues and have watched with glee as the "cool" areas of Toronto expanded east and west of downtown. I watched a massive building boom unfold with some great towers constructed and under construction.
However, Vancouver is better governed. I thought of leaving if Rob Ford - or Doug - got in. Translink is better than Metrolinx. Metro Vancouver is treated as the centrepiece of BC, as it should be. Politicians here score points putting Toronto down and starving it of funding - all while maintaining the myth that Toronto takes more than it deserves. Toronto's transit system is on the brink of collapse. The daily grind of subway closures is depressing. It almost never happens in Vancouver. If they can fund the Broadway line, the only other project I think Vancouver needs is a streetcar. Otherwise, it is a good system. Toronto's needs are massive (what, $20B just for transit? $1B TCHC, $1B water system, Toronto hydro, the pot-hole ridden streets, etc.) Vancouver's infrastructure is newer and doesn't need the kind of $ Toronto and Montreal do. When it came time to build the golden ears bridge or the port mann, they tolled it. Here we sold off the 407 (!!!) and can't agree on any tolls or any funding tools. It is enough to drive a person mad.
Despite the fact that the Downtown East side is an American-style poverty trap (San Fran's Tenderloin is the same or worse btw, south Chicago isn't all drug addicts and mental patients but it is horrible and worse than Vancouver imho), they are building lots of social housing (and the homeless come from all over Canada, which is why the new housing doesn't seem to make a dent in the problem). I think a new approach is needed, but the main problems were seeded when the Riverview mental facility was closed, unleashing patients who got no real care to transition from institutional. Now, they are talking of a new facility with a different ethos (probably learning from CAMH, which is a highlight of Toronto's social system. Still, the focus is on preserving the area and steeling it against gentrification, which I don't think is the best long term plan. It is certainly a huge shame and something all Canadians should want to put money into solving. Sadly that isn't the case.
I also think that Vancouver cares more about public space and design (even if it isn't top notch). I am not in love with Vancouverism, and I feel like I am in a resort town when I go back to visit my parents, who live in False Creek, but the landscaping and focus on waterfront parks is great. Torotonians seem to think that the lake is a cesspool, which I guess it might have been in the past, but that bothers me as the lake is so great. It is a general turning-away from the environment that bothers me: no usage of the awesome ravine system, no waterfront promenade (where are those bloody wave decks!!!), years and years to bring the city to the lake and as always a powerful voice against beautification (in this instance the Fords).
So I think that there are definitely a few things Toronto can learn from Vancouver. Probably we would be better to learn from Stockholm, Copenhagen and Oslo given our climate, but that is for another post. On the other hand, Toronto is the most interesting, dynamic and diverse city in the country and it needs to be seen for what it is: the main face of the country to the world. Its size puts it on another level entirely, and it is appropriate that Toronto's problems are glaring because of its complexity. If the country could grasp that and the importance of that, and we could get a federal and provincial government to pump in tons of cash, I would definitely not leave. However, the sometimes annoying optimism and belief that Vancouverites live in Arcadia is actually sometimes rather true - it is a stunningly, amazingly beautiful city. It is easy to love.
Vancouver is the person you fall for at first sight; Toronto is the one you take time to get to know - and marry (as long as it deals with its credit problems first)
