We HATE Toronto!

[Whoaccio]

Many things happened here, though we as modest Canadians have not hyped the events into legends as Americans are so adept at doing. Some brief things off the top of my head, fleshed out by Wikipedia and Bruce Bell...

- Toronto (York at the time) was invaded by 1,700 American soldiers in 1813. They burned Ontario's (Upper Canada's) first parliament buildings near today's Berkely & Esplanade, then marched along King St to St. James Church until persuaded to leave by Reverend John Strachan. In retaliation, British forces later burned the Capitol and President's House in Washington (though this did not directly lead to the whitewashing and renaming of the "White House" as is commonly believed, although that is an awesome story I wish was true).

- Most of the events in the Rebellion of 1837 took place in Toronto, along with the requisite gruesome hangings of losing participants. Though the initial rebellion was a failure, the events later lead to the British giving the colony of Upper Canada more powers, in turn triggering a series of events that eventually saw Upper and Lower Canada combine to form a single Province of Canada.

- St. Lawrence Hall is one of the only buildings remaining in Canada where the so-called "Fathers of Confederation" met before the Dominion of Canada was formed.

In terms of bad historical events, we have had two Great Fires (1847, 1904), SARS, a snow storm that required an army to dig us out, and several New Kids on the Block concerts. What more trauma could one city ask for? The resolve of Torontonians has truly been forged in the flames of hell.

I get your point that comments to the effect that Toronto 'has no history' get tiresome, but you run the risk of overemphasizing events that are, at least by global standards, insignificant. The American raid on York, for example, really isn't a very big deal by comparison to any number of cities. It goes without saying that there is absolutely no comparison between millions of people dying in Moscow streets or Chinese tanks crushing student demonstrations in Beijing and a SARS epidemic or hosting "The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever". I don't mean that to diminish Toronto, but we should be realistic about how important many of these events really are.

 

[Hipster Duck]

^Agreed and, to add, history does not a great city make. Contemporary Rome is probably the best example of this, while world cities like Los Angeles hardly existed at the turn of the last century. You can argue about its appeal, but Dubai, for example, has shaped a very distinct global identity in barely ten years.

 

[lordmandeep]

Contemporary Rome is probably the best example of this

True....

However

The reason why Rome remains such a popular city because its where the Vatican is and was home to the most famous of the ancient civilizations, the Roman empire.

Sure that does not make Rome the best city in the world. However the reason it remains so well known and well liked is because of that.

 

[Archivist]

Thanks to all who indicated some of the events that occurred in Toronto. Insulin comes to mind as well. My reply back to Mystic would be more that I'm not your teacher and not out to convince you that "important" things happened here - the library is full of books, and he ought to go a read some before pronouncing.

But my question would be for him to name, say, five important events that occurred in Chicago, since he has cited that as a city that is superior to Toronto in pretty much every way. Returning to my endless theme of what is good for the goose is good for the gander, what historical events lift Chicago above Toronto? And Mystic, if you answer this, please put as much effort into your response for Chicago as you did for Toronto, that is, I'd prefer that you nominate events that you already know of. No fair running over to Wikipedia for a potted history.

 

[Tewder]

I get your point that comments to the effect that Toronto 'has no history' get tiresome, but you run the risk of overemphasizing events that are, at least by global standards, insignificant. should be realistic

Yes, I agree with you. To be 'great' a city must in some way have international significance whether it's historically or culturally or scientifically or what have you. Maybe this is one of the reasons why we all vie for the instant recognition of the Olympics? The War of 1812 was a major international conflagration, one of the first ones in fact, and Canada was a major theatre of/player in those events. It is probably this region's most substantial claim to international significance but we have to understand this or convince ourselves of this first before anybody else can begin to appreciate it. Unfortunately we seem to have a tin ear to anything that predates the second world war. Niagara Falls is also full of cultural history and is one of the most famous sites in the world which does confer some international notoriety here. Combine this with a few unique attractions/events like the Stratford Festival and you have the makings of a strategy for tourism at the very least. More importantly, however, you have the makings of a collective identity that people can relate to.

Many things happened here, though we as modest Canadians have not hyped the events into legends as Americans are so adept at doing.

Contrary to what most Canadians think this phenomenon is not unique to Americans. They just happen to be good at it. Most nations or social collectivites do this ( see the work of Levi-Strauss to understand how 'mythology' functions in society). Canada's reluctance to do this strikes me as yet another function of its colonial past that it has yet to rise above. This is easier for the USA which rejected its colonial status and turned its back on 'mother country' and the old world. It is also easier for Quebec where it was abandoned by mother country and unwilling to assimilate to another form of colonialism. Multiculturalism in Canada in a way is simply another iteration of colonialism, culturally speaking, whereby the anxiety of losing mother country has caused us to seek a new one (in this case many mother coutries) to cling to.

 

[OttoSchloss]

I saw that T.O. Star story and felt I needed to join and comment. To be honest, I don't really think people in Toronto really care what people in the ROC think of it. I don't think it's a confidence issue or worrying too much about how others perceive the city (leave that for the 80s & early 90s). What I do think articles like the one in the Star (and the resulting commentary) or really any Globe and Mail article that mentions the city is SURPRISE Torontonians with the sheer amount of venom that their city elicits from people outside of the city. Visiting other places in Canada and in the province Torontonians are expected to somehow apologize for being from the city, versus visiting the U.S. (or living there as I do) where people typically only have praise for the place. I do agree that Canadians have issues with urbanism and the relative size of Toronto compared to other cities in the country is a bit daunting for many. In parity obsessed Canada, the jealousy and envy are very real. Being a confident Torontonian basically translates into smug in the ROC (so what?). But again, while I have no desire to ever live in Vancouver or Montreal or Calgary I also don't feel the need to belittle any of those places. They just don't do it for me. I think the true measure of insecurity lies with the rest of the nation (in their minds for not being big enough, exciting enough, rich enough, cultured enough, dynamic enough, important enough) and not with Torontonians. Toronto is not crime ridden by any stretch and it's not trying to be New York (a comparison made almost exclusively by outsiders and rarely by Torontonians themselves -I know I used to live in NYC) but that's not to say that attempting to aspire to the grandeur of an NYC is a bad thing at all. Why set the bar low?

I also think Toronto is not in search of an identity and doesn't need to be because it already has one. It has several. And each is evident in the fabric of its neighborhoods. If you want to pigeonhole a city, you'd have better luck with Halifax or Montreal or Vancouver or (erroneously) Los Angeles.

 

[OttoSchloss]

I should add that there's nothing wrong with being self-reflective as a city either. There are things wrong with Toronto too. Mainly its do nothing provincial city council, army of nimby-ers and an often hostile provincial government (it's probably time for a territory of Toronto) -oh and a lack of new rental units -go away condo builders!

I personally hated New York for about 4 months when I first moved there. It's a great city as a tourist but it requires a lot more effort to live there. From subways that simply shut down, to constant queuing to people just not having any time for you, to getting to a sample sale and realizing that everything has been picked over in an hour . And if people really in Canada think Toronto is obsessed with money ambition and success then they really have no idea (as if those are necessarily bad things). Often the first question you're asked in NYC by a new acquaintance is: what do you do? Then: where are you from? If anyone thinks New York media doesn't obsess about how "world class" the city is, usually in different terms -it happened almost weekly. Are we as good as London? Are we losing ground? Is the city becoming a shopping mall with little creative output? etc.

And as for cell phone use quoted in that article. Please! What major North American city doesn't have people glued to their phones and blackberries? Were those people from rural Ohio?

 

[allabootmatt]

Toronto may be short on the stuff of great-man history--battles, disasters, misery and the like. That I concede. But the notion that "nothing has ever happened" in TO is plainly absurd. Toronto's per capita rate of significant cultural output is probably the highest in the world. It is a city that has been home to (in no particular order) Ernest Hemingway, the Group of Seven, Glenn Gould, Robertson Davies, Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, Margaret Atwood, Joni Mitchell, Michael Ondaatje, Rohinton Mistry, Broken Social Scene, Naomi Klein, Irshad Manji, Richard Florida, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Anne Michaels, David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, Norman Jewison, Frank Gehry...the list goes on.

Our city has featured in, influenced, or hosted a substantial chunk of the most important cultural work of the last 100 years. Toronto has had a staggering cultural impact. Maybe if we paid more attention to that, we'd have a bit more pride.

 

[AKS]

^ maybe I'm not so well read. I only recognize Hemingway, Atwood and Group of seven. I think for those foreigners, they would probably only recognize Hemingway.

True....

However

The reason why Rome remains such a popular city because its where the Vatican is and was home to the most famous of the ancient civilizations, the Roman empire.

Sure that does not make Rome the best city in the world. However the reason it remains so well known and well liked is because of that.

I agree history have some values. I enjoy their art and architecture of the period and the romantic feel. But it isn't all the wars fought and what not that makes it attractive. Italy is probably one of the most memorable European countries I visited.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Contrary to what most Canadians think this phenomenon is not unique to Americans. They just happen to be good at it. Most nations or social collectivites do this ( see the work of Levi-Strauss to understand how 'mythology' functions in society). Canada's reluctance to do this strikes me as yet another function of its colonial past that it has yet to rise above. This is easier for the USA which rejected its colonial status and turned its back on 'mother country' and the old world. It is also easier for Quebec where it was abandoned by mother country and unwilling to assimilate to another form of colonialism. Multiculturalism in Canada in a way is simply another iteration of colonialism, culturally speaking, whereby the anxiety of losing mother country has caused us to seek a new one (in this case many mother coutries) to cling to.

That's so true. A Canadian identity is hard because we are so regionally factious. I mean, in Edmonton they not only curse Ontarians but Saskatchewanians and British Columbians too. When you're over there, or when you go to any other province, it's easy to feel like you're in a different country and the crossing of provincial borders almost feels like the crossing of national borders minus the passport check.

It hurts our identity - our identity as Torontonians perhaps most of all - but it probably really helped Canada be a prosperous country with some even distribution of wealth and power. Imagine if we were one of those physically huge countries where all the resource wealth and business wheelings and dealings took place in a central city like Argentina? Sure, we would be an unmistakable world city (or probably Montreal would've been), but then we would have huge discrepancies in wealth between regions and all the political instability that goes with it.

 

[ladyscraper]

I definitely think people in Toronto are way too critical of the city in comparison to other major cities. However our pessimism and dark humor and sarcasm is kind of funny to me and it makes sense it spills onto our view of our own city.

I've been to most major cities and the only place I noticed a similar amount of cynicism was in london, England. I lived there for about 6 months and I heard a lot of really negative things said about that city from people that lived there. It reminded me of home!

 

[golodhendil]

But my question would be for him to name, say, five important events that occurred in Chicago, since he has cited that as a city that is superior to Toronto in pretty much every way. Returning to my endless theme of what is good for the goose is good for the gander, what historical events lift Chicago above Toronto? And Mystic, if you answer this, please put as much effort into your response for Chicago as you did for Toronto, that is, I'd prefer that you nominate events that you already know of. No fair running over to Wikipedia for a potted history.

Just to play the devil's advocate, I can actually name a few off the top of my head. Birthplace of the skyscraper and still one of the more impressive skylines in the world; racial conflicts, segregation and perhaps reconciliation; some major World Fair in the 19th century; crime haven and gangland in the 20s; one of the origins and primary focal points of jazz, blues etc. Not to say that having these events alone necessarily make a city great (they do, in this case), but they certainly help in forging a sense of civic pride and identity. I do agree, however, that important things both historically and culturally have happened in Toronto, but I think the problem precisely is that we don't talk/teach/"boast" enough about them, to the extent that most Torontonians don't even know about them.

That's so true. A Canadian identity is hard because we are so regionally factious. I mean, in Edmonton they not only curse Ontarians but Saskatchewanians and British Columbians too. When you're over there, or when you go to any other province, it's easy to feel like you're in a different country and the crossing of provincial borders almost feels like the crossing of national borders minus the passport check.

It hurts our identity - our identity as Torontonians perhaps most of all - but it probably really helped Canada be a prosperous country with some even distribution of wealth and power. Imagine if we were one of those physically huge countries where all the resource wealth and business wheelings and dealings took place in a central city like Argentina? Sure, we would be an unmistakable world city (or probably Montreal would've been), but then we would have huge discrepancies in wealth between regions and all the political instability that goes with it.

Regional rivalry is at least as bad in the US as in Canada. Even enmity between New England and New York can be as bad as that between Ontario and ROC (not least being reinforced by sports rivalry but also many things else), let alone the rivalry/discrepancies between East and West, Midwest and Northeast, North and South, etc. However, such rivalry certainly didn't damper an "American" identity, and if anything, it fostered a much stronger civic/regional identity/pride. In fact you can say that its a rather uncommon situation that Toronto wasn't/isn't able to build on this regional rivalry to bolster its own identity/pride.

 

[Long Island Mike]

Chicago vs. Toronto...

Torontovibe: I watched both your South Side of Chicago videos-from the looks of it you were traveling S on Cottage Grove Avenue and then W on 95th Street.
You are right-the SE side WAS and IS tuff turf-I was a regular visitor to Chicago between 1973-1988 - my relatives lived on the SW Side near W.79th Street and Kedzie Avenue and one thing I learned to adhere to was that Chicago was one of the most racially segregated cities in the N-especially in the 70s end of my visiting days. Believe me-going into some of those Black neighborhoods without a bonafide reason or destination was sometimes just inviting trouble.

You got to Beverly Hills-an interesting neighborhood which has many black professionals today as well as then. The E/W main streets of Chicago are exactly one mile apart - or 8 Chicago standard blocks. 95th Street further W past Evergreen Park or Oak Lawn would have gotten you eventually to the Tri-state Tollway where you could have gone SE towards Indiana-but quite a bit out of your way,though. I also noticed the 95/Dan Ryan CTA Rapid Transit station-the Dan Ryan Expressway was in that area-where you could have gotten on the Dan Ryan Expressway S then E. One more thing: The main S streets are W of State Street (1 E/W)and the Dan Ryan Expressway are: Halsted (800W);Ashland(1600W);Western(2400W);Kedzie(3200W);Pulaski(4000W) and Cicero (4800W) in that order. Also another note: Western Avenue was the so-called racial "Dividing Line" for most of the S Side from about 4700 to 5100 S down into the 11500 S area give or take back in my visiting days-White west,Black east I recall.

Those E/W main drags are as examples: 47th,55th,63rd,71st,79th,87th and obviously 95th Street-I remember 95/King Drive as being a place of a Illinois Motor Vehicle License office for S Chicago. In closing you guys needed a good MAP-forget that GPS nonsense to get you out of Dodge. My personal favorite map was the Standard Oil Company 70s era Chicago Street Map-for its useability and its good detail. Nowadays the Chicago Tribune Map is arguably the best. I now remember we used to use 87th Street E to either access the Dan Ryan Expressway or the Chicago Skyway Their site is here:
www.chicagoskyway.org/

I will definitely say that Toronto definitely does not have neighborhoods with the dangers of Chicago especially on a racial standpoint-which makes the Canada vs. the USA argument here somewhat. But one last thing-I like both cities but I definitely do NOT hate Toronto! Insight from LI MIKE

 

[Torontovibe]

When you watch that video, it's hard to see how really scary looking the streets are because the worst parts are not on the main streets but down all those small streets, where the windows are all boarded up, the sidewalks are broken, many street lamps are smashed and garbage is everywhere. It looks like Chicago spends next to nothing to repair and clean the area, where as North Chicago, is in excellent condition. Funny how when Toronto's newspapers write about how far ahead Chicago is, compared to Toronto, they never mention South Chicago. (Because they probably never go there)
I was the only Caucasian for miles around and when I got out of the car, all eyes were on me. I was so uncomfortable. It's funny how even in the Chicago ghetto, all the blacks were on one side and as soon as you head west, it's completely Latino.
We actually went there because they had a really cheap, cool store that had some good stuff, so we loaded up on good deals. The store owner, a Chinese guy, warned us to leave as soon as possible, as did 2 black women, the first time we went there. The problem was finding our way out. lol We drove by highways, we just couldn't find a turn on to them, so we kept driving back and forth. That poor area is huge! It basically goes right down to the Indianapolis boarder.
It's funny how I hear people in Toronto say places like Regent Park or Queen & Sherbourne are very dangerous and they would never go there. Anybody who thinks Regent Park is a ghetto, has no idea what a real ghetto is. I feel totally safe walking through Regent Park. That's one great thing Canadian cities have going for them. We don't have racially segregated ghettos. You won't see any new condos going up on 95th st. & King. The only good thing is, you can buy a 4 bedroom house in South Chicago for 25,000 dollars and a decent condo (in the more middle class area) for 50,000 dollars. There is no part of Toronto where you can get anything close to that.
I've been told that the area I was in wasn't even the worst part of Chicago. West of the loop, where all the government housing projects are, is the poorest and most dangerous part of Chicago, so there's actually parts that are worse than what I filmed.

 

[Torontovibe]

If any of you guys want to see the film "Let's all hate Toronto" here is the whole movie, in 3 parts. All the negative crap gets tiring after a while.

http://torontovibe.ning.com/video/lets-all-hate-toronto-pt-1
http://torontovibe.ning.com/video/lets-all-hate-toronto-pt-2
http://torontovibe.ning.com/video/lets-all-hate-toronto-pt-3

By the end of this film the host was really getting on my nerves. What a disingenuous little shit! lol