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Which of the former "boroughs"/municipalities has the strongest identity?

Which one?

  • East York

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Etobicoke

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • North York

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Scarborough

    Votes: 11 100.0%

  • York

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    11
wild goose chase

wild goose chase

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As we know in the case of cities like New York where people still identity with Brooklyn or the Bronx, amalgamation doesn't necessary erase local identities even if politically, they're one city.

So, which of Toronto's old boroughs besides the former city of Toronto would you say today still has the strongest identity?

I would say Scarborough.
 
Definitely Scarborough, with Etobicoke next. Both have very defined boundaries (Humber River and Victoria Park). The boundaries for the "Yorks" are more fluid, with wards, ridings and postal codes (FSAs) often crossing the old boundaries.

The old borough of York has the weakest identity of all.
 
I agree with Scarborough first and Etobicoke second. When would you say that these places started to form their identities (from people growing up within the last generation or so?).

I find it interesting that Scarborough has such a strong identity out of all the boroughs despite being relatively new and even one "settled" much more recently (it was farmland not too long ago). It doesn't have the generations of history and identity of somewhere like the boroughs of New York or even many other US cities with distinctive regions/areas where the locals say "I'm from (this part of town) born and bred" yet, but you can often sense the pride in the somewhat working class melting pot image that "I'm from/grew up in Scarborough" evokes (the same seems true of Etobicoke to an extent).
 
Scarborough is probably the most prominent because of its size and notoriety. The media would often refer to a crime as having occurred in "Scarborough" as opposed to a crime in the "Jane and Finch area", which is in North York. It also has its distinctively diverse demographics--white people make up a minority of the people.

I agree that York has the weakest identity. If all the streets in your vicinity are sloped, you're probably in York. It's the hilliest part of the city overall. If it were densely built up with rowhouses and apartments, it might resemble San Francisco. But in reality, it has few urban features to define it. It's filled with modest working class houses that don't get anyone's attention--neither impoverished nor well off.

It didn't develop a "city centre" like North York, Scarborough and to a lesser extent, Etobicoke. York never even built a single community centre as a city. The one now under construction at Eglinton and Black Creek is the first one in the former city of York. A lot of online forms (for instance, website store locators) will give you a list of Ontario cities to choose from that includes Etobicoke and Scarborough, but not York.
 
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York is very much the forgotten former municipality. In fact, when I write my address, I write "Toronto, ON" rather than "York, ON" despite the fact that I technically live in the former city of York. The boundary between York and Old Toronto is quite fuzzy and can only be distinguished by street signs (though the post-amalgamation signs are slowly replacing the pre-amalgamation signs).
 
York has the misfortune of having many villages and towns break away from the original Township. The Township of York used to be from Lake Ontario all the way up to today's Steeles Avenue, and from today's Victoria Park Avenue to the Humber River. That little Town of York was the seed that started its decline.
 
Johnny Au said:
York is very much the forgotten former municipality. In fact, when I write my address, I write "Toronto, ON" rather than "York, ON" despite the fact that I technically live in the former city of York. The boundary between York and Old Toronto is quite fuzzy and can only be distinguished by street signs (though the post-amalgamation signs are slowly replacing the pre-amalgamation signs).
Click to expand...

The Old Toronto-York boundary also closely lines up with where "Ford Nation" begins.

It's really the only pre-war area left that hasn't really been touched by gentrification.
 
King of Kensington said:
Definitely Scarborough, with Etobicoke next. Both have very defined boundaries (Humber River and Victoria Park). The boundaries for the "Yorks" are more fluid, with wards, ridings and postal codes (FSAs) often crossing the old boundaries.

The old borough of York has the weakest identity of all.
Click to expand...

I'm amazed at the way becoming part of Metropolitan Toronto, then the amalgamated Toronto, has erased so much of the identity of the former municipalities compared to other cities, even within Ontario. If you compare places like Vaughan, Hamilton or Ottawa, their constituent communities/ former suburbs are still not seen by many as a city or part of the city proper.

Even in comparable "metropolitan" city regions with a large core city and suburbs created from townships (rather than actual swallowed-up towns), this distinct identity persists. In BC, places like Burnaby or Surrey are not seen as de facto parts of Vancouver as the Metro Toronto cities were before 1997.
 
Scarborough but for the wrong reasons. When describing crime it's never Markham/Lawrence or Warden/Danforth, it was always "Scarborough".

Re the weird dividing line between Toronto and York - in my neck of the woods it's the laneway west of Runnymede Road north of Bloor. My place was Toronto, but my laneway neighbour was York.

Often see the former Mayor of York, Nunziata buying her smokes in our local dollar/variety. Currently she's got long blonde hair.
 
I concur with the general consensus. I would rank them as such:
  1. Scarborough
  2. Etobicoke
  3. North York
  4. East York
  5. York
 
Johnny Au said:
The former city of York, especially in Palacio's ward, is the San Francisco of Toronto, topography-wise.
Click to expand...

The San Francisco of Toronto...perhaps realtors will adopt that as a slogan!

On the subject of Palacio, I wonder if Alejandra Bravo, Jonah Schein or some other progressive will finally defeat him in 2018?
 
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