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Still a lot of ignorance from the downtowners re: T.O?

I've heard all sorts of references to "downtown" that confound any attempt to associate this term with any specific geographic reference. Maybe that's the point. The meaning is only relevent within the context of the communication.

What is far more interesting is why, and why so many people here in particular, care so much that there should be a standardized meaning linking the term to a "correct" geographic mapping?

In communication they say the words only convey about 7% of the meaning. I think that people who crave order or are uncomfortable with ambiguity (which is basically the same thing) ascribe disproportionate energy to this 7%. The reason I mention this is because I was one of these people, until that is I began to bring other ways of thinking into my awareness.

People who ascribe disproportionate energy into the 7% because they need order and are uncomfortable with ambiguity make up the majority of individuals who end up in professions such as: architecture, planning, design, engineering, accounting, economics, law etc.
 
Tricky,

With all respect, it's easy to be contrarian and poke fun of action-oriented professions (lawyers, engineers, planners, economists, public health researchers, etc.) because they crave order, reduce individual people into arbitrary groups for statistical analysis, or generate simplistic models to simulate the complexity of social systems. Don't we all just yearn to be treated as individuals and embrace a world of complexity and uncertainty? After all, people don't make rational decisions and people aren't easily categorized into groups.

But, frankly, what else can we do? At the end of the day, people need to get vaccinations, a budget has to be balanced, a pineapple has to be delivered to a supermarket in Winnipeg, a company has to avoid litigation for the unintended use of its products, some assessment has to be made about who gets to be promoted and who gets to stay behind...somewhere, something has to be simplified and order - however arbitrary and absurd it might seem from the individual perspective - has to be imposed in order for society to function.
 
TrickyRicky said:
I've heard all sorts of references to "downtown" that confound any attempt to associate this term with any specific geographic reference. Maybe that's the point. The meaning is only relevent within the context of the communication.
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I somewhat disagree. There is one geographic place we can all agree is "downtown", and that's the financial district with the big bank towers. No one would disagree that that is "downtown". How wide you want to apply the definition of "downtown" is debatable, but I think that is the undeniable centre of "downtown".
 
I guess they use the term in NYC but to lesser extents. I've never heard anyone say "downtown New York" but I have heard "downtown Manhattan".
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I've never heard anyone use the term "downtown Manhattan" either....just "downtown" , as it is implied that it refers to a specific area of Manhattan. From my experience, New Yorkers and the surrounding area, refer to the island of Manhattan as "the city"....as in they don't say they are going to Manhattan...they are heading into "the city".


Perhaps we should make like the Asians and use the term 'CBD'.
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"CBD" would not be a very appropriate name, as it implies a "downtown" of mostly single-use (business). Since Toronto has a downtown that is unusually large and incredibly mixed-use, applying "CBD" would not be a very accurate term to use to describe it. This is a term better used in a city such as Houston.

Is there actually an official definition of "downtown" though, I wonder?
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Actually, there is. According to the city, the borders of "downtown" are: Lake on the south...Don Valley on the east...Rosedale Valley/Davenport/Dupont on the north...Bathurst on the west (north of Queen) and Dufferin (south of queen). All the borders seem pretty physically obvious, except for on the west where it's obviously blurry.

The reason why I like to use "downtown" to refer to the financial district only is because it doesn't have any other name.
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I dunno...I think "financial district" is a pretty good name.
It is called that because it is a highly concentrated area that focusses on "finance" (financial services, banking, stock market) and services that feed off it (legal firms, headhunters, etc). And it is of considerable size and importance. Most cities do not have a "financial district", because they either don't have a financial sector of that magnitude, or don't concentrate it all in such a specific area.

Toronto's "financial District" is often referred to as "Bay Street" , just as New York's financial district is referred to as "Wall Street" (which is also a specific section of "downtown" Manhattan).

Oddly enough, our "financial district", while pretty small in area, itself also has an even smaller area referred to as MINT...the intersection of King & Bay.


Whereas the other neighborhoods have actual names, i.e. The Distillery district, St. Lawrence, Yorkville, Queen West, Church-Wellesley, The Annex, Liberty village, The beaches, etc.
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With the exception of The Beach, ALL of those areas are within Downtown.

Trying to relate our "downtown" to other "downtowns" is not going to work very well, because our "downtown" is very unique, in that it is so diverse in terms of use and demographics. We concentrate EVERYTHING into our downtown, and off the top of my head, I can't think of any other city that does it as much as we do.
 
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freshcutgrass said:
Oddly enough, our "financial district", while pretty small in area, itself also has an even smaller area referred to as MINT...the intersection of King & Bay.
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OK, that is very interesting. Never heard this term before. Do you have any outside references to the term?

Trying to relate our "downtown" to other "downtowns" is not going to work very well, because our "downtown" is very unique, in that it is so diverse in terms of use and demographics. We concentrate EVERYTHING into our downtown, and off the top of my head, I can't think of any other city that does it as much as we do.
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Yes, I agree now. Our downtown is very unique and unlike the other "downtowns" in other North American/USofAmerican cities.
Hence why I'm not such a big fan of that term. I think we should have a unique term for our downtown. :)
 
freshcutgrass said:
Toronto's "financial District" is often referred to as "Bay Street" , just as New York's financial district is referred to as "Wall Street" (which is also a specific section of "downtown" Manhattan).

Oddly enough, our "financial district", while pretty small in area, itself also has an even smaller area referred to as MINT...the intersection of King & Bay.
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I hear "Bay Street" all the time, but never MINT, and I work just north of the aforementioned intersection. Is it an acronym, or is it just where all the money is? (I thought for a moment it might refer to the four banks that hold down the four corners, but those don't spell MINT....)
 
FAC33 said:
I hear "Bay Street" all the time, but never MINT, and I work just north of the aforementioned intersection. Is it an acronym, or is it just where all the money is? (I thought for a moment it might refer to the four banks that hold down the four corners, but those don't spell MINT....)
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I've heard "MINT" before, but only on UT, never in real life. And only very rarely on UT.
 
Is it an acronym, or is it just where all the money is? (I thought for a moment it might refer to the four banks that hold down the four corners, but those don't spell MINT....)
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You're right on all accounts....that's why the acronym is so fitting.

And it does stand for the four banks at each corner...
Montreal (Bank of)
Imperial Bank (now Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce)
Nova Scotia (Bank Of...now Scotia Bank)
Toronto Dominion Bank (now TD-Canada Trust)

It's an old common term, but I guess it has fallen out of use a lot over the years (plus bank re-branding has changed the names a bit).
 
I guess these days it's BCST. Given that the Imperial Bank of Canada hasn't been called that for a half-century, then it's no wonder that few under the age of 70 have ever heard of it!
 
freshcutgrass said:
You're right on all accounts....that's why the acronym is so fitting.

And it does stand for the four banks at each corner...
Montreal (Bank of)
Imperial Bank (now Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce)
Nova Scotia (Bank Of...now Scotia Bank)
Toronto Dominion Bank (now TD-Canada Trust)

It's an old common term, but I guess it has fallen out of use a lot over the years (plus bank re-branding has changed the names a bit).
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I believe TD's official name remains The Toronto Dominon Bank.

Go to any TD website and look at the legal jargon at the bottom or click on legal and it says the following:

TD Bank Financial Group

The TD Bank Financial Group means The Toronto-Dominion Bank and its affiliates, who provide deposit, investment, loan, securities, trust, insurance and other products or services.
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Riverdale Rink Rat said:
TD - Canada Trust refers to TD's retail branch operations, just as TD Waterhouse is investments.
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Yes but if you're talking about the name of the bank in terms of its headquarters, you're going to refer to the whole company, which is the Toronto-Dominion Bank Finanial Group.
 
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