The Ascendancy of Toronto

[cassius]

Why do people in this thread keep trying to talk about Toronto's decline when it's supposed to be about it's ascendancy? If you're not going to talk about that then post in a different thread for goodness sakes! How annoying.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Glen,

As per NL and cassius - you've missed the point, period.

AoD

 

[TrickyRicky]

I think Glen's concerns are legitimate and concerning with respect to interests that are in trouble in this city. Where this gets lost in translation is that the city is made up of a vast array of interests many of which are in ascendancy many of which are in decline. Glen speaks to the marginal middle-class, that is the struggling middle-class generally employed in certain economic sectors. One of my criticisms is that there seems to be a 416 905 paradigm underlying the ideas that is 15 years out of date. In my opiniion the economic numbers belie the actual trends. My sense is that the economic story of this past and perhaps continuing recession and economic restructuring has been decline in vast swaths of the suburbs including the outer boroughs of Toronto but increasingly made up of communities in the 905. Infact I sense that 905 will soon make up the bulk of such struggling communities and taxation has little to do with it.

I think we can measure Toronto's ascendancy through different lenses and get different answers each time. The lens I am bias towards is measuring Toronto's ascendancy relative to itself. This is the view that I think we are most blinded to. The reason is that we grrow as the city changes and so we cannot see and understand the Toronto of the past just as we cannot see and understand ourselves at age 15 when we are 55. To the extent that more is good I fail to see how you can argue that Toronto of even 10 years ago isn't a shadow of what it is today. The real question is is more better?

Another lens we can measure Toronto's ascendancy through is comparing Toronto to it's peers. A lot of emotion gets wrapped into this on this forum. On an international scale I think Toronto's ascendancy might be questionable, to be honest I don't have enough knowledge. My sense however is that over the past decade Toronto has ascended realtive to it's North American peers. I sense that Toronto matters more than it used to. You can see this in the media and in business and in the personal connections people have throughout the continent. Toronto will always be a centre that draws in people, money and talent in Canada but you sense for the first time over the last decade that it is really starting to appear on the radar to Americans as well.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Glen:

Your acceptance is not required.

TR:

As legitimate as his concerns maybe, this thread isn't about his concerns - in fact, the stated goal of this thread is to avoid it turning into yet-another-avenue for him to express his concern. What's the point of having threads for specific topics if in the end it's meant for spamming one message?

AoD

 

[GraphicMatt]

Toronto's ascendancy: challenged by people arguing about irrelevant details and inevitably worrying way too much that we'll one day decline.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Off topic postings moved to:

http://urbantoronto.ca/showthread.php?13505-Taxation-Debate

AoD

 

[CityPainter]

Where this gets lost in translation is that the city is made up of a vast array of interests many of which are in ascendancy many of which are in decline.

This is exactly how I feel. To make a general claim that Toronto is ascending or descending involves a ridiculous number of factors, many of which are interrelated, and many of which are dependent on happenings in the country as a whole, or even in the entire world. Any one person's personal viewpoint more or less depends on their own personal priorities and interests.

To make things even more complicated, many things can be simultaneously seen as positive or negative depending on the viewpoint. For example:

- High real estate prices can be seen as a negative because they make it harder for individuals to own the homes they want. On the other hand, the prices are high because demand is high. People want to live in Toronto because it is a good place to live. The places with the lowest real estate prices are usually depressed: if home prices are low it's because nobody wants to live there.

- Traffic congestion is seen as a negative because it makes it hard to get around. On the other hand, there is evidence that this congestion is bringing us to a tipping point that is leading to important discussions about public transit, tolls, bike lanes, pedestrianization, and other things that even 5 or 10 years ago were not on the mainstream radar. Even with all the complaining about the TTC ridership is at record highs, because many are realizing that the inconvenience of transit is less than that of driving. If we can leverage this to implement the right changes to our funding and infrastructure we could end up much better off in another decade or so.

I think we are in a period of transition, and when there is change there is always fear and resistance. In the meantime, Toronto is holding its own pretty well through some tough times. We can get bogged down in debates about individual tax rates or decimal points in jobless numbers but that doesn't change the overall vibrancy and relevance of Toronto as a whole. If Toronto was truly in any sort of decline we would not see the massive amounts of development that Northern Lights listed in the original post.

 

[TO City of Light]

Actually, ascendancy or descendancy, is there anyone who has left Toronto who regrets having done so?

Sorry for bring so provocative and direct.

 

[MisterF]

What about "The Bridge". I've never seen it, but I caught a few minutes last night, and it was full of very recognizable shots of Toronto; subways passing with very clear TTC logos, etc. Is it set in Toronto? And why is called "The Bridge"? There were several shots of, and under, the Bloor-Danforth viaduct. Is that "the bridge"? It's a series about this bridge??

It's open about its Toronto-ness, as is Rookie Blue the new cop show on ABC.

All three shows showcase and mention landmarks, streets, etc. but almost never actually say what city or country they're in. I think it's a deliberate move to make it less obvious to Americans that they're watching a foreign show. It's a shame because the identities that many cities have is partly a product of the media. Those shows are a step in the right direction though, and they're not half bad either.

 

[CityPainter]

Actually, ascendancy or descendancy, is there anyone who has left Toronto who regrets having done so?

Sorry for bring so provocative and direct.

Anecdotally, I can answer that with a firm "yes" as I know two people who left Toronto for other Canadian cities (one with the firm promise to never return) who did come back several years later to admit that they had under-appreciated Toronto, and also to express admiration at how much the city had changed for the positive during their absence. Of course I'm sure there are others who have left and found places more suited to their personal lifestyle. None of these experiences would confirm Toronto's ascent or descent of course, because the choice of where to live is a very personal one. If someone wants nothing more than to live surrounded by acres of woodlands and chipmunks nothing the city of Toronto does is going to impress them.

 

[TrickyRicky]

TO City of Light,

I think that a mature individual would not and should not regret leaving Toronto. A mature person would also not need to wrap their identity in sense of place and recognize that where you live has nothing to do with what kind of person you are. A mature person would come from a paradigm of abundance and wish everyone, where ever they live success. He would admire these successes and reserve deep gratitude for the people and places who helped to shape him into the person he is.

I tend to share CityPainter's view that Toronto is presently undergoing rapid transition. In a way perhaps transition is a better word than the ascendancy/decline dichotomy. Everyone reading this forum, even this forum itself, is part of this transition. It's just that we can't see it from the outside and our egos have a tough time believing that our individual efforts and expressions are really just minute contributions towards larger macro trends playing out in real-time.

 

[CityPainter]

Everyone reading this forum, even this forum itself, is part of this transition.

I don't mean to spam this forum with so many posts in one day, but this is also something I had thought of earlier: the fact that so many Torontonians are fervently discussing, defending, and arguing the merits of the city and the way it is changing bodes well for its future. If Toronto ever does truly decline, its residents won't go down without a fight. When nobody cares enough to fight for it, then we should worry.

 

[Second_in_pie]

All three shows showcase and mention landmarks, streets, etc. but almost never actually say what city or country they're in. I think it's a deliberate move to make it less obvious to Americans that they're watching a foreign show. It's a shame because the identities that many cities have is partly a product of the media. Those shows are a step in the right direction though, and they're not half bad either.

I'd say that a problem with The Bridge is that it kind of assumes that you know a bit about the city, like someone might know about New York or London. And I'll agree with your reason as to why all of these shows are discreetly Canadian, and all Canadian media should be less ashamed and/or scared of being so.

Rookie Blue (which is a pretty good show I must admit,) is a bit more shameful and harder to admit that it's Canadian. If you replaced "Jarvis" and "Queen" with "Broadway" and "2nd Avenue," people would know exactly where it's set, but Toronto doesn't quite have that type of international reputation. I guess you could call it trying to run before you can walk?
Though I think it'd be a great thing if, not just the latest spree of police dramas set in Toronto, but all Canadian media wasn't so scared of being called out as such. For a nation that hates getting confused for Americans, we do an awfully hard job of trying to seem like them on TV. International audiences might actually be more interested if a movie or TV show was set in a country other than America, and if put in the right direction it could actually form a popular and widely accepted Canadian culture rather than just denying that we're American culture.

 

[nfitz]

Murdoch Mysteries seems to be quite unashamed of making it clear they are in Toronto. So that's one cop show!

 

[taal]

Murdoch Mysteries seems to be quite unashamed of making it clear they are in Toronto. So that's one cop show!

barf, I hate that show.