We HATE Toronto!

[urbanboom]

Somehow, newspaper forums tend to the place where morons congregate. Like honestly, does these individuals, which often complain about nothing but high taxes and the poor even holds a job - like where did they get the time to type so much with so little content?

AoD

And the best part of the negative Toronto Star posters are how they hate the Toronto star itself! They read an article, post some horribly un-constructive and negative, then call the article bias, then they call the newspaper "The Toronto Red Star", then they somehow find a way to blame the natural disaster on David Miller.

God, some of the multiple posters really get on my nerves. There's this one named Marilyn who just posts all sorts crap. There was this one article on how Michael Ignatieff would support tax-cuts. She posted something along the lines of "Michael Ignatieff is a horrible snob who wants to make a Soviet Cannuckistan because he's Russian, and thus he has ties to the KGB and the Russian mob, and how Stephen Harper should execute him for treason. And then kill Miller for the hell of it."

When someone asked her if she had even read the article she said that she didn't need to because she knew the Toronto Star (apparently the newspaper she reads) is an NDP propaganda machine, and how she already knows everything she needs to.

Gawd, Grow up people!

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

even with the eaton centre, the retail in the area around it doesn't suffer at street level like most places would, sucking away customers.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

And the best part of the negative Toronto Star posters are how they hate the Toronto star itself! They read an article, post some horribly un-constructive and negative, then call the article bias, then they call the newspaper "The Toronto Red Star", then they somehow find a way to blame the natural disaster on David Miller.

if you look at those responses, you kinda think that most of the people that read the star are conservatives. i guess they go to that site to keep an eye on the big left wing conspiracy.

 

[Hipster Duck]

I love Toronto more than any city, and I accept it warts and all as one would accept their life partner's flaws as part of a whole package.

Still, this city is unique in the world in that it is skirting global Alpha city status but still has horrendous vestiges of provincial and stubbornheaded thinking that prevent it from making that final leap. I'll name just a few including the pigheaded attitude of the TTC, a city council system that is a monstrous union of the worst examples of right and left wing pettiness and our seeming inability to market ourselves beyond being a tacky knockoff of a Manhattan cliché. Perhaps our built form is symbolic of where Toronto stands: in places it can have such cosmopolitan swagger, but a block or even a building away can feel so tawdry and Potemkin.

For those that haven't deduced this from my posts, I live in Phoenix now. It is a city of many, many, many mistakes and sometimes stupefying provincialism, but I can forgive it for its problems more easily than Toronto because it doesn't aspire to be better than what it is. Hardly a global centre, it's an overblown regional American "D" city that never bothered to step up to compete on a world stage. Sure, both high school students and grad students submit papers, but teachers will look the other way if the high school student doesn't make supportive arguments or makes grammar omissions.

If Toronto could ditch the provincial baggage (and I mean 'provincial' in a literal and metaphorical sense, hint hint) who know how far we could go?

 

[lordmandeep]

Well I do agree 1000% Miller sucks and is in bed with the unions.

Imo it is our own self loathing, the fact that people outside Toronto think were swimming around and cash but then say it is full of hobo's and hippies and the unions that are hurting this city.

Imo we have to get tough on panhandlers who do nothing apart from harassing people and scarring them away from ever coming back. The streets need to be cleaned more often (I mean our main streets)...

Plus NY is still a urban cesspool south of 34th street.

 

[Archivist]

I would agree with the comments pertaining to newspaper discussions - why bother? It seems that two minutes after an article, any article, is posted, there are over 100 inane comments. I think they should require people to use a full name and provide a (hidden) phone number for checking before they can post - but that would require resources, and it isn't going to happen.

Mystic point's comments, above, though, do require a response, because they are so over the top ill informed in every possible way. As adma points out, he can't even spell the Eaton Centre properly, and clearly has never been in it (abandoned? Hello, earth calling mystic??), so why respond to his points at all.

Well, maybe because they are the very problem we are discussing.

I find it laughable that he should laud, above all, Chicago's or New York's planning process: Chicago is notorious for its immense corruption and abandonment of huge tracts of its city to negligence and squalor, while New York's planning process is sclerotic, beset by massive nimby-ism, and is one of the few places that seems to take even longer than Toronto to get anything done. Where is New York's Gehry? Oh, right, that got cancelled. Just look at their rent control situation to see how good their planning is. Of course, New York does get some bitchin architecture regardless, but comparisons with Toronto in that regard are sort of pointless, since any architect is going to give a little extra for a building in New York, and since there's generally more money there.

 

[ssk]

Is it that perhaps a considerable majority of people in Toronto are not actually from here? Home is somewhere else. Toronto is where they'll work until they can move back with a retirement. In the meantime, they can hate it.

I don't think that is the primary hating demographic. People who come from other places almost always absolutely love Toronto. I've seen this both from people from places that I esteem highly and from places that I consider crappy.

I went to the Toronto TransitCamp dealie in Feb 2007. They did an informal poll there asking how many people were born outside of Toronto. More than 80% were transplants or repatriated Torontonians.

This can be explained by the maxim familiarity breeds contempt. We should send our Toronto-born high-schoolers on summer-work exchanges to US cities. That ought to teach them!

 

[jks]

Well, seeing as Mystic Point is the one who started that complete failiure of a thread:
"Now that Obama is in, should Canada and the US become one country??"
And has obviously never been to the waterfront, Yonge Street, Dundas Street, Spadina ave, etc, or the eaton centre, for that matter,

I will conclude that he is either an American living here, or not even living here, but somewhere in the US.

 

[jks]

And the best part of the negative Toronto Star posters are how they hate the Toronto star itself! They read an article, post some horribly un-constructive and negative, then call the article bias, then they call the newspaper "The Toronto Red Star", then they somehow find a way to blame the natural disaster on David Miller.

God, some of the multiple posters really get on my nerves. There's this one named Marilyn who just posts all sorts crap. There was this one article on how Michael Ignatieff would support tax-cuts. She posted something along the lines of "Michael Ignatieff is a horrible snob who wants to make a Soviet Cannuckistan because he's Russian, and thus he has ties to the KGB and the Russian mob, and how Stephen Harper should execute him for treason. And then kill Miller for the hell of it."

When someone asked her if she had even read the article she said that she didn't need to because she knew the Toronto Star (apparently the newspaper she reads) is an NDP propaganda machine, and how she already knows everything she needs to.

Gawd, Grow up people!

What is the problem of these people!! The problem with Toronto isn't that everyone hates it, but the fact that the people that do are very vocal!! On the internet, and otherwise. Another part of the problem is also that everyone in this city doesn't care about Toronto: "it's like any other city, like whatever". It's this kind of mentality we need to change!

 

[wyliepoon]

I don't think the majority of Torontonians hate the city (and I certainly won't gauge civic pride from reading comments off of a newspaper website). I think many of us actually enjoy the city... just look at the people attracted to events like Doors Open, Cavalcade of Lights, Winterlicious, Nuit Blanche, Luminato, etc. Also look at the people who go downtown for shopping, entertainment, and just to see and be seen. They may not appreciate the "City of Toronto" as an entity, but they certainly like what the city has to offer.

I think it's really great for constructive criticism to fluorish like here on UT (and a host of other sites like Spacing) in Toronto. It shows that many people care about the city and have visions about how to make the city even better. In a way constructive criticism is a form of civic pride in Toronto... nothing like the blind civic pride forced upon people where they are only allowed to appreciate and not criticize (in places like China, where people are expected to take pride in their cities while their ancestral neighbourhoods are knocked down for civic projects), nor are we like Rust Belt cities where people have lost pride in their own cities except when it comes to sports teams (places like Detroit).

 

[Whoaccio]

I find a weird part about Toronto is that there are two roughly equal voices in the city with antithetical, and borderline impossible, visions for the city. On one hand, I am sick and tired to the perpetual Europhillia this city gives off. It is de rigeur for anybody running for political office nowadays to justify policies based on relative Europeanness. Building LRT lines? To what extent do they reflect the overall mood in Europe? Local conditions be damned. Building an Opera house? Screw things like affordability and local demand, if it doesn't compare to the latest thing dreamed up by a Eurocrat for some poor fishing village in Portugal, there isn't really much point in building something appropriate for the local market now is there? It has gotten (always has been?) ridiculous. Toronto for a million reasons will never become some quaint little European village. I get the feeling that if the proponents of this 'Eur-onto' dream had spent anything more than the summer after college touring bars in Europe on their parent's money, the comparison would start to fall apart in their eyes. Toronto is not Europe. Key issues for this group: Why does Toronto not have bike lanes occupying 30% of all road space ("There is this one village in Belgium...."), why does Toronto not look like Copenhagen? the lack of 'european style' coffee shops on every corner, the lack of fair trade markets and just about anything to do with corporations (I hear they are evil, you know).

Which brings me round to the next view: Toronto isn't Europe (i.e. good), so there is no point bothering with 'socialist' things like streetscape improvements. Basically if we can't be Geneva, we should model ourselves on Atlanta or Dallas. I am still trying to figure out to what extent this classifies as a 'vision' as opposed to regressive banter of Rob Ford types who don't really have anything to add to a discussion beyond 'things were better in the 1950s.' This position stresses opposition to condominiums and high density housing as communism incarnate. Why, they don't even have a backyard, this basically guarantees your children will turn into homosexual coffee shop waiters just waiting to make it into the interior designing big leagues or a quasi lesbian-bookstore manager. What other alternatives are there? Any initiative which challenges this pantomime of the American dream (like, say equalizing residential and commercial tax rates or improving public transit) is immediately categorized as: Communist, Miller-tax-and-spend-unionism (don't worry about syntax, that is elitist), Social Engineering, Multiculturalism gone wild or something like this. Key issues for this group: 'Wall of condos' on waterfront, Miller, the TTC and it's failings at providing subway service to their Etobicoke bungalow and the lack of Smart Centers downtown.

The discussion on urban issues hasn't really moved past these two archetypes. It doesn't help that much of this debate is structured around geographic lines, but it is important not to stress that. Many of the biggest proponents of the first are suburbanites who moved downtown and many Rob Ford types were born downtown but moved to Brampton for various reasons. People are infinitely mobile and choose neighborhoods, in part, based on ideology. It also doesn't help that Municipal politics is basically beholden to special interests. No councilor really represents very much (i.e. Stintz represents North Toronto NIMBYs, while Giambrone represents a motley of pseudo European wannabes). The lack of party politics is a major problem in this regard. Councilors run on the narrowest of platforms. This leads to a fairly acidic discussion on issues. In the absence of things like actual policy suggestions, people just turn to insulting each other and their way of life based on how it compares to their own fantasies of how Toronto should be, as opposed to actually looking at what it is and going from there.

EDIT: Sometimes I feel that political infatuation with Europe is a gimmick in order to pay for many a 'research trip' to Europe. Even when they do produce information, like the Metrolinx paper on Madrid's subway and how they lowered costs, the final product is usually ignored. It reminds me of the Simpsons Town Hall meeting:

Mayor Quimby: And after spending the past 3 months in Aruba, I have conclude that a high speed rail link to there from Springfield is not feasible

 

[christiesplits]

I find a weird part about Toronto is that there are two roughly equal voices in the city with antithetical, and borderline impossible, visions for the city. On one hand, I am sick and tired to the perpetual Europhillia this city gives off. It is de rigeur for anybody running for political office nowadays to justify policies based on relative Europeanness. Building LRT lines? To what extent do they reflect the overall mood in Europe? Local conditions be damned. Building an Opera house? Screw things like affordability and local demand, if it doesn't compare to the latest thing dreamed up by a Eurocrat for some poor fishing village in Portugal, there isn't really much point in building something appropriate for the local market now is there? It has gotten (always has been?) ridiculous. Toronto for a million reasons will never become some quaint little European village. I get the feeling that if the proponents of this 'Eur-onto' dream had spent anything more than the summer after college touring bars in Europe on their parent's money, the comparison would start to fall apart in their eyes. Toronto is not Europe. Key issues for this group: Why does Toronto not have bike lanes occupying 30% of all road space ("There is this one village in Belgium...."), why does Toronto not look like Copenhagen? the lack of 'european style' coffee shops on every corner, the lack of fair trade markets and just about anything to do with corporations (I hear they are evil, you know).

Which brings me round to the next view: Toronto isn't Europe (i.e. good), so there is no point bothering with 'socialist' things like streetscape improvements. Basically if we can't be Geneva, we should model ourselves on Atlanta or Dallas. I am still trying to figure out to what extent this classifies as a 'vision' as opposed to regressive banter of Rob Ford types who don't really have anything to add to a discussion beyond 'things were better in the 1950s.' This position stresses opposition to condominiums and high density housing as communism incarnate. Why, they don't even have a backyard, this basically guarantees your children will turn into homosexual coffee shop waiters just waiting to make it into the interior designing big leagues or a quasi lesbian-bookstore manager. What other alternatives are there? Any initiative which challenges this pantomime of the American dream (like, say equalizing residential and commercial tax rates or improving public transit) is immediately categorized as: Communist, Miller-tax-and-spend-unionism (don't worry about syntax, that is elitist), Social Engineering, Multiculturalism gone wild or something like this. Key issues for this group: 'Wall of condos' on waterfront, Miller, the TTC and it's failings at providing subway service to their Etobicoke bungalow and the lack of Smart Centers downtown.

The discussion on urban issues hasn't really moved past these two archetypes. It doesn't help that much of this debate is structured around geographic lines, but it is important not to stress that. Many of the biggest proponents of the first are suburbanites who moved downtown and many Rob Ford types were born downtown but moved to Brampton for various reasons. People are infinitely mobile and choose neighborhoods, in part, based on ideology. It also doesn't help that Municipal politics is basically beholden to special interests. No councilor really represents very much (i.e. Stintz represents North Toronto NIMBYs, while Giambrone represents a motley of pseudo European wannabes). The lack of party politics is a major problem in this regard. Councilors run on the narrowest of platforms. This leads to a fairly acidic discussion on issues. In the absence of things like actual policy suggestions, people just turn to insulting each other and their way of life based on how it compares to their own fantasies of how Toronto should be, as opposed to actually looking at what it is and going from there.

Incredible rant, Whoaccio!

 

[Mystic Point]

Only the most radical anti-mall zealot would consider the Eaton Centre (watch the spelling! are you a Yank or something?) an instance where Toronto went horribly wrong on the road to shabby neglect--if anything, from an *urban* (not suburban) standpoint, it has succeeded far, far better than virtually anything else of its ilk in North America. It's certainly not an oppressive bunker like the Rideau Centre in Ottawa; nor has it bombed like all those other Eaton Centre wannabes out there. And, thanks to Zeidler, it *was*, by 70s standards, "sophisticated planning, design or architecture" that made headlines all over--maybe even surpassing 70s New York and Chicago on that count...

Then a " radical anti-mall zealot " I must be, because for my money -- and I live around the corner from it -- it's a dreadful eyesore and should be demolished. It's simply awful.

 

[Mystic Point]

I would agree with the comments pertaining to newspaper discussions - why bother? It seems that two minutes after an article, any article, is posted, there are over 100 inane comments. I think they should require people to use a full name and provide a (hidden) phone number for checking before they can post - but that would require resources, and it isn't going to happen.

Mystic point's comments, above, though, do require a response, because they are so over the top ill informed in every possible way. As adma points out, he can't even spell the Eaton Centre properly, and clearly has never been in it (abandoned? Hello, earth calling mystic??), so why respond to his points at all.

Well, maybe because they are the very problem we are discussing.

I find it laughable that he should laud, above all, Chicago's or New York's planning process: Chicago is notorious for its immense corruption and abandonment of huge tracts of its city to negligence and squalor, while New York's planning process is sclerotic, beset by massive nimby-ism, and is one of the few places that seems to take even longer than Toronto to get anything done. Where is New York's Gehry? Oh, right, that got cancelled. Just look at their rent control situation to see how good their planning is. Of course, New York does get some bitchin architecture regardless, but comparisons with Toronto in that regard are sort of pointless, since any architect is going to give a little extra for a building in New York, and since there's generally more money there.

Perhaps I wasn't clear regarding the planning process comment. I don't laud NYC or Chicago's corrupt planners. What I laud are the results. And they are impressive.

As for the Eaton's Center ( or Centre for the colonialists among us ) it's a dreadful eyesore. It's a mall and they should call it what it is.

I live around the corner from it and go in from time to time. ( But I never last more than about 5 minutes.) The Eaton's Mall is ugly as the Robarts Library, The Hudson Bay disaster at Yonge and Bloor or anything in Scarborough or North York.

 

[adma]

Then a " radical anti-mall zealot " I must be, because for my money -- and I live around the corner from it -- it's a dreadful eyesore and should be demolished. It's simply awful.

You're not so much a radical anti-mall zealot as an ignorant, destructive, abject amateur when it comes to the last half century of Toronto architectural and urban history.

I mean, I can imagine people being generically opposed to malls. And I can imagine people being distressed by the slow frittering-away of the Eaton Centre's 70s high-tech aesthetic. But to the point of "dreadful eyesore and should be demolished"--which, I guess, involves exactly that landmark 70sness that remains?!? That's practically lunatic-fringe Kunstlerism...

Mystic Point--even by NYC or Chicago standards, that's hick judgment. Hick. Hick. Hick.