Toronto: Awful city, awful people

umm, my anti-TO credentials are pretty good: born and raised there, but left town the moment I turned 18 ...

but that rant above  is pretty much useless, as of course in a big and sprawling city there are all sorts of people, good, bad and indifferent, and any single visit can, by statistical variation, give you more or less exposure to any of those groups,

 just as your TO visit might coincide with a cold front or beautiful blue skies ...

I love Toronto; it's a fabulous place to visit and I find that the people are friendly and accommodating. Of course, anybody can have a negative experience, even here in Newfoundland & Labrador which has a reputation for having some of the sunniest people in Canada - to visitors, anyway. But people are people, regardless of where they live, and neither Newfoundlanders nor Torontians hold the patents on virtuousity or deceit. 

On a similar note, someone called Calgary small:

http://m.vice.com/en_ca/read/calgary-is-actually-nice

I think Esther just had a bad trip. It took me three visits to London to actually enjoy the place, though the fact that Margaret Thatcher was no longer ruling the roost may have had something to do with it.

My advice is to hop on the ferry and go out to the island to get a bit of perspective on things.

I loved the shot at Vancouver....

article wrote:

Everyone is active and very healthy looking as a result, sort of like Vancouver but less annoying. It’s a casual, cultural healthiness.

Do I really have to point out the emphasis was added?

[ETA: altitude, latitude... what's a few jumbled letters? Although she should have been here in winter, when it is dark on the way into work, and dark on the way home from work]

Born in TO, escaped at the age of 7 and returned for a year at 28. I prefer my present location.

I lived in Toronto for 5 years before moving back to BC.  I very much enjoyed my stay.  Cats are the center of the universe.  Of course that center like the north pole is mobile and at any one time coincides with where I want to sit down.

I would visit really often if I could.

But then, my even more favourite places are New York and London, so that kind of indicates where I like to hang out for a change.

I have plenty of good business reasons to go there. Oddly enough, all my trips there have been work related, or on the way to someplace else, most recently 20 years ago. I enjoyed my visit every time.

Yikes, maybe there is an evil spell on  the area of Albion and Kipling. Two years ago I was calmly westbound on Albion (just west of Kipling) when some *&^%$# decided to make an illegal turn across 4 lanes of moving traffic in the middle of the block and broadsided me. However, unlike you, I found people extremely helpful -- bystanders gave witness statements to the police, solicitously examined my car (which was badly damaged but still drivable to the body shop), and the cops charged the driver with dangerous driving. I was subpoenad to the court date a year later where he was convicted. Then last year, only a few blocks from THAT scene, I was stopped at a stop sign on a side street just  north-east of Kipling and Albion, when some young trucker roared around the corner without stopping (or staying in his lane) and nearly took off the front end of my vehicle. Again, neighbours and workers nearby were a big help.  I don't know what that driver was charged with (stupidity perhaps). 

Maybe I'll give the area a wide berth when driving. But I do find North Etobicoke has some wonderful, diverse neighbourhoods. I've worked in both Jamestown and Thistletown in the past and loved it.

Thats the area I live in and its very diverse (plus has the only homeless shelter outside of te downtown core)

But the drivers suck

NDPP, my first thought was, Esther must have run into our mayor.

I'm sorry about your terrible experience, Esther. Car insurance fraud is rampant in Ontario, and as a result we pay the highest auto insurance fees in the country.

If you come again, I suggest you park your car, get downtown, and go walking in one of the many wonderful neighbourhoods. You are welcome to PM us Toronto folks for ideas. I have a friend who rents bicycles for a reasonable rate if you are into that. I could show you about some lovely car-free bike trails in High Park and along the Ontario Waterfront Trail.

I always enjoy going to Toronto, usually for work of to attend a conference. I don't drive, and one thing I love in Toronto is that they have kept at least some of the streetcar lines.

Like a lot less the weird animosity to bicycles - although carjerks cutting one off and saying we have broken the law when we have committed no violation exist here too, there is no officially-sanctioned animosity, which is a big help.

I suspect some of the carjerk stuff is simple misogyny... It seems odd, when there actually are still quite a few cyclists who do run red lights. I'm always careful not to.

There are also different ethnicities, and hence different cheap but good small restaurants there, and other types of interesting (not terribly onerous) shopping.

Once, there was a very rude guy on the Queen streetcar who didn't stop harassing me (not sexually, just nasty). Normally I'd have got off the car and taken a later one, but the sun was going down and it was in that sort of isolated spot between Parkdale and Etobicoke south (where the friend I was staying with lives). But crap like that can happen anywhere.

I'm really sorry about the "accident", which does sound like an insurance scam.

Edited to add, funny about oldgoat's "exile". Hardly a far remove...

Esther Pinder wrote:

After a horrible weekend experience in Toronto I feel justified in saying that Toronto has no redeeming features. Everyone I dealt with was clearly out to take advantage and only looking out for themselves. There is no grand "community", only petty and slimy denizens out to make a quick dollar and to hell with how that effects others.

Yes sadly ottawa is becoming this way as well. I just researched that Toronto's population is 2.5 million. Ontario is 13.7 million - Toronto = 11.2 million. I was shocked to learn this! The way Toronto talks and shows itself you would think they are 75% of the population, they are only 15% of the total population of Ontario, yet they think everyone else (11.2 million) should go without and all their tax dollars should go to Toronto! Well I do not live in Toronto, but this is grossly disguisting and unfair. Toronto wakeu-up and get rid of your damn attitude of entitlement. There are places in canada where people are going hungary, where there are no doctors, where they do not get housing subsidies and they pay the same taxes as everyone else and some have been here for CENTURIES!

Since1645 wrote:

Esther Pinder wrote:

After a horrible weekend experience in Toronto I feel justified in saying that Toronto has no redeeming features. Everyone I dealt with was clearly out to take advantage and only looking out for themselves. There is no grand "community", only petty and slimy denizens out to make a quick dollar and to hell with how that effects others.

 

Yes sadly ottawa is becoming this way as well. I just researched that Toronto's population is 2.5 million. Ontario is 13.7 million - Toronto = 11.2 million. I was shocked to learn this! The way Toronto talks and shows itself you would think they are 75% of the population, they are only 15% of the total population of Ontario, yet they think everyone else (11.2 million) should go without and all their tax dollars should go to Toronto! Well I do not live in Toronto, but this is grossly disguisting and unfair. Toronto wakeu-up and get rid of your damn attitude of entitlement. There are places in canada where people are going hungary, where there are no doctors, where they do not get housing subsidies and they pay the same taxes as everyone else and some have been here for CENTURIES!

Sineed wrote:

Toronto is made up and shaped by people from all the provinces and territories. We are the concentrated essence of Canada.

There's lots of people in other Canadian cities from around Canada and around the world. What's your point?

No, just people in Toronto. 

A city that loved and celebrated Rob Ford is full of awful people?

I'm shocked.

And its clear which of those bad mayors provided the most levity.

Dont brush off the need for levity !

Vancouver also voted in Gordon Campbell, who I think is somewhat worse than Sam Sullivan.

Anyhow, Toronto is just experiencing the same crappy behaviour you'll find in most cities it's size. Don't worry, Vancouver is nipping at your heels for suckiness.

Did Esther Pinder ever tell us which Shangri-La of warmth and human kindness she's from?  Just for some fair comparison?

Given that her beef seems to have stemmed from being struck by a cab, it would be pretty ironic if she just did a "drive by".

The story from the above photo:

"Pressured by unprecedented increases in the cost of local housing and real estate, five Vancouverites have taken it upon themselves to live on surfboards in a lake.  The surfboard homes, currently valued at $154,000 and climbing..."

Catchfire wrote:

I love the title of this thread and it would bring me great joy to agree with it, but having lived in Vancouver for too long, I'm afraid it just doesn't warrant it.

Is this Deep Cove? I miss Vancouver.

Basement Dweller, yes, that was disgusting. I've been involved in tenants' associations here (Montréal) for decades. I'd say it is simply good old classism. Richer people are not necessarily "more involved in the community". If one wants to get people without the wherewithal to buy real estate "more involved", then one supports more co-operatives and other forms of social housing that ensure stability and hence involement.