City
A Tale of Two Shitties: Vancouver versus Toronto Part One
First of all, I'm a hater. We all know that. Second, everyone loves to hate Toronto, especially if you're from Vancouver. They even made a movie about it. Third, I didn't hate Toronto. I know. It doesn't add up. Sure, it had some spectacular moments of ineptitude which of course I will elaborate upon, but how refreshing to be in a city with a real taste for all things cultural, not just spirit orcas, and accidentally seeing the Choir Practice at a Canucks game.
Unlike my brief visit to Montreal, and unlike Vancouver it seems, Toronto doesn't appear to have vast segments of population that exist in isolation, or in autonomy, of the wider population. In Vancouver however, this exists in the psyche, manifesting itself in anti-social solitude for fear that someone will ask you for change, for your signature, to buy whatever they're giving out, or to to buy drugs. My god, in Toronto its actually possible to start up a random conversation with a stranger on the bus, or in the street.
There is a tangible working class in TO, an actual middle that runs in that seems diametrically opposed to Vancouver's black and right economic divide. Its like the inverse of the respective city's weather; Toronto's extremes make for a sense of camaraderie, while the dull grey khaki skies of the West Coast clash with extreme poverty and extreme wealth. And maybe its just me, but everyone in Toronto is nicer and less cliquey. There is much less focus on what you look like and it seems everyone just wants to party because its not winter anymore. Sure, Toronto has its share of fiberglass moose, bad fashion, wildcat-striking subway workers, wankers, and whatnot, but per capita (which means you can blame it on the fact that Toronto is a bigger city), they have more restaurants, art galleries, cafes film, venues, boutiques, and pubs. There is just way more going on. Contact and Over the Top Festival being the two that kept me busy during my visit.
With Contact, nothing in Vancouver can compare to it in scope. The whole city was part of the exhibit, from the exterior of the under construction AGO, to projections onto the Yale, to Robert Burley's wall piece in the parking lot of the MOCCA, to tiny cafes, even to a post and beam reclamation store. Sure, some of it was spread a little thin but there were some obvious gems, The Martin Parr series and the Nan Golden slides at the MOCCA, Flicker, Evan Lee's work in the distillery, Landlocked and Aerials at Pearson, the bike rack shadow stickers by Anthony Kourtras, Zoe Jarumus at Whippersnapper, Don't Mess with the Pediment (a collection of decommissioned Bank of Montreal locations throughout Canada), Burtynski at David Mirvish books on art, Obstacle at Engine Gallery and of course the Rodney Graham trees on expressway columns.
At Over the Top, we met Crispin Glover and saw High Places in a church, as well as Aa, An Abaltross, DD/MM/YYYY, Our Brother the Native, Huckleberry Friends, Revolution Love, Shpilberg. Oh and we almost saw Midnight Juggernauts and Shy Child but according to the Rob Lowe impersonator at the door of the Mod Club, who wouldn't give is our money back on account that "no band in North America has ever gone on after midnight" and that the "Midnight" Juggernauts had played "ages ago", take off the fedora geek, you're not in LA. We also almost went to see Silver Apples, but it was too pricey at $38 to convince Jessica to go in. Whatever, High Places made up for everything.
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i love how every time you ask someone from vancouver who's bashing toronto "when were you there", it's always the same response - "oh i've never been".
nice to hear some of your observations. both cities have their positives and negatives.
Welcome back Sean!
SYPHILUS TOPHAT ! SYPHILUS TOPHAT ! SYPHILUS TOPHAT ! SYPHILUS TOPHAT !
Here's a thought, go back to TO and stay there this time.
"Here's a thought, go back to TO and stay there this time."
Don't tempt me. Although I have a feeling you'd be flaming me over there too, this is afterall the magical world called the interweb. Syphilis Top-hat indeeeed.
van city needs more black people to keep the white thugs in checks.
to all the toronto expats, when someone says "they hate toronto" respond back by saying "oh you hate a city that has black people, youre racist"
haha
love
your friends over at SWPL
Stuff White People Like? I love Stuff White People Like.
any city bigger then vancouver is interesting because it has more goin on.. i haven't been to toronto in 10 years but i had a great time when i lived there for a year.. never had a shortage of things to do!
I just moved to Vancouver in December from living in Toronto for four years. I gotta say that I loved the winters up here, mainly due to the fact that there's no snow in the city but plenty of the white stuff in the mountains. But I have been kind of disappointed with this city's lack of that summer attitude that just explodes in Toronto. I mean the patio season doesn't seem to exist here during the summer.Plus with last calls @ 11:30 here, people from T. will always consider Vancouver kinda flaky.
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Dude, I usually don't speak so bluntly but this could be the most inaccurate thing I've ever read. I've lived in Toronto my whole life and it is simply not possible for there to be a city where people exist in cold isolation and autonomy or where you walk around perenially fearing being asked for change. You must have visited here, had a nice weekend, and suddenly think Toronto is the answer to your frustrations with Vancouver.
It isn't. Almost everyone I know here is miserable. Few admit it. But it's so obvious after speaking with them for even a few short minutes.
You can attack this post....but it's based on 30+ years of experience, observation and evaluation...
For anyone not living here, save yourself...don't come here. Your life will become work, cold, deflecting attitude and boredom. Followed by more work, cold, deflecting attitude and boredom....lather, rinse, repeat...
EDIT: simply not possible for there to be ANOTHER city where people exist in cold isolation and autonomy or where you walk around perenially fearing being asked for change LIKE TORONTO.
Toronto_32:
Dude, I usually don't speak so bluntly but this could be the most inaccurate thing I've ever read. I've lived in Toronto my whole life and it is simply not possible for there to be a city where people exist in cold isolation and autonomy or where you walk around perenially fearing being asked for change. You must have visited here, had a nice weekend, and suddenly think Toronto is the answer to your frustrations with Vancouver.
It isn't. Almost everyone I know here is miserable. Few admit it. But it's so obvious after speaking with them for even a few short minutes.
You can attack this post....but it's based on 30+ years of experience, observation and evaluation...
For anyone not living here, save yourself...don't come here. Your life will become work, cold, deflecting attitude and boredom. Followed by more work, cold, deflecting attitude and boredom....lather, rinse, repeat...
TO is shitty. Vancouver is shitty. A tale of two shitties. I was just remarking on the varying degrees of shittiness as compared to Vancouver. I did not in any way intend for TO to be held up as a model for Vancouver's problems. I may be insane, but I'm not crazy
I was in Toronto on holiday, and after a week, I wanted to self harm. The people are rude, cold and indifferent. The whole place reeks of pretension and is irrelevant. If Toronto was nuked off the face of the earth, it wouldn't even make the front page of any newspaper.
Gee, Amat, I've been to places I don't like either but I usually don't get so emotionally involved. Not liking a city is fine but when the emotions expressed are so over the top, I can't help but find the individual a bit suspect. What are you so insecure about? And to anyone who has lived anywhere for 30 years and is so insufferably miserable, maybe where you live isn't the problem?!
I just moved to Toronto from Vancouver and I love it here. I lived in Van-city my whole life. I find Vancouver too small and the people there can be very shallow and pretentious. It's all about the show. Alot of people will barely eat just to have that Gucci purse. It's very pretty there but, there's so much more to do here. I'll miss the mild BC winter and the Ocean. I've only been here 1 month and made some pretty cool friends already. I don't think Toronto people are cold at all. People talk to me all the time.
I grew up on the West Coast (Victoria) and Victoria is an awesome city. The laid-back attitudes, great weather and ease of access to everything makes it better than both Vancouver and Toronto. Having lived in Vancouver for 4 years, I can say that it has extreme positives and negatives, the same goes for Toronto where I've lived for nearly 7 years. Vancouver offers a relatively good nightlife, excellent views and access to nature, great weather (by Canadian standards) and a laid-back vibe if you're looking for it. It also offers relatively moderate employment opportunities while Toronto offers better employment opportunities and less competitiveness for positions. The immigrants in Toronto have made it incredibly muliticultural and vibrant (although sometimes a little annoying when people stick to their own ethnic groups and don't learn English) while Vancouver has a huge number of racist Asians who don't want to integrate but would rather just take over parts of town as their own. Vancouver, as a whole, offers a better lifestyle, while Toronto offers a lot more opportunities. So if you prefer to live for work and money instead of working to live and enjoy yourself, Toronto would be your bet, the reverse for Vancouver. My two cents.
you guys hate on toronto like no tomorrow... get one thing straight, people dont know what canada is outside of canada... they only know toronto... i've been to chitown, l.a., vegas, phoneix, san deigo, and other big cities in the states... they ask where you from, you say canada, they look at you weird, you say toronto and they say omg i loved it when i visited or thats such a nice city, etc... if you haters wanna watch an nba game or mlb game or even now days an nfl game, where do you go? hahaha exactly.... and lets be real, outside of toronto (gta) ontario dosen't exist and outside of ontario CANADA dont exist... get the picture? toronto powers this country, dont believe me? check your local stock market.... ohhh wait there is none, and toronto bought out the montreal one and just shut it down hahaha you guys are funny... and i've been to montreal and ottawa and all over canada as well... and nothing is close to toronto, not even by a long shot... yea vancouver has mild winters but summers with 20degree weather... i'll take my -20 to -30 winters and 25-40 degree summers :) and night life, come on, toronto is rated one of the best in the world for night life.... stop hating... why dont you guys leave the country and go see some american big cities and when you return home, you'll be like damn i wish we had that... but we do in toronto... 4th largest in north america right now... 1st new york, 2nd l.a., 3rd chitown, 4th toronto... not your lil montreal with its 2million ppl and especially not vancouver with its 1million ppl, toronto suburbs have more people then your greater areas hahaha... haters...
you guys hate on toronto like no tomorrow... get one thing straight, people dont know what canada is outside of canada... they only know toronto... i've been to chitown, l.a., vegas, phoneix, san deigo, and other big cities in the states... they ask where you from, you say canada, they look at you weird, you say toronto and they say omg i loved it when i visited or thats such a nice city, etc... if you haters wanna watch an nba game or mlb game or even now days an nfl game, where do you go? hahaha exactly.... and lets be real, outside of toronto (gta) ontario dosen't exist and outside of ontario CANADA dont exist... get the picture? toronto powers this country, dont believe me? check your local stock market.... ohhh wait there is none, and toronto bought out the montreal one and just shut it down hahaha you guys are funny... and i've been to montreal and ottawa and all over canada as well... and nothing is close to toronto, not even by a long shot... yea vancouver has mild winters but summers with 20degree weather... i'll take my -20 to -30 winters and 25-40 degree summers :) and night life, come on, toronto is rated one of the best in the world for night life.... stop hating... why dont you guys leave the country and go see some american big cities and when you return home, you'll be like damn i wish we had that... but we do in toronto... 4th largest in north america right now... 1st new york, 2nd l.a., 3rd chitown, 4th toronto... not your lil montreal with its 2million ppl and especially not vancouver with its 1million ppl, toronto suburbs have more people then your greater areas hahaha... haters...
I'm a Toronto ex-pat living in Vancouver now and first off, I have to say this hatred towards my hometown is really something else. How can a city be so jealous and insecure of another city that they can be so dedicated to hating it? It really boggles my mind and I'm truly fed up of it all. Both cities are great.. but they are on their own different levels respectively. I gotta say Torontonians are just more charismatic and have gone through more experiences while it seems Vancouverites all adhere to the same monotonous tastes (ie. smoking weed, snowboarding, smoking weed). Vancouverites are always bashing TO but in reality, they are quite sheltered and ignorant towards anything else happening in other parts of Canada. Overall, I just have to say that this anti-Toronto bullsh*t has to end! I mean why can't Vancouver citizens (and the rest of Canada) let go of their insecurities and accept all Canadian cities as a whole?..