After a year in the big city.

[ue]

Originally Posted by logan5

A full year is pretty good amount of time to get a feel for a city. Toronto seems huge, but really, what do you need to see outside of the inner 40 or so sq miles that was Old Toronto? What you're really saying is force yourself to stay here for a decade or so and eventually you'll learn to like it.

I've visited and worked in a few small cities. Most recently Regina and Kamloops, and I can tell you there is no way I could ever live in a smaller city than Vancouver. Some people are the opposite I guess. I don't think it's anything personal against Toronto.

North York has some cool stuff, as does Don Mills, York, East York, New Toronto, even Scarborough. Outside of the City of Toronto, Oakville has a beautiful downtown, Mississauga has a few nodes of interest, Markham has ethnic suburbia, as does Brampton. There are plenty of things of interest outside of Old Toronto, although I will agree that interestingness is most concentrated therein.

[Acajack]

I don't see why some people are reacting so strongly to this. He was just giving his honest opinion and it wasn't a Toronto-bash by any stretch.

It was actually a reasonably thoughtful post.

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by logan5

A full year is pretty good amount of time to get a feel for a city.

Way more than enough. If a feel is all one's after, it can be had in a couple of days.

Originally Posted by Stryker

3) Multicultural demographics doesn't lead to a multi cultural experience. After having a rather diverse set of friends in St johns I was shocked to see how segrated people are in the larger cities.

Interestingly, I've made this exact observation (not about Toronto, though). Multi-ghettoized is what I call it.

[rousseau]

So, are there places in Canada without skunks and raccoons?

[Ramako]

I love Toronto's raccoons! Don't really see many skunks though, at least not in the city.

[ue]

Originally Posted by rousseau

So, are there places in Canada without skunks and raccoons?

Yes.



https://www.flickr.com/photos/magent...239622/sizes/l



https://www.flickr.com/photos/magent...423881/sizes/l

I believe the locals call it Yellowknife, but I just see a lot of blue.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by rousseau

So, are there places in Canada without skunks and raccoons?

Newfoundland doesn't have those (or snakes), while Vancouver Island doesn't have skunks and many other animal species present on the mainland. Islands tend to not have things.

[Darkoshvilli]

I've seen skunks in the Plateau, one of the densest hoods in the country.

[wg_flamip]

I've heard it takes about two years to really get used to a new city - something that seems about right to me based on my time away from Toronto.

Originally Posted by Stryker

3) Multicultural demographics doesn't lead to a multi cultural experience. After having a rather diverse set of friends in St johns I was shocked to see how segrated people are in the larger cities. In a smaller town minorities seems to intergrate far better if they intergrate at all.

I've heard this a lot from people who've moved or visited here from elsewhere in the country. Of all the things that can take some getting used to in this city, I think this is the one that takes the most time.

First, it might be helpful to take a step back. St. John's, like many cities and towns across the country, is dominated by one group. As with most of the country, that group is overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly Anglophone, overwhelmingly from a Christian background, and overwhelmingly long-settled in the country. If you're from the dominant majority in one of these communities, chances are you've spent most of your life in social settings surrounded by people like you. Most of your family, classmates, friends, teachers, romantic interests and co-workers are probably going to come from your group. A good chunk of the population will likely have limited to no interaction with anyone from a different background on a day-to-day basis.

That's not a criticism or an indictment. Places like that can be incredibly open to people from outside of the dominant majority. In no way am I suggesting that the people of St. John's (or any other similar city) are by nature xenophobic. You can't perceive much cultural/social segregation in these places because there's little to segregate (at least along ethno-cultural lines, class segregation is near universal). Groups outside of the majority integrate into the dominant group because they spend a very large amount of their time immersed in that group.

Toronto is a different kind of place. For a whole host of historical reasons, many predating Trudeau-era immigration reform and the adoption of official multiculturalism, there is no one dominant ethno-cultural group here (at least in numbers terms, for other reasons some groups are more economically dominant than others). It is almost impossible to go through life here without having significant everyday interaction with folks from groups outside of your own - hell, if you're like me, you may belong to several groups yourself.

It's difficult to describe in a few words how multiculturalism operates here. It's extremely complex, but you'll pick it up as you go along. Over time, as your social network grows, you'll find that once at first looked like segregation is simply difference - difference that you'll become more exposed to, that you will learn how to navigate, that will perhaps become part of your own identity.

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

Interestingly, I've made this exact observation (not about Toronto, though). Multi-ghettoized is what I call it.

I don't see the "ethnic ghetto" thing at work in Toronto. While certain groups can tend to cluster in certain areas, there are few neighbourhoods where anyone constitutes an absolute majority.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by wg_flamip

I don't see the "ethnic ghetto" thing at work in Toronto. While certain groups can tend to cluster in certain areas, there are few neighbourhoods where anyone constitutes an absolute majority.

I am surprised if Toronto is in no way ethnically clustered in certain areas. I noticed it right away in Vancouver when I moved here. At first it surprised me a bit, but there are very pronounced ethnic differences in various areas of metro Vancouver. As stated above, there aren't enough numbers of minorities in St. John's to form distinct communities. Ironically, segregation traditionally existed more between religious groups than among ethnic groups.

To the OP, I found that it took more than a year to feel at home in a "foreign" Canadian city.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by Architype

To the OP, I found that it took more than a year to feel at home in a "foreign" Canadian city.

You first moved away many years ago, yes? I imagine it was harder back then.

These days we're more exposed, we know what to expect and how to relate. For example, everyone I know my age can break out a "Talking to Mainlanders on the Phone (TM)" accent. My parents can't, especially my father. He couldn't alter his accent with a gun to his head.

I never felt unable to function in mainland cities... I was never put off by the height of the buildings or the number of lanes on the road. Everything was bigger, but none of it in terms of civilization was new. Of course, lots of things were new - visible First Nations (ours are tucked away in Labrador), flat terrain, farms, trains, and on and on.

But I never got that feeling that it was home. I never said "home" and meant anything by that other than St. John's, not even in the cities where I stayed an especially long time, such as Moncton (4 years) and Winnipeg (6 years). It just never became home. I couldn't let go.

[1overcosc]

Toronto's isn't that ghettoized. Yes, there's disproportionate concentrations, but no ethnic ghettos. While the Chinese are the largest race in Markham and Indians are the largest race in Brampton, in neither city do they form a majority of the population (more like 40% in both).

Somebody once made an 'ethnic dot map' of Toronto--a giant map of the entire GTA where each dot represented one person of a specific identity. While there were certainly concentrations, there were also large chunks of the city (mostly along mainstreets and in newer suburbs) that were literally a giant rainbow. Whereas similar maps made for American cities so giant swaths of monocolour with almost no mixing.

[Drybrain]

As far as what Stryker called the "good environment":

The day I decided to leave Edmonton (of course, it had been building up for a while) was the day that I trudged to the corner store, in May, in a freak blizzard. I remember crossing the street near my house and thinking that I had to be out by the following winter.

Likewise, the day I got really serious about leaving Toronto was last summer, on a particularly awful and oppressively humid day, while walking from High Park to Bloor and Ossington, and not being able to get the stench of car exhaust out of my nose the entire time.

Of course blizzards in May are rare in Edmonton, and truly nasty smog days are rare in Toronto. But those experiences sort of crystallized how I had come to feel about those cities.

And yeah, if you're used to having great landscapes or natural amenities at your door, Toronto can be difficult--not because of the city, really, but because the sprawl surrounding the core is so vast and traffic-choked it feels like you're walled off from the natural areas around the city.

That said, Stryker, there are a lot of neat natural respites in the core. The lakefront is amazing, from Sunnyside to Etobicoke. Col Samuel Smith Park, Humber Bay Park, and of course, the Toronto Island are all fantastic amanities. Out east, the Scarborough Bluffs are brilliant too. And there's High Park, and all the ravines and river valleys, etc. For a city of its size, as scarred with post-war development as it is, it boasts a pretty impressive amount of greenery that's nicely mingled in with the urbanity.

And as far as ethnic clustering, you're right--in smaller cities, ethnic groups tend to be more dispersed, and worryingly, Toronto's ethnic groups are becoming more concentrated, rather than less. In fact, that's true of most of our large cities.

And there's evidence that immigrants in smaller cities do better and integrate more quickly, economically, than in larger cities.

But please don't dump on me, Toronto posters! Now that I'm out of Toronto for four months, I'm starting to get some nostalgia for it. It's a great place, and it you want a summer-in-the-city experience, only Montreal can compete within Canada.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I don't see why some people are reacting so strongly to this. He was just giving his honest opinion and it wasn't a Toronto-bash by any stretch.

It was actually a reasonably thoughtful post.

The reaction is because it was basically "wah, places are different than home", not a legit critique of a particular city. The guy is/was homesick more than anything else, as several people have pointed out. Something that affects Newfoundlanders more strongly than almost any other region, I've noticed. *Possibly* Francophone Quebecers would be more noticeable but they're quiet around here.

This is exactly the kind of "hey I took 5 minutes to analyze Alberta and it's not the same as where I grew up, therefore it stinks" that gets so many of us up in arms out here. It's enlightening - and amusing - to see it happen against somewhere else (it's ridiculously common with Alberta, of course, because of the massive population shift in recent years combined with the fact that AB is just so far from everything else).

While it may not be intended as a Toronto-bash, that's essentially what it boils down to. The problem is that it's got little to do with Toronto itself, and more to do with the original poster's preconceptions, prejudices, and preferences.

[samne]

Maybe confusing ethnic neighbourhoods or BIAs as ghettoized. Perhaps not used to places like Koreatown, Little Italy, Greektown, Chinatown, etc. etc. in NFLD.

Toronto not your thing...thats ok...not for everyone...

[harls]

I lived 2 years in Toronto. It was amazing..but I think 2 years was enough for me.

I really loved my experience, and like you, Stryker, I came from a rural setting.

Mind you, I lived there from 1999-2001.. so it might not be the same.

Big cities can be broken up into more liveable parts. This is what I did when I lived in Toronto. Don't look at the map and try to cover it all... it ain't like home.

I'm sure you took something from your experience, just as I did!

[Xelebes]

Originally Posted by ue

Better call Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Moscow, and Tokyo then, and tell them the jig is up, they're no longer the centres of the art world.

Actually, the art scenes are suffering in those cities. There are artists who can cater to the people who swing their dicks with art, but to mid-list artists who cater to the middle primary market buyers, those cities aren't the boon as what was the case a decade or two ago.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by samne

Maybe confusing ethnic neighbourhoods or BIAs as ghettoized. Perhaps not used to places like Koreatown, Little Italy, Greektown, Chinatown, etc. etc. in NFLD.

Toronto not your thing...thats ok...not for everyone...

Mmm,. most of those neighbourhoods aren't especially "ethnic" any longer. (The census tracts comprising Koreatown have only a couple hundred actual people of Korean descent living there. The Korean community is really only present in the commercial character along Bloor Street, and the actual residents are increasingly white anglo-saxon, with more Koreans living near Yonge and Finch.)

The problem in TO is the suburban ethnic ghettos where economic and social mobility is increasingly limited. But a lot of Torontonians, used to thinking of the city as an ideal multicultural rainbow or something, don't even perceive it.

From my work as both a journalist and later in social policy with the non-profit sector in the city, pretty much any social analyst, academic, or economist who tracks these things will tell you the same thing--Toronto is more segregated than it used to be. The old core of Toronto has actually become LESS linguistically diverse, and the increase in racial diversity has slowed. Downtown is becoming more white, and the inner burbs are becoming more non-white--and more than that, specific nationalities are increasingly concentrated in particular areas with poor access to transit, services, employment, etc., and social and economic mobility is significantly reduced in those areas, generation over generation. Crime rates are higher (black Torontonians have a murder rate many times than citywide average, for example).

Ethnic neighbourhoods are not necessarily bad--they can provide a wonderful base of support for new arrivals, for example. But the data indicates that Toronto is becoming more rigidly segregated, with less social interaction between racial groups. As well as worsening, rather than improving, employment outcomes for many people living in largely minority communities.

[Xelebes]

Originally Posted by rousseau

So, are there places in Canada without skunks and raccoons?

Plenty of skunks here but no raccoons that I've ever seen. (I've never seen a raccoon before.)