So, I’m planning a 7-10 day trip to Toronto in May, and I’m pretty excited about exploring it in a fair bit of detail based on the time I have.
Now, this afternoon I was watching Ken Continuum’s (don’t watch him much, usually I’ll catch Johnny Strides a couple times a week) live early evening street walk in Toronto from Midtown to Little Jamaica, probably around 7:30ish p.m. Toronto time.
He said something that caught my attention in reply to a viewer comment about Vancouver:
“It’s a beautiful city, it just seemed a bit too sleepy for my liking, didn’t have the vitality and energy that Toronto has”.
“I’m more of an urbanity guy”.
You’ll find that around the 1:23:42 left in the live stream.
I think most would say that’s a fair assessment, but as I know Vancouver very well its my starting point for what I can expect in Toronto.
Later with 1:22:05 left he says as he’s walking up Eglington, he says “ok, we’re coming into Little Jamaica - this is the sort of neighbourhood you’ll never find in Vancouver”.
True?
His walk is at night so it’s hard to see a lot to be fair, and it’s a Monday in January, but I’m not so sure what makes this neighbourhood that special. Is it something worth checking out? It feels like a mid-speed stroad, not pedestrian friendly, lots of shops that are boarded up or in poor condition, and nothing that interesting in terms of retail or food. I think it’s fair to say I’m not a fan of grit for grits sake, and maybe during the summer the number and diversity of people makes it interesting? But isnt’t that everywhere in Toronto? Just can’t see it being high on my list of things to check out. Is it like Vancouver’s Commercial Drive but longer?
If that’s our bar for urbanity in Canada - run down one and two storey buildings along car dominated streets maybe NotJustBikes was on to something. That being said, I think there are great neighbourhoods in downtown Vancouver, I’m just not sure why folks go on about car dominated neighbourhoods. Greater diversity and more affordable, ok that’s good, but is that it?
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