Rochester bashes Toronto

[Cotuit]

Basically, I've said that no one has ever given me a truly compelling reason why I should visit Toronto. I still have not been given a reason. Just denials of the veracity of an article which is obviously tounge-in-cheek (perhaps sarcasm doesn't translate well into Canadian), and a demand for what I think is so great about Montreal. My feelings about Montreal are neither here nor there. The topic is Toronto, and I still don't have any more information on what is so great about it. I'm not saying it's a bad city, it's just that I have limited means when it comes to travel and have to be choosey about where I spend my money. Plenty of other cities and regions have reputations which proceed them, or that I have gathered through others that are positive and worth my time. Toronto is not among them. That could change.

[sleepy]

Basically it means that if Toronto were in the USA, you would see people leaving for the Sunbelt as they have in many NE cities. Because however it is a different country, it is more difficult as there are restrictions on immigration that don't exist for the people in Rochester.

People in the northern US leave and go to the sunbelt because of economic opportunities or for retirement. Why would they leave Toronto for the sunbelt since Toronto has a great economy and job opportunities?

You recognize the separateness of the two countries for immigration purposes, but they are also separate for economic purposes, and Toronto shouldn't necessarily be identified with "northern" cities such as Rochester, just because it is in the "north".

As far as retirement goes, plenty of Canadians go to Florida for the winter anyway and as for full-time retirement that would be difficult for the elderly w/o their Canadian health insurance.

[tocoto]

If the US and Canada where the same country, toronto never would have benefitted from the economic demise of Montreal. In fact, montreal would never have gotten as big as it did. Montreal would have been compteing with NYC Boston and Philly for centuries. When Montreal had seccesion issues, business would have moved to NY, Chicago, Boston, SF, Charlotte you name it.

The northern cities in the US struggle agains the tide all the time. The winter is cold and expenses are high (not to mention housing most successful northen cities). Only the biggest cities can still be considered prominent. Some of the US cities similar to toronto that have suffered major problems since the invention of the air conditioner and low cost air travel:

Rochester, Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, Chicago, Erie, Utica, Pittsburg, Boston, Philly. Why would toronto fare better? Its location on lake ontario is no better than many other cities, and it's weather is worse than most of its US counterparts.

[G W North]

Many of us, including me, have been there and just don't see what the citizens do.

What we do? I don't understand what you're saying. What we do for a living? What we do for fun? You can do anything in Toronto you can do in any other city.

The thing that bothers me about "Toronto detractors" is that I've never seen them back up their positions with facts or numbers.

As far as the immigration goes, it works both ways. If the two countries were combined there may be more people immigrating south, but there would also be more people immigrating to Toronto from the southern U.S.

[G W North]

Some of the things I think make Toronto great:

-absolutely overwhelming amount and variety of "things to do". I don't see how anyone could ever get bored living here

-immigration factor: the city is about 51% immigrants, and the suburbs are over 40% immigrants. This means huge areas of the city feel like foreign countries, whereas in most cities "ethnic neighborhoods" typically cover an area a few blocks north-south by a few blocks east-west, in Toronto they can extend for a few miles. Three large Chinatowns, a Koreatown, a Little India, an enormous Greektown, two enormous "Little Italies", etc. This also means that living here half the people you meet were born in other countries, which helps you learn about foreign cultures, languages, food, etc.

-24-hour streetlife. Many neighborhoods have sidewalks that are literally busy 24/7/365. The main Chinatown alone probably has 25-30 restaurants open until at least 4am, many of which are open 24 hours, and all of which are within a short walk of each other. 24 hour restaurants and stores are plentiful. Though last call is technically at 2am, there is no shortage of clubs open until 5am or later.

-with the exception of the Gardiner Expressway cutting off Harbourfront from the downtown core (Harbourfront is basically just a sliver of land a few hundred feet wide), there are no highways, industrial areas, railyards, or huge parking lots cutting off the downtown from adjacent neighborhoods.

-excellent public transportation. 80% of suburbanites who work downtown take the GO Train to work. Though the subway isn't 24-hour (except for New Year's Eve/day), many bus routes are. Even way out in the suburbs where I live (about 25 miles from downtown Toronto), many bus routes run until 3am. The lack of freeway capacity leading into downtown makes commuter trains and subway the logical option over driving for downtown workers. Even in the suburbs you are almost always within a 5-minute walk of at least one bus route that runs all-day.

-extreme traffic congestion means that those who do drive to work usually live closer to work than in many other major metros. Nobody wants to be stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for 30+ miles. This has lead to relatively high densities (even in the suburbs), tiny lot sizes, and very little sprawl relative to the population size. The typical brand-new suburban house sits on a lot about 25 feet wide.

-low homicide rate. About 60 murders per year for 2.5 million people in the city. Probably 30-40 murders per year for about 2.5 million people in the suburbs.

-tons of huge annual events: Toronto International Film Festival, several large jazz festivals, Canadian National Exhibition, Molson Indy, Caribana, etc.

-In 18 years of living here I've yet to see a single trailer park anywhere in the metro area

-I've also yet to see any large, gated subdivisions. There are a few suburban condo towers with gates around them, but they take up only tiny pieces of land, and are few and far between.

-though I've outgrown this now, when I was younger it was cool: the country's premier amusement park is less than 10 miles outside city limits.

-network of natural, unspoiled ravines cutting through the city. These ravines are often just a few hundred feet from neighborhoods with densities of 25,000+ people per square mile. This makes for a nice contrast between densely built urban neighborhoods and unspoiled wilderness juxtaposed often immediately adjacent to each other.

-a far lower percentage of obese people than many other cities I've been to. A populace that is generally fairly physically active.

-excellent city for DJ dance clubs and live music clubs. Numerous major ("rave") "parties" on any given Friday or Saturday night. I'm not into this scene anymore, but was for a while. An Entertainment District with hundreds of clubs and restaurants within walking distance of each other. On summer nights the area is PACKED until about 3am every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night.

-a hockey mecca: NHL, 4 major junior teams in the metro area (no other metro has more than 2), AHL, Hockey Hall of Fame. Greater Toronto Hockey League is world's largest hockey league by number of players.

-huge live theatre scene. Annual live theatre attendance of over 7 million people. Plays and musicals of every type imaginable. "Broadway shows" with runs that last for years at a time.

-Downtown residential population of about 180,000. Dozens of new condo buildings in the last 5 years and currently under construction are rapidly getting rid of remaining surface parking lots. Pretty much EVERY downtown condo building built within this time has ground-floor retail/restaurant space. In fact, I can't think of a single one that doesn't have ground-floor retail.

-5000+ stores/restaurants downtown, including 2 department stores that are around 1 mllion square feet each. The underground "PATH" alone has more than 1200 stores/restaurants comprising over 4 million square feet of retail space.

-large, mixed-use (retail, office, residential, theatres, recreation centres, etc.) complexes built directly on top of subway stations all over the city means when the weather sucks many people never have to go outside.

-Kensington Market - I've never seen a similar neighborhood in any other city I've been to.

-The Distillery District

-easy to flag down a cab at any time not only downtown, but even miles outside of downtown.

Some things I don't like:

-too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter. Also, the sun hardly ever shines in the winter. The air quality in the summer is sometimes very poor. The water quality in the summer is sometimes so poor they advise you not to go into the lake.

-hundreds of "slab" apartment buildings from the 1960s and early 1970s. Function counts over fashion, so I don't mind if they're built up to the sidewalk with retail at grade, but many are "towers-in-the-park".

-the commuter trains stop running a little after midnight, and the subway trains don't run from 3am-6am.

-the central waterfront is cut off from the downtown core by rail tracks, an elevated highway, and some parking lots (though the parking lots will probably all be gone within 5 years).

-many of the people (especially the women) are pretentious and snooty. When they meet you the first thing they want to know is how much money you make or what kind of car you drive.

-very little pre-1900 architecture. Lots of buildings from about 1910 onward, but not many buildings remain from the 19th century.

-Scarborough, the former city of Scarborough, now part of the city of Toronto, is something like 75 square miles, most of which is ugly, dominated by strip malls and ugly buildings from the 1960s. The armpit of the entire region.

[monsoon]

[Cotuit]

I hate to be one of those people who point by point quotes and responds to a post, because it comes off as being a jerk, but I'm going to do it anyway.

by tocoto:

Many of us, including me, have been there and just don't see what the citizens do.

by The Token Canadian:

What we do? I don't understand what you're saying. What we do for a living? What we do for fun? You can do anything in Toronto you can do in any other city.

If I can do anything in Toronto I can do in any other city, why should I visit Toronto.

by The Token Canadian:

The thing that bothers me about "Toronto detractors" is that I've never seen them back up their positions with facts or numbers.

I'm not a Toronto 'detractor.' I'm sure it's a great city to live in. But there are hundreds of cities around the world that I would love to visit. No one has ever given me a reason why Toronto should be on that list.

by The Token Canadian:

As far as the immigration goes, it works both ways. If the two countries were combined there may be more people immigrating south, but there would also be more people immigrating to Toronto from the southern U.S.

Why would the current population shift from the north to the south and west be any different for Toronto than it is for Boston, Chicago, NYC, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh... if Toronto were part of the US?

by The Token Canadian:

Some of the things I think make Toronto great:

-absolutely overwhelming amount and variety of "things to do". I don't see how anyone could ever get bored living here

I don't want to live there, I want to visit. But I can think of plenty of cities that have an overwhelming amount of things to do, what makes Toronto so special that I should do them there?

by The Token Canadian:

-immigration factor: the city is about 51% immigrants, and the suburbs are over 40% immigrants. This means huge areas of the city feel like foreign countries, whereas in most cities "ethnic neighborhoods" typically cover an area a few blocks north-south by a few blocks east-west, in Toronto they can extend for a few miles. Three large Chinatowns, a Koreatown, a Little India, an enormous Greektown, two enormous "Little Italies", etc. This also means that living here half the people you meet were born in other countries, which helps you learn about foreign cultures, languages, food, etc.

That's all well and good, but the US is not called the melting pot for nothing. There are plenty of places in my own country where I can be exposed to other cultures, and if I were to leave my country, I could just visit those cultures in their own homelands.

by The Token Canadian:

-24-hour streetlife. Many neighborhoods have sidewalks that are literally busy 24/7/365. The main Chinatown alone probably has 25-30 restaurants open until at least 4am, many of which are open 24 hours, and all of which are within a short walk of each other. 24 hour restaurants and stores are plentiful. Though last call is technically at 2am, there is no shortage of clubs open until 5am or later.

Good, but these things don't only apply to Toronto.

by The Token Canadian:

-with the exception of the Gardiner Expressway cutting off Harbourfront from the downtown core (Harbourfront is basically just a sliver of land a few hundred feet wide), there are no highways, industrial areas, railyards, or huge parking lots cutting off the downtown from adjacent neighborhoods.

See, now the Gardiner Expressway is a problem for me. I'm very keen on waterfront cities, and there are an abundance of cities in the US I can visit that have easy access to their waterfronts. San Francisco, Boston, New York, Miami, Chicago, Baltimore...

by The Token Canadian:

-excellent public transportation. 80% of suburbanites who work downtown take the GO Train to work. Though the subway isn't 24-hour (except for New Year's Eve/day), many bus routes are. Even way out in the suburbs where I live (about 25 miles from downtown Toronto), many bus routes run until 3am. The lack of freeway capacity leading into downtown makes commuter trains and subway the logical option over driving for downtown workers. Even in the suburbs you are almost always within a 5-minute walk of at least one bus route that runs all-day.

The public transit is a big plus, and I do give Toronto props for that. But Boston, SF, NYC, DC, Montreal all have great transit, and others that have mediocre transit have enough for a visitor to get by. The suburban stuff I don't care about, I'm a tourist.

by The Token Canadian:

-extreme traffic congestion means that those who do drive to work usually live closer to work than in many other major metros. Nobody wants to be stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for 30+ miles. This has lead to relatively high densities (even in the suburbs), tiny lot sizes, and very little sprawl relative to the population size. The typical brand-new suburban house sits on a lot about 25 feet wide.

Again, I don't care how people get to work or where or how people in the suburbs live, they can ride camels for all I care, they just better get to work and serve me food and booze, I'm on vacation.

by The Token Canadian:

-low homicide rate. About 60 murders per year for 2.5 million people in the city. Probably 30-40 murders per year for about 2.5 million people in the suburbs.

Low homicide rate is good, but I don't think it's as extremely low as people make it out to be. And the US rate isn't as extremely high as Canadians like to smugly think it is. And as a tourist, I probably have a better chance of being run down by a bus then murdered, so it doesn't really factor into my vacation plans.

by The Token Canadian:

-tons of huge annual events: Toronto International Film Festival, several large jazz festivals, Canadian National Exhibition, Molson Indy, Caribana, etc.

Got all that close to home. The Newport Jazz festival here in Rhode Island is the among the most well respected and attened in the world. We have an international film festival here in Rhode Island, if that's not enough I can head to Boston, NYC, Cape Cod, Nantucket... film festivals are a dime a dozen these days. All cities and regions have great events. Toronto's are no better or worse than others.

by The Token Canadian:

-In 18 years of living here I've yet to see a single trailer park anywhere in the metro area

That makes you safe from tornados I guess.

by The Token Canadian:

-I've also yet to see any large, gated subdivisions. There are a few suburban condo towers with gates around them, but they take up only tiny pieces of land, and are few and far between.

If there were any I wouldn't see them. I'm not visiting the suburbs I'm visiting the city. But I wonder, do you think that the US is completely overrun with trailer parks and gated communities? Both are actually rather rare.

by The Token Canadian:

-though I've outgrown this now, when I was younger it was cool: the country's premier amusement park is less than 10 miles outside city limits.

Again, dime a dozen. I can be at Six Flags New England in 3 hours. No need for me to go to Toronto for it.

by The Token Canadian:

-network of natural, unspoiled ravines cutting through the city. These ravines are often just a few hundred feet from neighborhoods with densities of 25,000+ people per square mile. This makes for a nice contrast between densely built urban neighborhoods and unspoiled wilderness juxtaposed often immediately adjacent to each other.

Are these ravines a tourist attraction? Would a visitor see them? They actually sound kinda cool.

by The Token Canadian:

-a far lower percentage of obese people than many other cities I've been to. A populace that is generally fairly physically active.

The reason I'm not visiting Houston or Detroit has nothing to do with their placement on the obesity scale. One never knows, I could have been horribly offended by that bit.

by The Token Canadian:

-excellent city for DJ dance clubs and live music clubs. Numerous major ("rave") "parties" on any given Friday or Saturday night. I'm not into this scene anymore, but was for a while. An Entertainment District with hundreds of clubs and restaurants within walking distance of each other. On summer nights the area is PACKED until about 3am every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night.

Not my scene either, but a dime a dozen none-the-less. Toronto is competing with Miami, New York, LA, and Montreal on this one (the rave/circuits at least), stiff competion.

by The Token Canadian:

-a hockey mecca: NHL, 4 major junior teams in the metro area (no other metro has more than 2), AHL, Hockey Hall of Fame. Greater Toronto Hockey League is world's largest hockey league by number of players.

Also, not my scene, though I do have tickets to a Providence Bruins minor league hockey game in April, a 10 minute walk from my house, and if so inclined, I can see the big league in Boston.

by The Token Canadian:

-huge live theatre scene. Annual live theatre attendance of over 7 million people. Plays and musicals of every type imaginable. "Broadway shows" with runs that last for years at a time.

For a city it's size, my city of Providence also has a large theatre scene, with Broadway touring shows. But better yet, I'm a 4 hour Acela ride from the real thing in NYC.

by The Token Canadian:

-Downtown residential population of about 180,000. Dozens of new condo buildings in the last 5 years and currently under construction are rapidly getting rid of remaining surface parking lots. Pretty much EVERY downtown condo building built within this time has ground-floor retail/restaurant space. In fact, I can't think of a single one that doesn't have ground-floor retail.

Also good, and I do give Toronto props for this, but again, Toronto is not the only city with a lively and well populated downtown.

by The Token Canadian:

-5000+ stores/restaurants downtown, including 2 department stores that are around 1 mllion square feet each. The underground "PATH" alone has more than 1200 stores/restaurants comprising over 4 million square feet of retail space.

Every city worth it's salt offers restaurants and shopping.

by The Token Canadian:

-large, mixed-use (retail, office, residential, theatres, recreation centres, etc.) complexes built directly on top of subway stations all over the city means when the weather sucks many people never have to go outside.

Again, good, but doesn't make me feel a need to go to Toronto.

by The Token Canadian:

-Kensington Market - I've never seen a similar neighborhood in any other city I've been to.

I don't know what this is...

by The Token Canadian:

-The Distillery District

...or this.

by The Token Canadian:

-easy to flag down a cab at any time not only downtown, but even miles outside of downtown.

Well, that's convinced me...

Really, I'm not being a johnson. But lots of cities have a special something that make you want to visit, natural scenery, architecture, history, culture, a certain place in pop-culture, a world-wide reputation. There's nothing about Toronto that I can put my finger on that makes it uniquely complelling. It sounds like a great place. And if circumstances had placed me there at birth, I think I'd be quite happy with my lot in life. But nothing is compelling me to visit.

But, truth be told, I probably will go up there one day. I'd like to do an eastern Canadian Great Lakes, St. Lawrence Valley trek sometime, and Toronto would be a stop, but then so would Windsor and Hamilton.

ETA: I really hate that this software translates d - i - c - k into johnson. How annoying!

[monsoon]

[G W North]

If you've read everything I wrote and still aren't convinced it's a great city to visit, all I can do is wonder what you look for in a city. You say you can do these things (that you can do in Toronto) in any other city, but I could reply by saying you can do anything you can do in other cities in Toronto as well. Why bother visiting any city if that's the case?

As for my hypothetical case of Toronto being in the same country as North Carolina: I've no doubt Toronto would have suffered inner-city decline were it in the United States. That's not the hypothetical situation I raised though. I said "if they were in the same country". You could also hypothesize that were all those American cities that did decline in Canada, they almost certainly would not have declined.

As for statements about trailer parks and gated communities, I know that they exist in great numbers in much (most?) of the U.S. I don't pretend that the majority of the population lives in them, but quite a few people do. I lived in the United States for 2 years, and have travelled to more than a dozen States. To give an example of what I'm talking about, Seattle doesn't conjure up images of trailer parks or such segregation that wealthy people feel the need to live in gated communities. But I was there last summer, and both mobile home parks and gated communities exist not only in the suburbs, but even within the city limits.

As for the waterfront issue, Toronto has far easier access to it's waterfront than New York. In Manhattan, both the Hudson and East Rivers are cut off from the cities by above-ground highways. In the case of the East River, the highway is so close to the water that there isn't really any "waterfront" to enjoy beyond a narrow path. Toronto's waterfront IS cut off from the downtown core by an elevated highway, but there's enough land on the water side of the highway (and enough buildings between the water and the highway) that you don't notice the highway at all when you're actually at the water's edge. The only issue is the ugly highway if you choose to walk from the downtown core to the water. Here is a picture of Manhattan's East River and the highway running alongside it. There is not enough room for anything but a narrow bicycle path on the water's side of the highway for a distance of several miles:

[monsoon]

[G W North]

but the South never developed the slums and other areas of decay that were prevelant in places such as Chicago, and for that matter Toronto too

There isn't anything even closely resembling a slum anywhere in Toronto. I'm not sure who told you this, but they were lying. Were there any badly decayed areas I'm sure I would have seen them by now, after living here 18 years.

I don't know if you consider Louisville "sunbelt", but I lived there for 2 years and it has some pretty bad parts. I've also (accidentally) been through some pretty bad neighborhoods in Miami. There is certainly nothing approaching what those cities have in Toronto.

As for the trailer parks I have no idea why the difference. I've seen dozens of them in Michigan.

[BrandonTO416]

The Sunbelt is quite different indeed - no cities exist here. LOL

It literally is all suburbs.

So yeah - Atlanta is missing quite a bit. Plus the progressive population just doesn't seem to exist outside a few city blocks in each respective city.

[sleepy]

There was some really bad urban planning in the 60s-80s that we are paying for now, but the South never developed the slums and other areas of decay that were prevelant in places such as Chicago, and for that matter Toronto too.

Most large cities in the south certainly have urban slums: Miami, Birmingham, Memphis, New Orleans, Houston, Dallas, Nashville, etc. Maybe the NC cities were just too small at the time to have that sort of thing while they were developing in other southern cities 40 or so years ago.

[G W North]

I really don't know where anyone would get the idea that Toronto has slums. I don't know of any, and I'm familiar with pretty much the entire city.

I have been to some pretty bad neighborhoods in Louisville and Miami, far worse than anything you'll find in Canada.. Atlanta's inner-city suffered a massive population decline ("white flight"), as the census numbers show. New Orleans is notorious for it's high-crime, rundown neighborhoods. I've never been to North Carolina, so I can't comment on it, but from what I've read (and pics I've seen), there doesn't seem to be much in the way of truly crumbling, run-down areas.

[monsoon]

[G W North]

I'm not sure what your point is. I didn't say Toronto didn't have problems. I said it didn't have slums. What the article refers to as "slums" are slums by Toronto standards. And I wouldn't call the city's official website a "booster site".

I acknowledged that I wouldn't comment on whether or not N. Carolina had slums because I've never been there myself, thus I'm not qualified to comment. I've been to many buildings in neighborhoods this article describes as "slums", and they are not what anyone outside Canada would consider a slum. Toronto has a high rate of poverty, but these areas are still healthy, safe, clean, and well-kept. I'd spend some time in the city before I passed judgment.

[BlackFlag]

"Low homicide rate is good, but I don't think it's as extremely low as people make it out to be. And the US rate isn't as extremely high as Canadians like to smugly think it is."

The homicide rate is as low as it is- the numbers say it all- You're alluding that Stats Canada is lying? I realize that statistics can 'lie' and/or be skewed, but these are the raw numbers (and also the per capita numbers):

Crime rates by census metropolitan area

Violent crime Property crime Total Criminal Code offences

2001 2000 to 2001 2001 2000 to 2001 2001 2000 to 2001

rate1 % change in rate rate1 % change in rate rate1 % change in rate

Regina 1,614 0.0 9,661 14.0 16,387 10.1

Saskatoon 1,663 11.2 6,616 -4.0 13,360 2.9

Vancouver 1,053 -4.5 7,347 1.4 11,314 1.2

Winnipeg 1,309 -3.3 5,967 4.7 10,947 5.6

Victoria 1,132 1.1 5,382 -3.0 9,996 -5.7

Halifax 1,266 12.4 5,091 -2.1 9,354 6.1

Edmonton 969 2.8 4,811 3.2 9,032 7.9

Thunder Bay 1,390 0.0 3,916 -8.8 8,602 -3.7

London 761 -9.0 4,796 -9.5 7,894 -9.3

Sudbury 1,163 20.1 3,935 6.2 7,535 11.8

Windsor 783 4.5 3,936 3.6 7,374 4.9

Calgary 871 -1.5 4,380 -3.5 7,137 -0.3

Hamilton 1,015 0.8 3,823 7.3 7,102 8.3

Montr

[Cotuit]

I didn't say the article portrayed reality, but it didn't portray anything I hadn't pictured in my mind when people (Toronto boosters and bashers alike) speak of the city.

Regarding the crime stats. Yes, statistics can be manipulated to show anything people want them to show. No, I never said I thought Stats Canada was lying. I said I don't think the crime stats in Canada are as low as some Canadians (not Stats Canada) make them out to be, and the crime rates in the US are not as high as some Canadians like to smugly make them out to be. Just as you feel that some Americans think that Canada is an artic wasteland, it's fair to say that some Canadians like to think that Americans are constantly dodging bullets and tripping over homeless crack whores. The crime debate has been going on over at SSP and SSC for ages. The US and Canada don't count things the same way, it makes it difficult to compare. No one in the US denys (well, stike that, I don't deny) that the crime rate in Canada is lower than in the US, but the gap isn't as giant as some would try to make us believe. But like I said, the crime rate has nothing to do with my being a tourist in Toronto. The chances of me being a victim of violent crime as a tourist in any city in the western world are vanishingly small.

Toronto suffers from having poor boosters. Too many people on various urban forums try to make out that Toronto is shan-gri-la, the rest of us know it's not, it's a great city, but it's not perfect. Nothing is.

All I want to know is, what makes Toronto so special that I should go out of my way to visit it. What is Toronto's special thing that makes it attractive. Not a whole list of things that other great cities also have or a whole list of things that really aren't much of a concern to a casual visitor. One special thing.

[BlackFlag]

I agree- StatsCan and the US Census bureau have varied methodologies for certain, which makes the simplist comparisons (as basic as CMA population) troublesome.

Stereotypes aplenty, on both sides, I suppose. I also suppose it is good to be informed- I personally do not think the US crime rate is as inflated as some purport. The gap between the US and Canada, although likely there is a gap, isn't terribly dramatic.

I think much of the behaviour of certain TO forumers (which I should mention I am not) are simply reacting to attacks and abuse of their city by certain other less informed forumers. This is at least my experience and observations. That is not to say there aren't any fanatic and overzealous TO boosters, but I have found they are everywhere and in all cities (not to generalize, but if you check, they are usually in the age range of 8-12 years old). It is sad that TO and TO forumers have gotten a bad reputation from these select few individuals, and/or because they were (in certain cases) merely defending thier city.

TO is not perfect- god, far from it. Its a great city nonetheless. But, its certainly not Shan-gra-la! IMO it does have alot to offer tourists (as any large city does), but no more than in NYC, Chicago, LA, Boston, Atlanta....etc. etc....but also, IMO, no less either (well, NYC and LA may be not). I think the choice to come here for Americans is usually the result of price (as a US dollar here goes alot further than say, a trip to Chicago or Atlanta).

[Cotuit]

As for the waterfront issue, Toronto has far easier access to it's waterfront than New York. In Manhattan, both the Hudson and East Rivers are cut off from the cities by above-ground highways. In the case of the East River, the highway is so close to the water that there isn't really any "waterfront" to enjoy beyond a narrow path.

Riverside Park

Chelsea Piers

Fort Washington Park

Inwood Hill Park

Battery Park

South Street Seaport

Coney Island

Brighton Beach

Rockaway Beach

Grand Ferry Park

Astoria Park

Manhattan Beach

Pelham Bay Park

Riverdale Park

Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge

East River Esplanade

Carl Schurz Park

Flushing Meadows

That doesn't include the south shore beaches on Staten Island and numerous other small waterfront parks throughout the 5 boros. New York City has a very accessible waterfront.

[Cotuit]

There's actually a contest to Name the Ferry. Hurry, the contest ends Feb 06.

Actually, this ferry may be what gets me to visit Toronto. I love boats, I had a great time on the Portland, ME -> Yarmouth, NS ferry. I hope this one is as cheesy as that one.

[G W North]

I don't agree that Manhattan has a more accessible waterfront though. As the pictured I posted showed, most of the East River is cut off from the city by a highway that's so close to the water that there isn't room for neighborhoods on the water side of the highway. There is also much waterfront in New York (esp. outside Manhattan) that is completely inaccessible to the public because it is private property.

As far as Toronto "boosterism", from what I've seen Toronto forumers back up their opinions with facts. Of course people who haven't been to Toronto aren't going to view it as some kind of "Shangri-La", they have no experience on which to base an opinion, but it sure is a great place to live. I've never seen Toronto forumers boost the city with untrue of fabricated facts.

I'm not saying no T.O. forumer has ever portrayed Toronto as perfect as you claim, but I've never seen it.

And if you're going to use the argument that it's not worth visiting because there isn't anything that you can only do in Toronto, you could use the same argument to avoid visiting almost any city in the world.