Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
The Daily Photoist: November 23, 2009
Urban Planner: November 23, 2009
Newsstand: November 23, 2009
Things Montrealers told us about Toronto this weekend:
Everyone’s getting shot here.
Rent is too expensive.
It’s the source of white collar crime.
People dress and walk funny here.
Things Torontonians told us about Montreal this weekend:
There’s nothing to do.
It’s a dead city that’s crumbling in on itself.
Everyone interesting moved away a long time ago.
It looks nice, but who cares?
Things Montrealers told us about Montreal this weekend:
Housing is way too expensive.
Things Torontonians told us about Toronto this weekend:
There’s nothing to do.
What Torontoist takes away from all of this:
We are idiots, all of us. We don’t realize what an amazing thing it is to live within 500 km of another amazing city with a completely different set of pleasures and opportunities to offer.
We’re awfully defensive for urbanites who have it so accordingly good.
We’ve got serious PR problems on all sides.
If we’re not going to say anything nice, we should just shut up now.
For better or for worse, everyone finally seems to agree that both cities have excellent food, so that’s a step in the right direction. Go Canada!
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Nothing to do in Montreal? Your informants are obviously retarded.
Agreed! Both cities are great and have their own charms. I'll be visiting Montreal in two weeks and can't wait -- it's like Europe I can visit by train. Any silly rivalry between TO and Montreal is not really helpful. We should band together to pick on a third city... I dunno... say... Buffalo.
Is “darndest” the American spelling of “darnedest”? (It means most darned, not most darnd.)
we are trying to build a network in montreal right now, and everybody has been reallly reallly welcoming EXCEPT
those rude people on stillepost montrealshows! who do they think they are?!
Garsh, you sher got me. I'll's be doin my darndest ta git it riight the next time.
Aw shucks, did it again. I's must be one o' them mo-rons.
Next?
Kevin-- rude people? On the internet?
Ah... nevermind.
Sympathies.
As an ex-Montrealite who made many scathing remarks about Toronto before I actually ever visited here (and fell in love with it, I might add), this sounds very familiar to me. Each city is great, but also quite different- I can see how someone who likes one would not like the other.
At the same time, having been there, I think most of the animosity comes from misconceptions-not being familiar enough with the "other". I used to think Toronto was a grey, souless void with zero culture. Or trees.
Very nicely put, Louisa Jane.
I felt the grey soulless thing for quite a while after moving to Toronto, but I eventually realized I'd just been living in the wrong neighborhoods for 3 years or so.
Gary, I kind of have this irrational hate-on for the entire state of Connecticut. Can we pick on Connecticut instead of Buffalo? Buffalo is like, in New York and stuff. It would feel wrong.
You had me at "we are all idiots".
It's not that it's wrong to pick on Buffalo, just that it's redundant. Like picking on Hamilton. Entirely unnecessary.
Let's pick on, I don't know, Smith's Falls. Wait, no, they have the Hershey factory.
Niagara Falls! Boo!
Niagara Falls it is.
Hamilton has the Eye of Sauron. I don't want to mess with that.
People who argue Toronto is just as good as Montreal just haven't been paying attention.
Torontoist would like to take this moment to thank all of the people who come here every day and read to the bottom of each post before commenting. We appreciate it.
i don't think montreal truly appreciates buffalo's lameness. why not focus on something neither place really knows anything about: calgary.
I can understand people from Montreal (who've never been here) thinking Toronto's a bit drab, but when I was growing up here, Montreal was rumoured to be this amazing, fun, slightly cooler-than-us sort of place. Never knew any Torontonians who didn't think it'd be a ton of fun to head there...
i hate vancouver
(and i've never been there)
Oh, I know! They're all, 'we've got the Pacific Ocean and mountains and nice trees, and our sushi's the best and it rains vegetarian gourmet on Sundays." Lousy Vancouverites and their easy-going West-coast demeanor.
Oh, and flip flops. I seem to remember we also begrudge them their flip flops.
Weird as it may be, I think the sushi in Calgary is much better than the sushi in Van-city.
I'll take intolerant, culture-devoid, faux-cowboy, no-there-there Calgary over Vancouver any day.
That ocean they got in Vancouver is really cold, those trees are just substitues for actual tall buildings (like REAL cities have), they go to restaurants in Tevas and shorts, and they, THEY, have the gumption to dis Montreal! Puh-lease.
I have no idea what I'm saying.
Laid-back, flipflop-wearing, city- and cityblog- trolling West Coaster that I am, I'm going to take that as goodnatured ribbing.
Did I mention how warm it is out here right now?
"I have no idea what I'm saying."
That's OK, 'cause it was funny.
---
"I'm going to take that as goodnatured ribbing."
You could take it that way, I guess...
Or you could take it for what it actually was: pure, unbridled envy.
As someone who has lived in and around Toronto my entire life, I too was ignorant about what the city had to offer—aside from some of the obvious tourist attractions (ie. the Tower, Dome, museums, theatres).
One day I got a bit of an eye-opener when I took my cousin—from Portugal—on one of those city bus tours.
It was interesting for me to hear the message our tourism industry is trying to send to outsiders, and I must say that I learned a lot about the city myself that I didn't know!
I recommend this to anyone in any city who has lived there all their lives. Sometimes we can't see what's right there under our collective, upturned noses.
Ahhh as a former Vancouverite turned Toronto lover I always feel I have a particular knack at insulting my former home city.
The first thing is the city's utter lack of fashion sense. They don't just go to restaurants in Tevas mongo they wear Tevas with socks! And yoga pants and gore tex all the time.
I also wonder about how laidback a city is when a woman would actually destroy trees in a public park blocking the view from her apartment and the public would respond with death threats. That doesn't seem very laidback to me, that seems downright militant.
Also if you want to go to a major Canadian city where there's nothing to do.... go to Vancouver where any good live music venue is perpetually in danger of being turned into a condo.
Well played Ron! You are nearly a professional at this.
However, I have also seen that tree thing happen in Montreal.
I think these competition between cities are silly.
Even though I live in Montreal and really like it, doesn't mean I have to hate Toronto...what's the point?
I am sure it is an interesting place too.
Except for the "city" of Alert and perhaps Baghdad, I'd like to visit just about any place.
p.s. Naturally, I still hate the Leafs. :-D