Haydain Neale, 1970–2009
The Lee's Palace Mural is Dead! Long Live the Lee's Palace Mural!
Peeve Patrol
Third Floor, First Rate
Polling Booth: "Kick a Ginger" Controversy
It's about time that Toronto started a feud with a major American city, and we think that Los Angeles, California has gotten off easy for far too long. The over-the-top Hollywood sign compared to our noble and restrained skyline; their smaller phallic symbol compared to our much, much bigger one; their cloud of smog compared to our green bins and green thumbs; their palm trees compared to our pine ones. So we were thinking, what easier way to begin a full-fledged attack on LA than to knock a few pegs off of one of our sister sites, LAist?
Torontoist will have a big exciting end of year "Best and Worst of Toronto 2006" collection of posts coming very soon, but until then, LAist's collection of Best Of posts have been keeping us busy. The lists aren't necessarily LA-centric; check out Colin Meloy of the Decemberists' Top 10 CDs and PostSecret's Frank Warren's favourite websites.
In keeping with the Best Of theme, LAist Editor Tony Pierce (who made it to our Back to School party in September) issued a challenge to the rest of the sites in the Ist-A-Verse to come up with their own top ten list, and suggested a brilliant idea, one we'd be more than happy to take him up on: the top ten reasons why our city is better than his.
There are, obviously, far more than ten, and we doubt it'd be a challenge to name a quick list off the top of our heads (#1 - We're Toronto; #2 - They're LA), but we'd really like to exploit the wit of our readers instead. Post a reason why we're better in the comments. We'll compile the best ten together and send them over to LAist, and we'll get the writers of our picks some snazzy Torontoist pins to boot.
After we've handily defeated LAist, we will move onto the city as a whole: the next step is stealing the "O"'s from that godawful Hollywood sign to make our own makeshift Toronto sign (though, until we make n, the r, and the t's, it'll have to just say "ooo" for a while).
UPDATE: LAist took our suggestions and they're made it official. Quoth the LAist: "Clearly they don't realize that LA does have a downtown, it's where the Raptors come twice a year to get their asses kicked." Oh shit! I'm pretty sure that it's on now. Those whose comments made it to our list, contact Torontoist for sweet, sweet buttons!
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our prostitutes don't get killed as much!
(actually our people don't get killed as much!)
while their gang members might spell "blood" with their hands, we are more likely to spell "blog"
movies have to be filmed in toronto before they can be finished in their LA studio!
our subway actually goes somewhere
that "ooo" joke made me laugh a lot. like, too much for how funny it actually is.
my reason:
Our streets are safer due to a lack of both Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie.
I'm as happy to bust on LA as the next person ("#1: No earthquakes, brush fires or mudslides"), but let's drop the old "LA doesn't have a real subway" myth that kevin posted above. Their shiny new light rail lines put the TTC to shame, and their subway has become more useful over time. If you want to go hardcore, LA has more track miles of rapid transit than Toronto (117 km vs 68 km not counting TTC streetcars, which operate like buses in most cases), and their express buses have no equal in T.O. Oh, and an LA fare is $1.25 or $3 for a day pass, or $58 for a monthly. Not exactly the same as $2.75/$8.50/$100, no matter what the exchange rate. Burn.
We have snow! and Tobogganing! What better reason is there than that?
We have a downtown.
You don't need a car to live here.
For several months every year we're spared that pesky warmth that L.A. residents have to put up with ALL YEAR ROUND. Suckers.
We only have to tolerate celebrities once a year!
LA's music festival is called LAMF (heh), and this is its myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/lamusicfestival
Toronto's music festival is called NXNE, and this is its myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/nxne
So better.
What other city gets to see their former mayor on TV screaming NOOOOOOOOBODY each and every day? For those who disliked him, it's a constant reminder why he's back selling furniture. For those who loved him, it's a reminder of the spectacle and showmanship he brought to the mayor's office.
We don't have as many celebrities to pretend to ignore, and the ones we do have aren't very famous.
someone (not me) wrote this about toronto on another forum. personally I like toronto (have visited a few times) but it's unfair to beat up on other cities like that (e.g. #1 we're toronto and they are LA.). not cool.
This post was in relatio to toronto being a defensive city:
"Toronto has an inferiority complex about not being american that manifests itself into this horrendeously snotty unjustified attitude about how they are the best. everything is the biggest, the best, the tallest, they are obsessed with comparing themselves to the states. its like dealing with an insecure person all the time, but its a city. also, they are not very warm people, in fact, i have no idea where this notion of canadians being nice comes from, they are superficially polite, but genuinely nice, no wai. for the most part they all live two blocks from their parents and their parents parents and have barely ever left the country except to go to florida.
in addition, their public transit system made me want to pull out my hair. streetcars that fuck up traffic like you wouldn't believe. in the freezing cold you can be standing there for like 30 minutes before four of them come all at one, there are only two subway lines,
outside of the city in the suburbs all the houses look the same and there are only chain restaurants like kelseys and east side marios.
the city is completely cut off from the lake so much so that you'll practically forget its there, its nothing like chicago with how everyone is sailing on it in the summer and nice beaches and navy pier and stuff.
other than cottage country, it is not close to anything good, i mean, upstate new york, wowzers.
the musuems there have crappier collections than los angeles and frankly that is a hard thing to pull off.
it is warm for four months a year and the rest of the time it is unbearable.
the salaries stink, plane tickets to go anywhere are ludicriously expensive compared to the states because of their ridiculously high airport tax.
the restaurants (with exceptions) are of mediocre quality.
there is a building boom and they are destroying the skyline with some of the most generic ugly buildings you have ever seen.
almost three years since i left and noone could ever pay me enough money to move back to that hellhole.
i feel quite strongly about this, but i know there are people that love it, so maybe you would too, but chicago is 50 million times better imo"
Jeez, it's just for fun with our sister site in the States. Read more than the first sentence next time, please.
Patrick - Even better: we only have to put up with their celebrities once a year.
haha, though while we're on the topic, not fair does cut and paste some undeniable points. it's a good thing we didn't choose gothamist or this really would have been a reckoning ;)
personally it has been so long since i last went to Los Angeles, i am not sure i can even comment again, but from what i read about it, the livability there is very low, getting around without a car is nearly impossible, and the gang violence is terrifying.
however, it is very desirable for some people to live there, what with its beaches and warmth and palm trees and healthy business centre.
*shrug* i skipped it on my west coast trip this year.
No one I've ever met who lives in LA actually likes LA.
Chicago *is* 50 million times better -- if you're upper-middle class and white and don't go too far from the Mag Mile, and prefer tourist-friendly-sterility to living-city.
"the restaurants (with exceptions) are of mediocre quality."
that's the funniest thing i've ever heard in my life! toronto's restaurants are top-notch. they're often compared to new york's.
As a former Torontonian (born and raised) and present LA resident, let me put in my two cents.
Why LA is better than Toronto:
1. No QEW - you think LA traffic is bad? The QEW is like the 405 on acid.
2. No LCBO - Try buying your liquor from a monopoly.
3. Our women are tanned. Your women appear to have leprosy.
4. No 18-year-olds in clubs.
5. No snow or slush messing up your pant cuffs.
6. Real tacos.
7. Construction on our freeways ends at some point.
8. We have the Hollywood sign =p
9. Good concert venues.
10. The Lakers.
10 reasons why Toronto is better than LA:
1. Timbits
2. David Usher
3. A real Chinatown, not some street with cheap crap.
4. Pho is actually cooked by Vietnamese people.
5. Real gun control.
6. Muchmusic is sooo much better than MTV.
7. Jack Astor's is fun.
8. The Toronto Maple Leafs.
9. Real subways.
10. Mississauga Transit / TTC
Henry David, LAist.com