(Jack Dylan)
Dear Toronto: I’d like to say that it’s me, not you, but I’d be lying. It is you. You have no passion, no ambition. You elected Rob Ford! I’m leaving you for another city
About a year ago, in what felt like defeat, I moved to Toronto. I was looking to overhaul (some might say “ditch”) my career. I’d spent five years in New York as a corporate attorney, warring with myself from the get-go over whether I could stay in a city that I loved on employment terms I despised. When I was finally laid off and I decided to leave practice altogether, Toronto was the obvious choice for a crash landing. Though I’d never lived there, I had a lot of friends in the city, there were cultural events aplenty, and rents seemed shockingly cheap after Brooklyn and Manhattan. Maybe, I thought, I’d been crazy to stay away.
Still, by the time you read this I’ll have left to go back to New York. And of course it’s unfair to hold a rebound relationship up to the glow of the love affair that preceded it. And of course I have reasons for leaving that have very little to do with Toronto qua Toronto. I’d be lying, though, if I said I wasn’t, in some sense, actively and consciously rejecting the city itself.
Certain Toronto friends have been defensive about that, asking me if I really thought things were so bad here. “You expected too much of Toronto,” said one, with a bitterness that surprised me. I’ve come to think she was right, though not in the way she meant. What I expected of Toronto was for it to expect something of itself. But this isn’t that kind of town.
I want to get something out of the way first: it was never about the money. So often, these city versus city essays gauge quality by material assets. But as we are not children comparing marble collections, I’m not here to tell you that the difference is that New York has a MoMA and Toronto only has an AGO, or that New York has Balthazar and Babbo and Momofuku and you don’t. For one thing, I hear you’re getting a Momofuku. For another, not once in my 11 months here have I thought: you know, what this place needs is better access to overpriced ramen.
No, my issue is anti-material in nature, so much so that you’ll probably think me a New Age crank. I’ll put it this way: Toronto is not a city for the world’s starry-eyed dreamers. It’s one resigned to the demands of practicality. Maybe it’s just a concentrated version of Canada itself, which is, on the whole, an unromantic, sober sort of country. Our collective nationality is best symbolized by universal health care, a prosaic sacred cow if ever there was one. But it’s more than that: Toronto has always been at greater pains to capture national and international hearts than Montreal or even Vancouver. And my sense is that Toronto doesn’t particularly mind being known for its lack of passion—which to me is just as bad as its historic inability to inspire it.
Yes, it’s true that around the time David Miller was elected, a wave of unabashed Toronto Cool began to build, revolving around The Drake and The Gladstone and Trampoline Hall and the mainstream success of any number of Arts and Crafts musicians. But that tide has receded now, which perhaps just goes to show that these things can’t be accomplished by fiat.
And even that renaissance had its infuriating elements, revealing a palpable and off-putting self-doubt. Leaf through the anthology uTOpia: Towards a New Toronto, which sought to capture the civic pride of the day in a series of essays, and you’ll discover that the most soaring aspiration its authors could muster was to make Toronto “livable.” Imagine your reaction if your lover called you that.
Livability does have a pleasant social science ring to it, emerging as it does from those silly city rankings put out by The Economist and innumerable consulting firms as a publicity exercise. And far be it from me to suggest that a “nice place to live” is always the wrong goal to have. But good God in heaven, why is it the only visible element of Toronto’s soul?
Ouch.
October 7, 2011 at 10:50 am | by danielleWhy must ppl compare TO to NYC all the time. We are not the same nor will ever be. If you want NYC charm/life stay there, go there.
October 7, 2011 at 11:05 am | by horizoncarrieI’ve heard a few people complain about Toronto in these terms, but mostly they turned out to be the kind of people who were waiting for others to be interesting. Rarely are they the ones adding to that sense of romance that, yes, needs some work.
But the point is, people *are* working on it.
Toronto isn’t the backwater Michelle Dean is making it out to be, but it once was. It’s not New York and never could be (too small, wrong country). It’s something else, and it does have a will to self-improvement that she hints at but somehow doesn’t find exciting — but people who participate in Toronto’s self-directed renaissance never complain about the place in these terms because they’re too busy, you know, doing stuff.
This idea that “Toronto” aspires to be middlebrow is interesting. Who is doing this aspiring? There are millions of people, all with different agendas.
Toronto, in short, is a great place to be a dreamer, because most of its dreams have yet to be realized. And you can really do a lot if you have the ambition. Plenty of like-minded people will support you.
On the other hand, it’s not such a great place for a complainer. Because there are things to complain about (e.g., transit), and if all you want to do is complain you’ll find your prejudice confirmed.
October 7, 2011 at 11:16 am | by AdamAs a Toronto native who has been living in Manhattan for the last decade, this article highlights the maddening attitude so often displayed by people who have lived in NYC for any period of time.
As Adam has correctly pointed out, Michelle Dean is content to sit back and castigate Toronto for its inability to be more interesting/exciting than it is while letting others do the heavy lifting in spearheading any sort of change. Comparing a city like Toronto to NYC with one-tenth of the population and a shorter history is, in itself, asinine. Would anyone ever consider a comparison of a city with 300K inhabitants to Toronto to be an apt one? Of course not, but Dean asks us to do so here.
It strikes me that Dean suffers from the same insecurities that plauge so many other Manhattanites – she seeks validation from the city in which she lives and the ability to tell others she lives there. In short, Toronto isn’t good enough because none of the cool kids know about it.
As for me, I have grown weary of the superficial bullsh*t of this town and plan to move back to Toronto in a year or two. Michelle, you are free to move to my apartment. It’s close to the MET and on the same block as Michael J. Fox’s so you can feel even more validated.
October 7, 2011 at 11:43 am | by ksOh boy, this is what Michelle Dean thinks. Michelle Dean! lol who the hell…
October 7, 2011 at 11:56 am | by PETETHEMEATmichelle,
what a glorious and perceptive piece. as a recent nyc exile myself, feel in your words an exquisite catharsis and the comfort of a stranger’s empathy. i have struggled for months to explain to friends exactly what it is that toronto lacks, and have ended always by tracing the contours of an elusive and absent spirit and the oppressive air of mediocre complacency. your words capture these blunt, perhaps willfully inchoate, thoughts with a liberating precision.
i would add only inauthenticity as the celery to this broth. one would not impugn halifax or ottawa or thunder bay for an arguably endemic dearth of vision or passion (vis-a-vis new york or london or buenos aires or dubai or sydney). but toronto pleads to be a world city and then–with a blend of middle-aged resignation, elderly intransigence, and juvenile stroppery–refuses to aspire.
October 7, 2011 at 11:58 am | by Socrates GheewallaThank you ks.
For anyone who finds my earlier comment too long to read, I’ll sum it up: Let the haters hate while the doers do. Toronto is a work in progress. Imaginative people find that exciting.
Having lived many years in Toronto I recently moved to a smaller Canadian city. I find many things lacking here. If I were in a certain mood I could write precisely the things about this city that Michelle Dean writes about Toronto. But that’s the wrong attitude. The right attitude is, “How can I help?”
October 7, 2011 at 12:10 pm | by AdamPerhaps Michelle should move to Port Hope. (In case she hasn’t been reading Toronto Life recently, Port Hope is a suburb of Toronto where everybody, but everybody! is moving because it’s eleventy-billion times better and cheaper.)
October 7, 2011 at 12:26 pm | by David MDean names the perduring affliction: complacency with mediocrity. There exists an esoteric machinery in Toronto that elevates mediocrity and strangles talent. The city once had a mayor – Mayor Miller – with ambition, intelligence, and vision. Toronto proved itself unworthy of him.
October 7, 2011 at 12:30 pm | by PiccadillyLineToCockfostersThis bitch is mean! I love this city :)
October 7, 2011 at 12:32 pm | by Jordan BToronto is a city of so much unrealized potential; so much that hasn’t been imagined or attempted. As a true dreamer, is that not exciting?
October 7, 2011 at 12:38 pm | by BBMichelle Dean is right on (I’m a fan of her tumblr and writing).
As a mid-tier city, I always wonder why Toronto can’t be as cool as Chicago or Stockholm…I believe that the reason is not mediocrity, but yeah, complacency. Even Montreal is 100% cooler than TO.
There is a lot of brilliance in Toronto, in the Arts, Medicine, and Business (but not so much technology heh)and I find the great minds in Toronto choose to either stay and bask in local celebrity (while being irrelevant elsewhere) or take flight from Toronto, find fame and fortune while cutting most ties with the city. I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to develop international notoriety while remaining here, but it sucks that that’s the way it is and so many people have to leave to take their careers to the next level.
Perhaps it comes down to government and societal support. The government offers meager grants and society for the most part, sneers at the attempts of people to “make it” outside the city and offer little support. Perhaps because the pie is already so small to begin with. For example, in the literary world, Toronto/Canada can really only afford ONE Margaret Atwood and ONE Michael Ondaatje.
It all seems like such a vicious cycle.
Anyway, As someone who’s had the privilege of living in a couple different major cities, I can say that Toronto is a great place for dreams and people just starting out – like the minor leagues, or a farm team. But I know that soon I’ll be ready to make the jump to the big leagues, and it’s become quite clear that I can’t stay here to accomplish that. It’s too bad.
October 7, 2011 at 1:00 pm | by MelissaGreat article.
I think Michelle Dean captures Toronto well. We are safe, predictable, middle of the road. Polite, but not too polite so as to be too familiar and offend.
Yet, invariably we’re offended when someone suggests this is our personality.
I think, too, we are filled with self-doubt. As much as we may not want to be NYC, secretly we want its approval – how can you explain the reason for this article to exist in Toronto Life, who also, incidentally, has an article about how the New Yorker looked at Toronto’s cash for Gold program.
Tell us NYC who we are!
Still need proof? Go to Waterfront Toronto’s website, which explains how these new developments will win us approval from the world, and finally, maybe finally we can be a world-class city!
I mean, it’s like listening to an old Looney Tunes cartoon with the little dog jumping over the big dog, saying “yeah, Spike. Whatever you want Spike”.
Yet, it’s not for lack of trying that seems to be the issue. There’s tons of great ideas (ferris wheels notwithstanding) to improve the city (Gardiner expressway change, Waterfront improvement, subways, better transit). But they all seem to get mired in development pains.
And yes, you might say, well it takes time to develop. Sure, it does. Of course it does. But I think it comes down to a simple point: if we wanted these things to happen we would make it a priority rather than excuses for why not.
And that’s it really – we seem to want to impress the world, and ask it to give us all these platitudes and titles (Canada’s most livable city. World-class attractions etc.) but are our hearts in it?
I agree with Michelle Dean, when she says we opt for comfort instead. In our heart of hearts we’d rather be comfortable, which invariably means things will get developed in a muddling, protracted way.
So, I think it comes down to what we want. We’ve got the brainpower. But what about the will?
To go back to the Looney Tunes reference (high culture, I know) – by the end of the cartoon the little, insecure, hero-worshipping dog had gotten over is infatuation with the big dog and come into his own.
Why can’t Toronto do the same?
October 7, 2011 at 1:03 pm | by CharlieSo what’s the point of this poorly thought out piece of esoteric vanity? NYC is better than Toronto because it “is”? Because you’re too good for it? Because other cities are more famous? What?!? I assure you, there are tons of ambitious people in this city – there’s just a lot less of them than in NYC because, well, they have about 6 million more people than we do. Toronto is what you make it – it can be as exciting, or as boring, as you choose. Also, the irony of a laid off corporate attorney complaining about a city’s lack of ambition is particularly delightful. Since the city seems to be lacking the “right” type of faux intelligentsia such as yourself, I hope you’re happy being another stuck-up New York transplant. I’ll stay right here, thanks.
October 7, 2011 at 1:06 pm | by MBI can only imagine the kind of privilege one must be steeped in to leave a city on the grounds of a lack of “mythos” and “romance,” as opposed to the real world concerns that dictate where the rest of us live and work.
October 7, 2011 at 1:27 pm | by Little Fury