{"id":4122,"date":"2009-03-20T14:19:11","date_gmt":"2009-03-20T18:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/2009\/03\/20\/torontos-fictional-insecurity\/"},"modified":"2009-03-20T15:24:36","modified_gmt":"2009-03-20T19:24:36","slug":"torontos-fictional-insecurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/03\/20\/torontos-fictional-insecurity\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto&#8217;s fictional insecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/39\/82819418_4de55e4648.jpg?v=0\" height=\"333\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/38\/82819460_f618e9947b.jpg?v=0\" height=\"333\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/images\/feature-graphics\/feature-toronto-flaneur.gif\" height=\"63\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>My <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eyeweekly.com\/psychogeography\">psychogeography<\/a> column in <em>Eye Weekly<\/em> this week explores the strange civic fiction that maintains Toronto has an insecurity complex. I admit my position is somewhat biased as I&#8217;m surrounded by people who truly like and love this city &#8212; from the people I work with, the ones I socialize with, and the people who contribute to this blog with comments &#8212; but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eyeweekly.com\/city\/psychogeography\/article\/54929\">as I write in the piece<\/a>, I think it&#8217;s simply a lazy default position to fall back on, and something perpetuated by various media reports looking for a story. As we saw during 175th birthday, when given the chance to express their civic feelings publicly, Torontonians go gaga over their city.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>On March 6th we celebrated Toronto&#8217;s 175th birthday. I say we because anybody that lives in Toronto gets to celebrate, as there are no rules on who gets to be a Torontonian. People show up and like the Mel Lastman-era bumper sticker says: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You Belong Here.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A city like Toronto is yours for an hour, or a lifetime, unlike some small towns where if your great-grandparents didn&#8217;t live there, you&#8217;re still considered \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>One hundred and seventy-five years is not that old when compared to some cities, but it&#8217;s old enough to cause us to wonder where this city&#8217;s infamous inferiority complex comes from. It&#8217;s widely held that Torontonians don&#8217;t like their own city, or are at least a little ashamed of it. It&#8217;s a curious condition considering the equally powerful and widely held belief that the rest of Canada hates this city and its self-possessed inhabitants. Don&#8217;t they know Torontonians supposedly feel the same way about their city? More curious is how this condition has lasted so long considering Toronto keeps adding new people who presumably don&#8217;t have any of this strange baggage. <\/em><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eyeweekly.com\/city\/psychogeography\/article\/54929\">Read the rest over at Eye Weekly<\/a><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>By coincidence when writing this I saw an interesting response to our <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/03\/12\/more-reasons-why-spacing-readers-love-toronto\/\">175th birthday video<\/a> on <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.fagstein.com\/2009\/03\/15\/spacing-on-why-we-love-toronto\/\">this Montreal blog<\/a> that stated: <em><strong>WARNING: Watching this video may provoke uncontrollable fits of anger. Watch at your own risk.<\/strong><\/em> While the video is certainly open to criticism and debate, I don&#8217;t understand (and neither did many of the comments on the Montreal blog) why Torontonians talking about what they like about their city would induce &#8220;fits of anger&#8221; in Montrealers. In Toronto I can&#8217;t think of the last time I heard somebody utter an ill-word about Montreal (other than those that are hockey-related). People here, generally, truly like Montreal and, dare I say, are proud of being in the same country as that city. I end the column thinking about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cpachter.com\/\">Charles Pachter&#8217;s<\/a> mural &#8220;Hockey Knights in Canada&#8221; found in the College Subway Station, complete with Habs players. Nobody minds that it&#8217;s there, and it&#8217;s a Toronto landmark. I wonder how a similarly bold representation of Toronto would be received in other Canadian cities. I&#8217;d welcome examples if you have any.<\/p>\n<p>The disdain directed towards this city from all parts of Canada is rarely reflected back. In fact, I feel more attached to the rest of Canada now, living in Toronto, than I did when I lived in a provincial Ontario city because my social and and professional circle is filled with people from every part of this country and they&#8217;re constantly talking about those places. The &#8220;idea of Canada&#8221; is alive and well and on the streets of Toronto everyday. That &#8220;Hockey Knights&#8221; exists, and that Torontonians don&#8217;t speak ill of the rest of Canada, is testament to a city that is very confident in itself.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photos by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/castelmar\/\">Craig James White<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My psychogeography column in Eye Weekly this week explores the strange civic fiction that maintains Toronto has an insecurity complex. I admit my position is somewhat biased as I&#8217;m surrounded by people who truly like and love this city &#8212; from the people I work with, the ones I socialize with, and the people who<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/03\/20\/torontos-fictional-insecurity\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Toronto&#8217;s fictional insecurity&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[457,11789,11788,7112,423,38,19],"class_list":["post-4122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spacing","tag-canada","tag-charles-pachter","tag-college-subway-station","tag-craig-james-white","tag-eye-weekly","tag-montreal","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Toronto&#039;s fictional insecurity - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/03\/20\/torontos-fictional-insecurity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Toronto&#039;s fictional insecurity - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My psychogeography column in Eye Weekly this week explores the strange civic fiction that maintains Toronto has an insecurity complex. 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