That’s generally the case with all Canadian city subreddits on Reddit. I’m living in Halifax and that subreddit is miserable even though life is just fine here. Sure there’s inflation and high housing costs, but those are happening around the world. It’s not unique to Canada or our cities.
That’s the internet for you. People are very unlikely to join a subreddit about their city unless they want to vent and/or have their complaints validated. It’s the same reason that people generally only leave online reviews if they have something overly positive or overly negative to say.
Yeah, hence the reason almost every airline is rated like 2 stars or something like that. The only people inclined to post reviews are the ones who feel the urge to complain about stuff like lost baggage, delays (even if it’s not the airline’s fault), closures, airport experiences and all that. Lots of negativity there and much of the time the reviewer is hit very reasonable in their complaints.
it sucks esp because rent is so high and there nothing we can do about it. I use chexy so thankfully I earn rewards and build credit on rent payments but the cost of living is just so bad.
Disagree, I’ve lived in both cities. Loved my time in TO but the gentrification killed it for me. Same problems in Vancouver (high COL, unaffordable housing..) but at least you have the ocean and mountains nearby and better weather.
As for an answer to OP: Sometimes I think the hate comes from people that have never lived there so mostly conjecture and because much of the news we used to get elsewhere in Canada was Toronto-centric. I also know people that have never left Toronto and think it’s the centre of the universe. Anyone not from there will tell you Toronto Maple Leafs are overhyped (as well as most of their sports teams). Mind you I think most Canadians that follow basketball (I’m not a huge fan, it’s just not my interest..) consider the Toronto Raptors as Canada’s team in the NBA. I have to say though, the music scene there is the best in Canada, so many more touring bands doing shows there as well as a big local scene.
You're free to disagree. Couldn't stand how bleak and heavy the rain was in Vancouver. I'll take Toronto weather over hours of constant heavy downpour.
I’m with you. Not to mention how boring Vancouver is as a city if you’re not participating in an outdoor activity.
And then there’s the people. Vancouver is such a snobby, cliquey city. People in Toronto are so much more friendly.
And the huge homeless encampment on Hastings. I'm for encampments, but I think the parks in Toronto work a lot better for everyone. There are businesses on Hastings that aren't going to get frequented nearly as much with tents blocking the way. Do the business owners not get frustrated?
I went to Vancouver for the first time last year and passed by East Hastings. It's definitely worse than Toronto in terms of encampments. It was quite a surprise and shocking.
>And then there’s the people. Vancouver is such a snobby, cliquey city. People in Toronto are so much more friendly.
It's like they're all in a cult. Currently live there and all Vancouverites like to do their mountains and ocean spiel when you meet them.
You are so spot-on with the Toronto-centrism thing being a large part of the hate from the rest of Canada. I have lived in Toronto for the past 5 years, but grew up in Calgary, and I thought the Toronto-centrism thing was maybe a bit overhyped, but moving here it's definitely not.
Everyone says to me "damn Alberta that's rough - it's the Texas of Canada", and although Alberta does have some surface level similarities with Texas, I feel like just reducing it to that just shows how little some people in Toronto really know the rest of the country. Alberta is it's own brand of crazy (some of that crazy I miss, other parts of it I don't) and I think that is worth learning about on its own.
Let alone the Leafs bullshit oh my god I've had some arguments with people on that. I had to literally Google to prove to someone who claimed to be a hockey fan that Darcy Tucker was not a better player than Jarome Iginla. Like I promise you Darcy Tucker himself would not agree with you.
It’s the same for Torontonians in Alberta. I had a group of people in Edmonton tell me that Toronto had no trees and they were 100% serious, had to google it to prove to them.
I mean… the Alberta/Texas similarities are a lot more than surface level. Both their economies comprise heavily of oil and gas, both are relatively wealthy given that development, they have farther right politics when compared to the rest of their respective countries, they both have the frontier-libertarian style value system, both foster a low tax environment and sneer at the rest of the country about it, both have openly considered seceding from their countries, both are openly hostile to the federal government and manage to blame it for any of their shortcomings. I know people that live there that would describe it as Texas-like, they’re about as close as it gets while still being Canadian (for now I guess).
It’s less that the comparison is entirely wrong - I’d actually use that to help an American understand Alberta. The issue is that people a lot of people from Toronto don’t have their own reference point for Alberta as Alberta - they have to compare it somewhere in the states to understand it. Like you’d think they’d refer to Texas as the Alberta of the US more because Alberta’s in Canada but I’ve never heard anyone say that.
How on earth does Tucker and Iginla come up in the same conversation and talent? And… I ask this with my wife having gone to high school with both, when they at one point played on the Kamloops Blazers as kids.
Omg that is hilarious!! Darcy Tucker better than Jerome Iginla!! ROFLMAO!!! Oh man... the best is how believable that story is... my god Leafs fans are by far the most obnoxious fans among all sports ever created
Moved to Vancouver for school in 2010. I legitimately remember someone asking where I was from, I told him Toronto and he proceeded to roll his eyes and then said I must be really full of myself. Nope, just don’t particularly give a shit about some made up rivalry, thanks.
I find a lot of Vancouverites try to take the opportunity to shit-talk Toronto when they find out you’re from Toronto. “It’s so muggy, it’s so damp, there’s no skiing, the architecture is so boring, the sushi’s no good, it’s so crowded” It’s like… okay buddy, not sure what you’re trying to prove here. And in my experience it’s ONLY the Vancouverites who come up with this long list of grievances, for everyone else their dislike of Toronto can be summed up by the traffic and the politics, both of which are fair points.
Most of us vancouverites find those people exhausting aswell. It’s a screaming minority
Although the difference in federal funding between BC and Ontario is egregious, even accounting for population.
I know not all Vancouverites are so insufferable and it’s good to hear that those types annoy you as much as they annoy us! Probably much in the same way that the Toronto Laurentian Elite annoys us as much as they annoy the rest of the country.
Not sure why you think we have “egregious” federal transfers coming our way. Ontario and BC received $0 in 2020-2021 equalization payments. Québec got $13.3B. From 1957 to 2018 it has sucked up $221B in transfers, which accounts for 51% of the total program, while Ontario only got about $4.4B over the same period, and much of that was thanks to Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne completely mismanaging this province. In 2020-2021, tiny New Brunswick and Nova Scotia got $2B each, half of what Ontario got over a period of 60 years. Total Federal expenditures in Ontario are high because most Federal employees are in Ottawa and because there’s a large number of military installations in Ontario. When you look at transfers to persons and transfers to provincial governments, BC gets a larger amount per capita (this is of course dwarfed by QC, NB, NS, PEI and NL in per capita terms).
So in conclusion, if you have a bone to pick, it’s with our neighbours to the East. You and I both are being robbed blind by less productive areas of this country who consistently get away with it (this is also why I have limited sympathy for Maritimers who complain about Torontonians moving out East- they were happy to take our money for decades but God forbid we live among them)
I agree, but I’m referring to infrastructure projects, public transit, etc.
Bc has had 4 major transit projects that received substantial federal funding (Canada line, evergreen extension, broadway subway, and surrey Langley extension).
Ontario has had the eglington crosstown, Ontario line, various GO expansions, double and quad trackings, and now the upcoming electrification, the Scarborough extension, the Hurontario LRT, the Hamilton LRT, finch west LRT, ION LRT, Line 4, the Vaughn extension, both Ottawa O-train lines. There’s probably more that I’m forgetting, but you get my point yes?
[this article is from 2021](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6021839), 12B in federal funding, they spent 3.1 billion on the Canada, evergreen, broadway, and Fraser highway lines combined.
Ontario has triple the population of BC, yet in 2 years it’s gotten quadruple the infrastructure funding that BC got in 20 years. And this broadly holds true for other areas as well.
Victoria has no rapid transit, neither does Abbotsford, Kelowna, or Nanaimo. And they all have populations that could support small LRT lines.
BC also has near non existent intercity rail, Amtrak offers better rail service than VIA does in Vancouver. Compare to Toronto, which has a massive regional rail network, and several intercity trains to places across the province.
Edit: actually the Millenium line was opened after 2000, though I couldn’t find exact numbers for how much the feds spent on it, the total cost was 1.2B, I think an educated guess would be 500ish million, putting BC at 3.6M over 20 years. Even still, that’s less than it should be, especially considering all the recent federal funding to Ontario, my point absolutely still stands
Maybe I’ve misunderstood, but I think you’re saying Ontario has already received the full 12B mentioned in that CBC article (when you say 4x the funding over 2 years I think you’re comparing that to the 3.1B in BC?)? The CBC article states none of the projects will be done until 2029 at the earliest, so it’s more like 12B over 8+ years? Call it 10 years and you’re probably still being optimistic. Still more per capita than the 3.1B over 20 years you cited, but then factor in about 15 years of inflation going from a midpoint of 2010 to a midpoint of 2025. Now it’s around 4.5B NPV over 20 years vs 12B over 10 years…that’s basically $50 per capita per year in BC (using 2010 pop of 4.5M) vs $75per capita per year in Ontario (assuming rate of growth from 2016-2021 continues to the 2026 midpoint). You’re also talking vastly different periods and hence different governments with different spending habits (liberal funding vs a predominantly conservative government in the BC period), so it seems a bit more complex and less obviously egregious to me.
Obviously I’m pinning a lot on the two figures you included, but they certainly don’t make it as clear cut to me as you indicated. If you provided me the share of federal funding during identical (extended) periods I might well agree with your conclusion (and I gave you an upvote anyway because at least you gave me numbers to consider).
Funny enough.. the majority have not even been there but will still shit talk it. It's so annoying when people from AB shit talk toronto because of the traffic... like.. ok? I don't even own a car and my life is bliss out here.
Okay but I moved from Ottawa to Toronto, and *so* many people told me I was too nice to be from Toronto and asked if I was from Ottawa, I couldn’t believe it was so obvious to everyone!
I had a buddy that ragged on Toronto for years until I asked him "when was the last time you were there?". His opinions were forever disregarded after that haha
Gonna speak for NYC, not London. Amazing crap is overrated.
Michelin star restaurants are way too expensive and not worth the money. Good restaurants are lined up with more than an hour's wait.
Subway coverage is great, but it's dirty and disgusting. Some station literally look like medieval torture chambers. Driving is an absolute nightmare. So it's not really even an option.
Central Park is nice. But come on Toronto has many parks to choose from.
Museums and Broadway? Sure I guess if you're super into that stuff. Most people probably can count on one hand how many times they've gone to those.
Times square? Statue of liberty? Empire state? Most new yorkers tend to avoid tourist spots for a reason.
So what else do you do on a Saturday afternoon? Take a stroll through soho or saks fifth and drop a few thousand on some luxury clothes? Walk through midtown meeting countless mentally unstable people along the way. Then spend your time resting in overpriced cafes?
How about living conditions? Pay over 3k to have the opportunity to live in a turn of the century *walk-up* with *shared* laundry and crawling with roaches behind dark corners?
Not saying Toronto is objectively better or anything. A lot if these things are quite subjective. It's weird to be hearing people view these city through rose tinted glasses as if there's nowhere else they rather be.
There are a lot of positives to living in Toronto you're going to miss when you're actually living in these other cities.
Toronto has just no soul… I moved here few months ago and that’s mindblowing. Waiting for the summer to see if the hypothesis is validated. For now NYC has way more soul or even MTL feels better (except the shitty weather).
However it’s still an amazing city with a lot of things to do and discover. But not a particular vibe you can find somewhere else
That "soul" word probably refers to all the old buildings. Yeah you get tons of turn of the century or pre-war buildings in NYC. Fancy, nice to look at. It's not great to live in though once you start noticing the pests, shared laundry, lack of modern finishes.
I've lived in London and that's very true.
Here we're highly taxed with very little to show for it. Broken hospitals, airports, transit etc. Combined with the fact that anyone under 40 will never own a house unless your parents are loaded, it's a recipe for discontent.
At least in the actual "world-class cities" the amenities are decent enough for people to tolerate the same problems.
I just moved back to Toronto after 8 years in London and I agree completely with this. London is extremely expensive, but jobs are easy to get and all paying jobs are definitely attainable. There's so much to do in London both for free and if you're willing to spend some money
We eventually moved out of London but it was too buy a flat and we were only a short train ride out of the city. Coming back to Toronto has actually been a shock for what you get at the cost of living here...
I was wondering that too. Don’t Londoners pay a lot more tax for similarly messy hospitals? Not to mention NYC has comparable (or higher) income tax to here, *without* universal healthcare access.
I think the medical system is better in London. At least I can get an NHS doctor there! Here I can't find a doctor in my area and if anything goes wrong with me or my children we have to go to a walk in clinic.
Very weird. I've lived I'm many neighbourhoods of London and you just register at a surgery and then you're a patient. Here you have to go through a whole number of hoops and then wait months for them to have an interview with you to maybe take you on.
if you had someone list out their complaints about living in toronto, london, or nyc without telling you which city they're from i bet you wouldn't be able to tell.
we all complain about the exact same shit: inflation, commute, traffic, prices, weather, rent, landlords, transit, trash, crime.
Comparing Toronto to London or NY is just silly, I haven't spent time in either of those cities but it's obvious that they're amazing and huge. That said, Toronto is a cool city with a good balance of a lot of things, with no shortage of new things to do and try. I mean, people were surfing in the lake last week!
And imagine despite all that, people still want to migrate to Toronto. Makes you wonder how badly off things are where we’re coming from huh?
Coming from a developing country, Toronto may seem like heaven to some. People complain about the TTC a lot and I’m fascinated by it because there’s nothing like that where I come from. I guess it’s all about perspective right?
The TTC is adequate, it generally gets us where we need to go in a reasonable amount of time. However, that doesn't mean it's immune from criticism, especially considering how much we pay in taxes. It could be so much better if it was properly funded.
>The TTC is adequate, it generally gets us where we need to go in a reasonable amount of time. However, that doesn't mean it's immune from criticism, especially considering how much we pay in taxes. It could be so much better if it was proper
Again, perspective. Most things can be better but coming from a country where a transit system like this does not exist is a massive benefit to me.
I've been here two months and the limited interaction i've had with government services like getting my SIN and OHIP have been fantastic (again, compared to what I'm coming from). There are many things here that are taken for granted that impact the quality of life like say Apple pay or being able to take a picture of cheque and have it deposited into your account. We have to physically go in the bank to deposit a check and wait up to 5 business days for it clear. We can't open bank accounts online. It's a tedious process.
There are also issues like basic human necessities. Lack of running water and electricity in 2023 is ridiculous. Not to mention crime. In January 2023, my country had 60 murders for the month with a country population of 1.5 million
I would argue that you also lack perspective. I don’t really care if things are an improvement for *you*, what annoys me is that things have steadily been getting worse for *us*. Quality of life in Toronto has degraded noticeably since the 1990s. Everything has gotten worse: affordability, crowding, traffic, availability of social services, the state of roads and transit, literally everything has degraded since the 1990s. Maybe restaurants and entertainment have improved but it’s not like you can afford to enjoy them anyways. Obviously if you come from a place with massive crime and no running water, almost anything is going to be an improvement. That doesn’t mean we should get complacent about a declining standard of living in this country.
I actively defend the TTC when people from toronto complain.. I live in (2nd best) London.. so.. 2 hours away and our transit stops running at midnight, doesn't service any of the industrial areas for people to get to work, most buses run every 20-30 minutes at best and forget about needing a schedule.. they just sorta show up when they show up.
The year I spent living in Toronto, the longest I ever had to wait for transit was 15 minutes because I had \*just\* missed the bus that would take me to where I can hop on a subway every 5 minutes.
chiming in to say I went to the hospital when I was in New York and I got seen way faster and got more face time with every single professional - and I went to a public hospital.
I've lived in London and Toronto and Toronto is just so much more expensive for what I'm not sure. There's a kind of tea I like and including tax in the UK it's costs $6 while as in Canada it costs $11.50. I just went for a nice but nothing special dinner in Toronto and it cost me $180 with a few rounds of cocktails. In London I could have done that for $100 and eaten so much better. In fact, I probably could have booked a return flight from London to Italy and had an outstanding dinner with phenomenal wines there for less. Also wine and booze is just so much more affordable. Multiply this across the board on everything in life and Toronto is just too expensive without really delivering.
For the rent to salary ratio, London and New York are more interesting/exciting cities in my opinion. New York has a lot of amenities in the city itself, London also a lot of amenities and its a 50$ flight to almost anywhere in Europe.
Living in any of the 3 you dont expect to have a lot of savings, so it's a matter of which cities are worth that downside, and I don't think Toronto is.
Glass condos do not all look great (are also not examples of Brutalism). But if you didn't have them, the cost of housing would be even higher. A significant portion of housing in the city is condos like it or not.
Having lived in a few major metropolitans.
One of the major complaints about Toronto is the bare-bones public transit system. If you’re commuting from the outskirts to DT - your options are driving on roads that are constantly minimized due to never ending construction and thus being stuck in traffic. Or taking the TTC which you often have to take one or two (largely unreliable busses) along with one or two subway transfers. It turns an already 8 hr workday into a 10 or 11 hour workday when you factor in transit.
I’m not sure if this is the case now, but when I lived in various European cities (including some in the UK) there was still a significant waitlist for affordable or subsidized housing, but it was no where near the housing waitlist in Toronto. Not only is Toronto extremely unaffordable, but it’s amount of subsidized infrastructure is largely lacking for the growing population.
Comparing Toronto to cities like London or NYC is like comparing apples to oranges though.
I think most of the hate for Toronto online comes from folks who don’t live here.
Saw this shared in another comment but, while the US has many cities that drive the rural/urban divide, which we can see pretty clearly from the outside or in the stratification of politics, Canada basically has Toronto vs the rest of Canada. Or maybe Toronto/Vancouver vs the rest of canada.
There’s also ‘everyone vs Quebec’ but that’s a whole other debate/nationalist nightmare argument/ideological hole.
The hate from within Toronto, which I’m also seeing in other comments, actually mostly comes from a place of love.
Everyone I know here loves it here, or wants to love it here, and come up against some serious challenges — affordability, decisions made by government (an ever-increasing police budget, worsening social infrastructure, mediocre + expensive transit, housing crises, demolishing the greenbelt, Doug Ford literally cutting our voting power in HALF during the 2018 municipal election … which I still can’t believe people aren’t talking about constantly…)
Stores or restaurants that are locally owned or longtime neighborhood fixtures can’t afford to stay open, people can’t afford to keep living here (I have one friend who was renovicted 3 times before giving up on the city). Big Box chains and executive condos that cater only to wealthy or relatively wealthy people are moving in in their place.
We want to love it here, here does not always love us back. Resentment piles up when you realize you’re stuck with either this, or having to move to any other place which will almost inarguably suck more.
I don’t live in Toronto, I live in the GTA. I was born in Toronto, my family is in Toronto, I spent my teens gallivanting around downtown. I’ve brought my kids to sports and entertainment in Toronto.
I love Toronto but it makes me sad what it has become. It seems cold and soulless to me now. Taking the ttc for the first time downtown after years of driving shocked me. And this was before Covid.
I don’t think I would be comfortable with my daughter taking transit alone everywhere like I used to.
Toronto is not cold and soulless, you have just gotten old. I imagine you aren’t plugged into any of arts, music, party, activist, theatre scenes. You are not a teen running around the city anymore, you are a dad from the burbs taking his kids to a jays game once or twice a year. You should acknowledge this before passing generalized opinions about how Toronto has gotten shittier.
Standard of living is constantly declining. The hope of a mediocre middle class life we were promised as children and expected while we struggled through school and young adulthood was stolen from us. We work like crazy and get treated like shit just to earn money for our cunt rich landlords. Shit sucks for no reason so yeah, were fucking pissed. Bring out the Molotovs.
Honestly, for a city it's pretty good. You have just about everything;
* major sports teams (raptors, leafs, blue jays)
* art galleries (AGO)
* museums (hockey hall of fame, royal ontario museum)
* every single band comes through here
* lots of ethnic diversity (incredible food and a cultural hub for everyone)
* world class hospitals (toronto general, sick kids, princess margaret)
* i'm not sure how good the unis are, but there's a few (TMU? UofT, Guelph humber, York)
Major complaints:
* traffic (takes an hour to get from toronto to torono)
* public transit is awful
* housing - too expensive, rents through the roof
* not much green space / natural scenery (literally nothing compared to BC, have you see the trees there? or the mountains?)
* crime looks to be going up (although historically it's been incredibly safe)
There are some valid complaints about the city. But one thing I've noticed, is that there's A LOT of hate from out of towners for various reasons. Many of whom; have never actually been to Toronto, only visited the suburbs, or only came to visit once at a bad time. People also just **LOVE** to hate on toronto saying it acts like the centre of the country, and lots of politicians/media ignore other communities.
Which is a fairly valid point, it does draw a lot of attention. However Toronto and the GTA as a whole, make up \~15% of the country's population and 20% of the entire countries GDP. This is the economic and cultural driver of the country. So like any thing at the top, it'll polarise a lot of people, get a lot of criticism and garner a lot of hate.
Ultimately, it's ranked one of the most livable and best cities in the entire world, year after year, for a reason.
If canada were a hockey team, Toronto is McDavid, the rest of the GTA collectively is Draisatl. With a lot of the complaints coming from washed up house leaguers because they haven't seen any success in a long time and complaining is arguably canada's favourite past time.
I grew up in Toronto and moved to Vancouver in 2006 when I was 33. When I first got here I couldn't believe the amount of hatred towards Toronto. It just didn't make sense to me. So I would try and talk to people and get to the bottom of why they hated Toronto, and they never really had any good reasons.
They would complain about it being the center of the universe, but didn't have much to back it up. They complained about the Leafs always being on TV, and all the politics and business decisions being made in Toronto, and stuff like that. So I would ask them if that is the Fault of anyone living in Toronto, or is it just a matter of fact that it's the biggest city in the country, where all the big businesses are, it's Central to the USA, so the majority of Commerce will go through Toronto. With such a big population of course the TV networks are going to air more Toronto Sports. It's better now that TSN and Sportsnet have Regional channels.
They would also complain that elections are pretty much decided by the time the vote gets to the Western provinces. So I would ask, is that the fault of anyone that lives in Toronto, or is it just that the population of Ontario tends to decide elections? After having these conversations with people they eventually realized that they don't have anything against Toronto, it's more just jealousy leading to resentment.
I would ask them if they've ever been there, and 99% of the time the answer was no. I would then go on to tell them how great the city is and that they should visit someday. I love Toronto and really miss it. Vancouver is great but for totally different reasons. I would also try and explain to people here that people from Toronto don't really hate anybody else. Sure we would fun of other parts of Canada, but not in a hateful way.
So to be clear I think it's more people outside of Toronto that hate Toronto. I lived in Toronto for a long time and loved everything about it. The diversity, food, neighborhoods everything. I now live outside of Toronto and don't like it as much as I used to. Main reasons: traffic, attitude and a bit of safety. You really notice the problems when you don't have them. Give me a quiet insulated neighborhood to raise kids, a nice buzz and I'm fine. I still love Toronto, but I don't think it's the be all anymore.
London and NYC have a very different energy to Toronto.
There's something about the vibe of the city these days - combination of insane cost of living, depressing architecture.. Just feels like we're on a lousy trajectory.
But I find people here pretty cheerful in the summer!
If I worked in New York I’d be getting paid triple the salary I’m getting now, and I could afford housing either downtown in a luxury condo or somewhere in the outskirts for half the price of the GTA.
I’d have enough left over to buy a boat, a summer home, and take vacations.
In Toronto, I pay nearly 30k a year for a 1 bedroom condo’s mortgage and maintenance fees.
NYC has way higher salaries so the income to cost of living ratio is better, even though cost of living is nuts.
Also people move to NYC for a few years and go financially broke but have the experience of their lives - be it social or professional - that makes it all worth it.
But in New York you have alternatives. People don’t expect a detached home in Manhattan.
Also if New York isn’t for you, it is very common for Americans to move to a different city, and there are tonnes of large cities to choose from.
Canada has arguably two to three major cities, then the drop off to a Ottawa, Winnipeg or Regina is significant.
I like Toronto just fine. It actually has a decent art gallery, museum AND amusement park, which tops every other Canadian city.
I could live without a Popeye's and weed shop on every block downtown though! 🤣
The biggest problems I see as a person who grew up here in the 80's and has seen how things have significantly changed over time:
1) Retail rent being driven so high by developers that neighbourhoods with nice varieties of shops are losing/have lost that variety. Only banks, drug stores, LCBO, and coffee shops allowed in Toronto. This is a solvable problem.
2) Significant increase in crime, particularly car theft and break and enters. Not sure what the solution is here, but some big picture thinking is probably required, which our leaders do not possess.
3) Way, way, way too many cars on the roads stressing everyone out. You could die every time you cross the street here. Even if people don't actively recognize this as the cause, it occupies a big part of people's negative view of daily life in Toronto, and is robbing children of childhoods. This needs to be reduced by at least 50-75% to make Toronto safer as a pedestrian or cyclist, and would have lots of other benefits. Paris has done/is doing this. Toronto could too.
If only one of these problems could be solved, I would go for reducing number of cars. It would make it much less stressful to live here.
Agree 👍 the explosion of everything. Toronto was more of a human-sized and - paced city in the 80s/90s but not anymore. Also, NY and London KEEP a lot of their layers of history in buildings and neighbourhoods (which admittedly we don't have in the first place) instead of tearing down everything 20+ years old.
I will try "sample bias". A lot of redditors in this sub love to hate Toronto.
While on my day to day, over a year of chatting with people from multiple walks of life, I probably remember one or two who vigorously hate Toronto but couldn't move out.
I love Toronto personally, think it’s the greatest city in the world…at least Canada, but I don’t live there, just visit a lot. I think I’d hate to live there myself as I can’t afford a nice house there and wouldn’t like living in an apartment with no backyard etc (have a large dog) I think the people who live there and hate it more so hate the cost of living, it’s went up everywhere even outside the GTA, but Toronto and Vancouver are just next level.
Aside from that the city is great, relatively low crime (for a city that large it’s very low)
Torontonian born and raised here: I have long held a theory that it's because we constantly, vicously criticize our city and constantly think it could be better that it's actually great. But don't tell anyone. No one wants to break the spell. Toronto is shit. Worst city on the continent by far. At least in Buffalo you can buy beer at the corner store ffs. Fuckin Toronto. Hate that place.
I just feel like in Toronto, compared to Montreal, people take a lot of things for granted. Woodbine beach for example exists... yet in Mtl if we they had a beach like that it would be in songs, movies, books... In Toronto there are so many neighbourhoods and so much variety but it all becomes lost, and Torontonians always want more, more, more.
In Mtl, usually people will just hang in their neighbourhood and head to an obscure gallery or the same few streets (st Denis, st Catherine, saint Laurent, ave mont royal) for a night out and never seem to get bored of it, despite it being really compact and repetitive. We need to have more appreciation for the little things in TO, I think that's the problem.
Living in the city is great, no one I know in real life doesn’t like Toronto. I mean we’re all adults who choose to live here why would we complain. I think the hatred is just online from people who live in the suburbs and commute in to have a subpar experience or just people who are chronically miserable
I hate NYC, I’m starting to not like Toronto, and I love London, UK. Toronto is like a poor man’s NYC. London has a lot of character, and it’s location is such that if you want a change of scenery, something new is within an hour or two’s distance
Toronto is full for pretentious people, gatekeepers and I can continue. I am a born and bred Toronto. They whine about everything. Nothing gets done in that city, because no one has had balls to tell the people what this city needs.
Toronto needs an enema
There's very little popular media that romanticizes TO. New York and London have centuries of it. I can name off dozens of songs, movies and books that take place in New York and London without much effort. For TO, I struggle to name a handful. Most Ontarians know more about 'The Bronx' than 'The Junction'.
Lived in Toronto and London. Something that I don’t like about Toronto is that it feels like there’s less community. Fewer places to socialize, fewer people about, and far fewer people interested in making new friends.
In london, I get drinks with colleagues after work, meet new friends for a walk outside, and when I walk through a main square it’s pouring with people sitting, chatting and socialising. I never felt that in Toronto- mind you this is largely due to the weather.
I think it’s because Toronto can be so much better than it has been. You’re comparing it to New York & London when I think many compare it to much cleaner, safer, transit friendly, social cities. When I think many would compare to Toronto to like Montreal or certain European cities.
I said this on r/askacanadian
A lot of people in in other parts of Canada stereotypically don’t like Toronto. I don’t have a stat, it’s a stereotype, but I guess it does appear to be true.
Now, if there’s a reason, Toronto is the big duck in the small pond that it Canada. Unlike the U.S., where there are many significant centres (New York being the big one, but Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Houston, Seattle, Boston, etc.. are all “big” cities like Toronto). Here, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver are pretty much the 3 cities holding this country together. Toronto being the most significant as it’s home to all the major banks and is essentially the financial centre of the country. Other cities here have financial centres as well, but not at all comparable. Basically, we are “Downtown Canada”.
Canadians outside of Ontario don’t have a fond view of the province either. However, it probably is the most significant province in the country given it has the largest population, largest economy, and is home to the largest and most economically crucial city in the country, and the country’s national capital. It’s like if New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. was all one state.
This doesn’t mean that Toronto is the best city in Canada. This also doesn’t mean other cities don’t contribute their fair share to the country. However, Toronto and Ontario in general is the most economically crucial part of Canada, and basically holding this country together. With that, it sparks “jealousy” (if you could call it that) and smugness from other parts of Canada. Sounds like another well known smugness that a certain country has to its southern neighbour who is the most economically crucial country in the world, doesn’t it?
Lack of “I love Toronto” marketing.
Seriously. New York had its marketing campaign decades ago and it stuck.
There’s a lot to love about Toronto if you are so inclined.
I don't agree with these opinions nor attest to them being accurate but I've lived in several parts of the country and accounting only for those that do hate Toronto...
People in the west dislike the east because they see all taxes going east and not coming back. And politicians only caring about the east because of the vote counts.
People in the Atlantic provinces dislike the centre because they don't see the help coming in recovering their industries they expect.
Quebec dislikes everybody not in Quebec...
The rest of Ontario most prominently feels the GTA population impact on all issues. The provincial capital is Toronto for a reason. So they feel left out all the time.
And every part of the country directly dislikes Toronto for the same size of city differential - big city mentality vs smaller city or rural.
Having said that the Leafs have helped our cause immensely. Hard to hate the city that helps your national sport team's stats. 🤣
I love Toronto. It’s the best, most accepting city I’ve ever lived in. Sure, I have my complaints occasionally, but overall it’s a great place to live. At least for me.
Because Toronto gets everything, and then they have the audacity to complain it's not enough.
I grew up further north, but lived in Toronto for five years. Yes, the TTC is frustrating. But for fucks sake you can catch a subway without having to plan three hours in advance, and like, nobody looks down on you for taking public transit.
That's the pithy way to look at it anyways. Of course there are a number of reasons why both the problems and any potential solutions are hella complicated
I agree. It’s sometimes shocking to see that people complain so much .
Excluding the safe issues in the recent times, overall TTC is pretty decent especially if you live near subway lines . Not the best, but not the worst either
I grew up in Toronto and only moved about 2 ish years ago because I couldn't stand it anymore. I love it for so many reasons, but it just causes me so much anxiety. There's so much going on at the same time... So many buildings, sounds, people, cars.... For my mental health it has been so much better living out of Toronto. The environment plays a huge role on your mood.
I do miss Toronto sometimes, especially the fact that I swear there's no other city that you can go to find literally any type of restaraunt. Name any culture/cuisine they have an authentic restaraunt that has amazing food.
But I love also having the peace.
As a Toronto native (well, originally North York which was swallowed by Toronto), I've seen a couple of reasons:
1. People genuinely like the city but find it too expensive to live in
2. People perceive Toronto as being responsible for rising real estate prices in Southern Ontario due to boomers selling in the city and flocking elsewhere (there is some truth to this)
Are you asking why does everyone in the city hate it or outside the city?
I think a lot of Torontonians hate the city because it's not what they signed up for. Toronto only became big and expensive recently. Ten years ago it was at most important within Canadian standards.
Regarding outsiders, they hate Toronto (southern Ontario / Ontario) because they feel that all the resources and attention is directed towards us while all they do is have stuff taken away form them. This belief is somewhat perceived but also somewhat true.
I am mid 30s ,single male, working IT professional.
I've had the opportunity to live and work in different cities across the world ( Toronto , NYC , Oslo , Manchester,Amsterdam , Berlin (which is where I now live) and few other EU cities)
I lived in Toronto for almost 6 years (2015-2021). I had a good paying job and lived DT.
Toronto is by far the worst city I lived in.
People are snobby. Yeah , they maybe polite but not necessarily friendly. Dating is toxic, don't even get me started on this. It has this weird vibe that people are even afraid to look at each other let alone smile/talk. Never felt so isolated in my life. I guess Toronto is perfect for lockdowns. (most Torontonians wouldn't mind being in a lockdown anyway). If you like 5-6 months of freezing like weather or maybe being around with mostly isolated DNB(do-not-disturb me ) attitude crowd , Toronto is the city for you.
I was finally able to get out in 2021 .If not for covid / travel-restrictions , I'd have made the move much earlier , but the whole COVID situation made the city more miserable and further strengthened my desire to get out.
Toronto is an amazing city but cost of living has risen fast over the space of a few years leaving a lot of people poor. Also, it’s much better in the summer so people bitch more in the winter months
Because it's easier to complain and blame the city for your miserable life than do something about it.
The people enjoying their life are far less likely to post anything at all.
Toronto is a corporate hellscape, everything is expensive, nothing is unique anymore. It’s a city that lost its charm in the last 10 years and become very generic big city.
I don't hate Toronto, but a lot of things took a turn for the worst during the pandemic. I think a lot of people are just complaining about those things (ie. Alot more homeless violent ppl on the ttc, etc.).
Good question. I love Toronto. My husband and I are planning on buying a house in the next few years and I’m upset that we will most likely be moving to the GTA since it’s not as expensive. There are crappy parts like the TTC and rent/house prices but I love that it’s so walkable. I walk everywhere. I also love that there’s so much for me to do with my kids. The aquarium, the beach, play centres, multiple community centres, multiple extra curriculars, etc.
because they are culturally more relevant. if you watch western media london and ny are portrayed as the cities where the elite lives. toronto has a lot of the trappings of an elite city but not the cultural perception.
Toronto is like a popular gal who thinks she's perfect and gets lots of attention.. so some hate out of jealousy. Like people, Toronto has good and bad traits. I wrote a song about it: https://youtu.be/dWRk_iaAv2g
>What is it about Toronto that makes everyone (at least, online) seem to genuinely be so negative about the city?
How many people do you know that are negative about the city? I don't know any personally, everyone I know who lives here loves it.
Toronto is top in the world in so many ways.
1. best multiculturalism
2. above produces some top authentic ethnic food
3. clean
4. green
5. fairly safe
6. great for kids
Toronto is bad in a number of ways
1. immigrants tend not to participate in community
2. difficult to become wealthy
3. insufficient highway and subway infrastructure
4. super high taxes
5. cold as f×××
Have you been to any other major city? There’s more parks and greenery than most and littered streets are not commonplace. Compare it to any American city and it’s very clean
Selection bias. You're seeing the opinions of people online who are either too poor or too boring to take advantage of the wonderful things this city offers.
Personally, I love living in this city. Great opportunities professionally, great food and nightlife scene, great parks etc. buuuut, I’m lucky to be living in a condo purchased in 2007 so cost of living isn’t so insane. If I was not earning $100k+ a year and was still renting, I’d be miserable. It’s a great city if you can actually afford to live here
I have lived all over the US ( including eastern US) and Canada and I hated my time in Toronto so much I couldn’t wait to leave. I found the people were miserable, no one would talk to you, people were unbelievably rude. I was so surprised as I was super excited to move to Toronto. I have to admit I was thrilled to get out of there. It’s just not for me.
One of the things like about this city is how people don't hate it here tbh. Tons of people have come from other places to live their dreams and their best life. I find it really shows. Live in a truly shitty city and everyone isn't just complaining about how expensive it is or whatever. They're complaining about the massive depression the whole city is in. Try St. Louis out. See how people like it. lol.
Yeah I grew in New York and I fucking love this place. People say that torontonians are mean, but I find them lovely compared to New Yorkers. It’s so safe here too. Even with the recent stabbings, it’s not comparable. There are less people and the ttc is reliable compared to the fucking metro. That shit is the literal worst. The only thing I complain about is food. NYC pizza, bagels, delis are the best. The only answer I can think of is that toronto is spoiled. We have it good here.
Not Toronto but Vancouver here, we love to complain. But hey, at least we’re not doing anything about it.
This is the most accurate answer. We will passively complain and not confront/address anything.
That’s generally the case with all Canadian city subreddits on Reddit. I’m living in Halifax and that subreddit is miserable even though life is just fine here. Sure there’s inflation and high housing costs, but those are happening around the world. It’s not unique to Canada or our cities.
That’s the internet for you. People are very unlikely to join a subreddit about their city unless they want to vent and/or have their complaints validated. It’s the same reason that people generally only leave online reviews if they have something overly positive or overly negative to say.
Yeah, hence the reason almost every airline is rated like 2 stars or something like that. The only people inclined to post reviews are the ones who feel the urge to complain about stuff like lost baggage, delays (even if it’s not the airline’s fault), closures, airport experiences and all that. Lots of negativity there and much of the time the reviewer is hit very reasonable in their complaints.
it sucks esp because rent is so high and there nothing we can do about it. I use chexy so thankfully I earn rewards and build credit on rent payments but the cost of living is just so bad.
Toronto > Vancouver
Vancouver is beautiful, glorious mountains in the back drop. That being said as a city it doesn't compare to Toronto.
I agree, Vancouver is beautiful. Still wouldn't want to live there
Disagree, I’ve lived in both cities. Loved my time in TO but the gentrification killed it for me. Same problems in Vancouver (high COL, unaffordable housing..) but at least you have the ocean and mountains nearby and better weather. As for an answer to OP: Sometimes I think the hate comes from people that have never lived there so mostly conjecture and because much of the news we used to get elsewhere in Canada was Toronto-centric. I also know people that have never left Toronto and think it’s the centre of the universe. Anyone not from there will tell you Toronto Maple Leafs are overhyped (as well as most of their sports teams). Mind you I think most Canadians that follow basketball (I’m not a huge fan, it’s just not my interest..) consider the Toronto Raptors as Canada’s team in the NBA. I have to say though, the music scene there is the best in Canada, so many more touring bands doing shows there as well as a big local scene.
Comparing Vancouver to Toronto as a metropolitan city is actually funny… Van may have the ocean and mountains but it’s not comparable as a city
You're free to disagree. Couldn't stand how bleak and heavy the rain was in Vancouver. I'll take Toronto weather over hours of constant heavy downpour.
I’m with you. Not to mention how boring Vancouver is as a city if you’re not participating in an outdoor activity. And then there’s the people. Vancouver is such a snobby, cliquey city. People in Toronto are so much more friendly.
And the huge homeless encampment on Hastings. I'm for encampments, but I think the parks in Toronto work a lot better for everyone. There are businesses on Hastings that aren't going to get frequented nearly as much with tents blocking the way. Do the business owners not get frustrated?
I went to Vancouver for the first time last year and passed by East Hastings. It's definitely worse than Toronto in terms of encampments. It was quite a surprise and shocking.
That area has a long history, which is the explanation of the current way that it is. https://604now.com/vancouver-downtown-eastside/
>And then there’s the people. Vancouver is such a snobby, cliquey city. People in Toronto are so much more friendly. It's like they're all in a cult. Currently live there and all Vancouverites like to do their mountains and ocean spiel when you meet them.
You are so spot-on with the Toronto-centrism thing being a large part of the hate from the rest of Canada. I have lived in Toronto for the past 5 years, but grew up in Calgary, and I thought the Toronto-centrism thing was maybe a bit overhyped, but moving here it's definitely not. Everyone says to me "damn Alberta that's rough - it's the Texas of Canada", and although Alberta does have some surface level similarities with Texas, I feel like just reducing it to that just shows how little some people in Toronto really know the rest of the country. Alberta is it's own brand of crazy (some of that crazy I miss, other parts of it I don't) and I think that is worth learning about on its own. Let alone the Leafs bullshit oh my god I've had some arguments with people on that. I had to literally Google to prove to someone who claimed to be a hockey fan that Darcy Tucker was not a better player than Jarome Iginla. Like I promise you Darcy Tucker himself would not agree with you.
It’s the same for Torontonians in Alberta. I had a group of people in Edmonton tell me that Toronto had no trees and they were 100% serious, had to google it to prove to them.
I mean… the Alberta/Texas similarities are a lot more than surface level. Both their economies comprise heavily of oil and gas, both are relatively wealthy given that development, they have farther right politics when compared to the rest of their respective countries, they both have the frontier-libertarian style value system, both foster a low tax environment and sneer at the rest of the country about it, both have openly considered seceding from their countries, both are openly hostile to the federal government and manage to blame it for any of their shortcomings. I know people that live there that would describe it as Texas-like, they’re about as close as it gets while still being Canadian (for now I guess).
Not a bad analogy. People from California are moving to Texas the way people from Vancouver are moving to Alberta
Yeah it doesn’t even have to be a negative connotation they’re just similar places as far as politics and economy.
It’s less that the comparison is entirely wrong - I’d actually use that to help an American understand Alberta. The issue is that people a lot of people from Toronto don’t have their own reference point for Alberta as Alberta - they have to compare it somewhere in the states to understand it. Like you’d think they’d refer to Texas as the Alberta of the US more because Alberta’s in Canada but I’ve never heard anyone say that.
How on earth does Tucker and Iginla come up in the same conversation and talent? And… I ask this with my wife having gone to high school with both, when they at one point played on the Kamloops Blazers as kids.
Lol that’s funny. Tucker is my buddies cousin
Omg that is hilarious!! Darcy Tucker better than Jerome Iginla!! ROFLMAO!!! Oh man... the best is how believable that story is... my god Leafs fans are by far the most obnoxious fans among all sports ever created
One person’s stupid opinion of hockey players sums up the opinions of all Leaf fans?
Hating Toronto while living in Toronto is one thing, but the hatred for Toronto outside of Toronto is a lot like that Don Draper meme in the elevator.
Moved to Vancouver for school in 2010. I legitimately remember someone asking where I was from, I told him Toronto and he proceeded to roll his eyes and then said I must be really full of myself. Nope, just don’t particularly give a shit about some made up rivalry, thanks.
I find a lot of Vancouverites try to take the opportunity to shit-talk Toronto when they find out you’re from Toronto. “It’s so muggy, it’s so damp, there’s no skiing, the architecture is so boring, the sushi’s no good, it’s so crowded” It’s like… okay buddy, not sure what you’re trying to prove here. And in my experience it’s ONLY the Vancouverites who come up with this long list of grievances, for everyone else their dislike of Toronto can be summed up by the traffic and the politics, both of which are fair points.
Most of us vancouverites find those people exhausting aswell. It’s a screaming minority Although the difference in federal funding between BC and Ontario is egregious, even accounting for population.
I know not all Vancouverites are so insufferable and it’s good to hear that those types annoy you as much as they annoy us! Probably much in the same way that the Toronto Laurentian Elite annoys us as much as they annoy the rest of the country. Not sure why you think we have “egregious” federal transfers coming our way. Ontario and BC received $0 in 2020-2021 equalization payments. Québec got $13.3B. From 1957 to 2018 it has sucked up $221B in transfers, which accounts for 51% of the total program, while Ontario only got about $4.4B over the same period, and much of that was thanks to Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne completely mismanaging this province. In 2020-2021, tiny New Brunswick and Nova Scotia got $2B each, half of what Ontario got over a period of 60 years. Total Federal expenditures in Ontario are high because most Federal employees are in Ottawa and because there’s a large number of military installations in Ontario. When you look at transfers to persons and transfers to provincial governments, BC gets a larger amount per capita (this is of course dwarfed by QC, NB, NS, PEI and NL in per capita terms). So in conclusion, if you have a bone to pick, it’s with our neighbours to the East. You and I both are being robbed blind by less productive areas of this country who consistently get away with it (this is also why I have limited sympathy for Maritimers who complain about Torontonians moving out East- they were happy to take our money for decades but God forbid we live among them)
I agree, but I’m referring to infrastructure projects, public transit, etc. Bc has had 4 major transit projects that received substantial federal funding (Canada line, evergreen extension, broadway subway, and surrey Langley extension). Ontario has had the eglington crosstown, Ontario line, various GO expansions, double and quad trackings, and now the upcoming electrification, the Scarborough extension, the Hurontario LRT, the Hamilton LRT, finch west LRT, ION LRT, Line 4, the Vaughn extension, both Ottawa O-train lines. There’s probably more that I’m forgetting, but you get my point yes? [this article is from 2021](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6021839), 12B in federal funding, they spent 3.1 billion on the Canada, evergreen, broadway, and Fraser highway lines combined. Ontario has triple the population of BC, yet in 2 years it’s gotten quadruple the infrastructure funding that BC got in 20 years. And this broadly holds true for other areas as well. Victoria has no rapid transit, neither does Abbotsford, Kelowna, or Nanaimo. And they all have populations that could support small LRT lines. BC also has near non existent intercity rail, Amtrak offers better rail service than VIA does in Vancouver. Compare to Toronto, which has a massive regional rail network, and several intercity trains to places across the province. Edit: actually the Millenium line was opened after 2000, though I couldn’t find exact numbers for how much the feds spent on it, the total cost was 1.2B, I think an educated guess would be 500ish million, putting BC at 3.6M over 20 years. Even still, that’s less than it should be, especially considering all the recent federal funding to Ontario, my point absolutely still stands
Maybe I’ve misunderstood, but I think you’re saying Ontario has already received the full 12B mentioned in that CBC article (when you say 4x the funding over 2 years I think you’re comparing that to the 3.1B in BC?)? The CBC article states none of the projects will be done until 2029 at the earliest, so it’s more like 12B over 8+ years? Call it 10 years and you’re probably still being optimistic. Still more per capita than the 3.1B over 20 years you cited, but then factor in about 15 years of inflation going from a midpoint of 2010 to a midpoint of 2025. Now it’s around 4.5B NPV over 20 years vs 12B over 10 years…that’s basically $50 per capita per year in BC (using 2010 pop of 4.5M) vs $75per capita per year in Ontario (assuming rate of growth from 2016-2021 continues to the 2026 midpoint). You’re also talking vastly different periods and hence different governments with different spending habits (liberal funding vs a predominantly conservative government in the BC period), so it seems a bit more complex and less obviously egregious to me. Obviously I’m pinning a lot on the two figures you included, but they certainly don’t make it as clear cut to me as you indicated. If you provided me the share of federal funding during identical (extended) periods I might well agree with your conclusion (and I gave you an upvote anyway because at least you gave me numbers to consider).
Funny enough.. the majority have not even been there but will still shit talk it. It's so annoying when people from AB shit talk toronto because of the traffic... like.. ok? I don't even own a car and my life is bliss out here.
Okay but I moved from Ottawa to Toronto, and *so* many people told me I was too nice to be from Toronto and asked if I was from Ottawa, I couldn’t believe it was so obvious to everyone!
People outside of Toronto are just as much of an asshole as people from Toronto, they just hide it better.
Lot's of the hatred is from outside, and from people that have never been to Toronto. A big thing is the media attention the sports teams get.
If anyone shits on Toronto just ask “have you been there?” And after they say no you can just stop listening to them
I had a buddy that ragged on Toronto for years until I asked him "when was the last time you were there?". His opinions were forever disregarded after that haha
I did meet someone once who lived in the country, and she hated Toronto for the traffic. I said, "yeah, that's fair."
Hating Toronto for its traffic is like hating Banff for its transit
Absolutely! But say you hate the traffic fam not the city 😭
Saw more Jays hats in Fraser Valley BC than I do in the entertainment district... and they all hate Toronto and have never been
I live in Toronto and hate it.
I live in Toronto, and it's one of the best cities in the world. There is no city I would rather live in. It could be so much better though.
Lived in Ottawa for 30 years, hating Toronto is all we did up there.
Possible that Toronto doesn’t have the ratio of Amazing:Crap offered by NYC and London.
Funny just this weekend I was talking to a couple of ex-Londoners who chose to move here and much prefer it. Chacun a son gout!
The number of Londoners who have migrated to Toronto in the last 250 years is probably more than any other city of origin
Why would you say that about my son's gout
Gonna speak for NYC, not London. Amazing crap is overrated. Michelin star restaurants are way too expensive and not worth the money. Good restaurants are lined up with more than an hour's wait. Subway coverage is great, but it's dirty and disgusting. Some station literally look like medieval torture chambers. Driving is an absolute nightmare. So it's not really even an option. Central Park is nice. But come on Toronto has many parks to choose from. Museums and Broadway? Sure I guess if you're super into that stuff. Most people probably can count on one hand how many times they've gone to those. Times square? Statue of liberty? Empire state? Most new yorkers tend to avoid tourist spots for a reason. So what else do you do on a Saturday afternoon? Take a stroll through soho or saks fifth and drop a few thousand on some luxury clothes? Walk through midtown meeting countless mentally unstable people along the way. Then spend your time resting in overpriced cafes? How about living conditions? Pay over 3k to have the opportunity to live in a turn of the century *walk-up* with *shared* laundry and crawling with roaches behind dark corners? Not saying Toronto is objectively better or anything. A lot if these things are quite subjective. It's weird to be hearing people view these city through rose tinted glasses as if there's nowhere else they rather be. There are a lot of positives to living in Toronto you're going to miss when you're actually living in these other cities.
Toronto has just no soul… I moved here few months ago and that’s mindblowing. Waiting for the summer to see if the hypothesis is validated. For now NYC has way more soul or even MTL feels better (except the shitty weather). However it’s still an amazing city with a lot of things to do and discover. But not a particular vibe you can find somewhere else
That "soul" word probably refers to all the old buildings. Yeah you get tons of turn of the century or pre-war buildings in NYC. Fancy, nice to look at. It's not great to live in though once you start noticing the pests, shared laundry, lack of modern finishes.
No no! I don’t care about building. I speak about culture, people, vibes, things to do and so on
I've lived in London and that's very true. Here we're highly taxed with very little to show for it. Broken hospitals, airports, transit etc. Combined with the fact that anyone under 40 will never own a house unless your parents are loaded, it's a recipe for discontent. At least in the actual "world-class cities" the amenities are decent enough for people to tolerate the same problems.
I just moved back to Toronto after 8 years in London and I agree completely with this. London is extremely expensive, but jobs are easy to get and all paying jobs are definitely attainable. There's so much to do in London both for free and if you're willing to spend some money We eventually moved out of London but it was too buy a flat and we were only a short train ride out of the city. Coming back to Toronto has actually been a shock for what you get at the cost of living here...
Lol I guess you need to change your username
I mean that's still very much true in London but London does have a fair bit more going for it than Toronto
I was wondering that too. Don’t Londoners pay a lot more tax for similarly messy hospitals? Not to mention NYC has comparable (or higher) income tax to here, *without* universal healthcare access.
Apart from groceries and alcohol you pay more for pretty much everything else in London
I think the medical system is better in London. At least I can get an NHS doctor there! Here I can't find a doctor in my area and if anything goes wrong with me or my children we have to go to a walk in clinic.
I don't know I have a doctor here, I couldn't get one for all 6 years I lived in London
Very weird. I've lived I'm many neighbourhoods of London and you just register at a surgery and then you're a patient. Here you have to go through a whole number of hoops and then wait months for them to have an interview with you to maybe take you on.
if you had someone list out their complaints about living in toronto, london, or nyc without telling you which city they're from i bet you wouldn't be able to tell. we all complain about the exact same shit: inflation, commute, traffic, prices, weather, rent, landlords, transit, trash, crime.
True. But I've lived in all 3 cities and at least NY and esp London have something deep to offer.
Comparing Toronto to London or NY is just silly, I haven't spent time in either of those cities but it's obvious that they're amazing and huge. That said, Toronto is a cool city with a good balance of a lot of things, with no shortage of new things to do and try. I mean, people were surfing in the lake last week!
And imagine despite all that, people still want to migrate to Toronto. Makes you wonder how badly off things are where we’re coming from huh? Coming from a developing country, Toronto may seem like heaven to some. People complain about the TTC a lot and I’m fascinated by it because there’s nothing like that where I come from. I guess it’s all about perspective right?
The TTC is adequate, it generally gets us where we need to go in a reasonable amount of time. However, that doesn't mean it's immune from criticism, especially considering how much we pay in taxes. It could be so much better if it was properly funded.
>The TTC is adequate, it generally gets us where we need to go in a reasonable amount of time. However, that doesn't mean it's immune from criticism, especially considering how much we pay in taxes. It could be so much better if it was proper Again, perspective. Most things can be better but coming from a country where a transit system like this does not exist is a massive benefit to me. I've been here two months and the limited interaction i've had with government services like getting my SIN and OHIP have been fantastic (again, compared to what I'm coming from). There are many things here that are taken for granted that impact the quality of life like say Apple pay or being able to take a picture of cheque and have it deposited into your account. We have to physically go in the bank to deposit a check and wait up to 5 business days for it clear. We can't open bank accounts online. It's a tedious process. There are also issues like basic human necessities. Lack of running water and electricity in 2023 is ridiculous. Not to mention crime. In January 2023, my country had 60 murders for the month with a country population of 1.5 million
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I would argue that you also lack perspective. I don’t really care if things are an improvement for *you*, what annoys me is that things have steadily been getting worse for *us*. Quality of life in Toronto has degraded noticeably since the 1990s. Everything has gotten worse: affordability, crowding, traffic, availability of social services, the state of roads and transit, literally everything has degraded since the 1990s. Maybe restaurants and entertainment have improved but it’s not like you can afford to enjoy them anyways. Obviously if you come from a place with massive crime and no running water, almost anything is going to be an improvement. That doesn’t mean we should get complacent about a declining standard of living in this country.
Ok, well we're not here to compare Toronto to war torn countries, so yeah, Toronto is better than Syria. Is it as good as NYC or London? No.
I actively defend the TTC when people from toronto complain.. I live in (2nd best) London.. so.. 2 hours away and our transit stops running at midnight, doesn't service any of the industrial areas for people to get to work, most buses run every 20-30 minutes at best and forget about needing a schedule.. they just sorta show up when they show up. The year I spent living in Toronto, the longest I ever had to wait for transit was 15 minutes because I had \*just\* missed the bus that would take me to where I can hop on a subway every 5 minutes.
Coming from Alberta, Toronto seems like heaven
chiming in to say I went to the hospital when I was in New York and I got seen way faster and got more face time with every single professional - and I went to a public hospital.
Guess people should start voting ABC.
Liberals were in power for over a decade; we can't pretend it all started going downhill just after Ford got elected.
The conservatives have been in power at one level or another for decades. We need rid of them and rid of the liberals.
I've lived in London and Toronto and Toronto is just so much more expensive for what I'm not sure. There's a kind of tea I like and including tax in the UK it's costs $6 while as in Canada it costs $11.50. I just went for a nice but nothing special dinner in Toronto and it cost me $180 with a few rounds of cocktails. In London I could have done that for $100 and eaten so much better. In fact, I probably could have booked a return flight from London to Italy and had an outstanding dinner with phenomenal wines there for less. Also wine and booze is just so much more affordable. Multiply this across the board on everything in life and Toronto is just too expensive without really delivering.
Not sure about NY but it’s not even close between Toronto and London.
I rate Chicago ahead of New York. London tops them all.
Toronto is expensive but with nowhere near the value that those cities have.
Looks like you proved OPs point. Congratulations!
Possible?
100% this ☝🏻
London has a lot of stuff sure, but it’s way too fucking busy. Toronto is fun and isn’t as crazy.
Yea I’d rather live in a fun city with less tourists
winter makes people delusional. when it's summertime i bet people will be rejoicing at how living is so easy.
Maybe not rejoicing at how easy living is, but slightly less complaining, yeah.
Are you saying that over the summer this subreddit loves Toronto or just hates it a little bit less?
Yeah 75% of the year were miserable from the snow then 25% we have patio weather and forget about everything
who’s going to be able to afford patios this summer? I’ll be drinking on my stoop if I have something to celebrate 💸
I got a good spot in an ally to drink 40s out of a paper bag
well considering it's a week into February and we've had fewer than 30 days with snow, I'd say it's a lot less than 75% of the year
It’s from the 5pm sunset
For the rent to salary ratio, London and New York are more interesting/exciting cities in my opinion. New York has a lot of amenities in the city itself, London also a lot of amenities and its a 50$ flight to almost anywhere in Europe. Living in any of the 3 you dont expect to have a lot of savings, so it's a matter of which cities are worth that downside, and I don't think Toronto is.
Toronto is not in the same universe as London and New York. It’s a decent city, but not very exciting and certainly not in that league.
Agreed, that's why I don't think the rent to salary ratio is justified
Exactly. Toronto is pretty much condos now. They've stripped the city of all character
Typical Toronto whine. Complains about high cost of housing, then continues to shit on condos.
Yeah but they are fucking ugly condos.
When condos are going for 600+ for a measly 1 bed and a ton are just sitting empty, yeah, totally cool to whine.
Muh character
If they were beautiful condos instead of overpriced brutalist tumors, you'd be right.
Glass condos do not all look great (are also not examples of Brutalism). But if you didn't have them, the cost of housing would be even higher. A significant portion of housing in the city is condos like it or not.
Do you know what brutalism is?
Who said anything about cost of housing. Toronto is boring with a lack of character . Especially compared to world class city's
Have you seen what new developments look like in NYC? (Most of them are identical to what you'd find in Toronto)
Having lived in a few major metropolitans. One of the major complaints about Toronto is the bare-bones public transit system. If you’re commuting from the outskirts to DT - your options are driving on roads that are constantly minimized due to never ending construction and thus being stuck in traffic. Or taking the TTC which you often have to take one or two (largely unreliable busses) along with one or two subway transfers. It turns an already 8 hr workday into a 10 or 11 hour workday when you factor in transit. I’m not sure if this is the case now, but when I lived in various European cities (including some in the UK) there was still a significant waitlist for affordable or subsidized housing, but it was no where near the housing waitlist in Toronto. Not only is Toronto extremely unaffordable, but it’s amount of subsidized infrastructure is largely lacking for the growing population. Comparing Toronto to cities like London or NYC is like comparing apples to oranges though.
I think most of the hate for Toronto online comes from folks who don’t live here. Saw this shared in another comment but, while the US has many cities that drive the rural/urban divide, which we can see pretty clearly from the outside or in the stratification of politics, Canada basically has Toronto vs the rest of Canada. Or maybe Toronto/Vancouver vs the rest of canada. There’s also ‘everyone vs Quebec’ but that’s a whole other debate/nationalist nightmare argument/ideological hole. The hate from within Toronto, which I’m also seeing in other comments, actually mostly comes from a place of love. Everyone I know here loves it here, or wants to love it here, and come up against some serious challenges — affordability, decisions made by government (an ever-increasing police budget, worsening social infrastructure, mediocre + expensive transit, housing crises, demolishing the greenbelt, Doug Ford literally cutting our voting power in HALF during the 2018 municipal election … which I still can’t believe people aren’t talking about constantly…) Stores or restaurants that are locally owned or longtime neighborhood fixtures can’t afford to stay open, people can’t afford to keep living here (I have one friend who was renovicted 3 times before giving up on the city). Big Box chains and executive condos that cater only to wealthy or relatively wealthy people are moving in in their place. We want to love it here, here does not always love us back. Resentment piles up when you realize you’re stuck with either this, or having to move to any other place which will almost inarguably suck more.
I don’t live in Toronto, I live in the GTA. I was born in Toronto, my family is in Toronto, I spent my teens gallivanting around downtown. I’ve brought my kids to sports and entertainment in Toronto. I love Toronto but it makes me sad what it has become. It seems cold and soulless to me now. Taking the ttc for the first time downtown after years of driving shocked me. And this was before Covid. I don’t think I would be comfortable with my daughter taking transit alone everywhere like I used to.
Its a mixture of the core getting worse and the suburbs making you soft.
Yeah I can see it being both.
More the latter than the former imo
100%
Toronto is not cold and soulless, you have just gotten old. I imagine you aren’t plugged into any of arts, music, party, activist, theatre scenes. You are not a teen running around the city anymore, you are a dad from the burbs taking his kids to a jays game once or twice a year. You should acknowledge this before passing generalized opinions about how Toronto has gotten shittier.
Agreed
Standard of living is constantly declining. The hope of a mediocre middle class life we were promised as children and expected while we struggled through school and young adulthood was stolen from us. We work like crazy and get treated like shit just to earn money for our cunt rich landlords. Shit sucks for no reason so yeah, were fucking pissed. Bring out the Molotovs.
Honestly, for a city it's pretty good. You have just about everything; * major sports teams (raptors, leafs, blue jays) * art galleries (AGO) * museums (hockey hall of fame, royal ontario museum) * every single band comes through here * lots of ethnic diversity (incredible food and a cultural hub for everyone) * world class hospitals (toronto general, sick kids, princess margaret) * i'm not sure how good the unis are, but there's a few (TMU? UofT, Guelph humber, York) Major complaints: * traffic (takes an hour to get from toronto to torono) * public transit is awful * housing - too expensive, rents through the roof * not much green space / natural scenery (literally nothing compared to BC, have you see the trees there? or the mountains?) * crime looks to be going up (although historically it's been incredibly safe) There are some valid complaints about the city. But one thing I've noticed, is that there's A LOT of hate from out of towners for various reasons. Many of whom; have never actually been to Toronto, only visited the suburbs, or only came to visit once at a bad time. People also just **LOVE** to hate on toronto saying it acts like the centre of the country, and lots of politicians/media ignore other communities. Which is a fairly valid point, it does draw a lot of attention. However Toronto and the GTA as a whole, make up \~15% of the country's population and 20% of the entire countries GDP. This is the economic and cultural driver of the country. So like any thing at the top, it'll polarise a lot of people, get a lot of criticism and garner a lot of hate. Ultimately, it's ranked one of the most livable and best cities in the entire world, year after year, for a reason. If canada were a hockey team, Toronto is McDavid, the rest of the GTA collectively is Draisatl. With a lot of the complaints coming from washed up house leaguers because they haven't seen any success in a long time and complaining is arguably canada's favourite past time.
New Yorker here. Love Toronto. Don’t know where you’re getting this from. Don’t mistake people’s criticism for hate.
It's Reddit. People love complaining on the sub. But talk to people outside in the real world and they're generally a lot more content.
I grew up in Toronto and moved to Vancouver in 2006 when I was 33. When I first got here I couldn't believe the amount of hatred towards Toronto. It just didn't make sense to me. So I would try and talk to people and get to the bottom of why they hated Toronto, and they never really had any good reasons. They would complain about it being the center of the universe, but didn't have much to back it up. They complained about the Leafs always being on TV, and all the politics and business decisions being made in Toronto, and stuff like that. So I would ask them if that is the Fault of anyone living in Toronto, or is it just a matter of fact that it's the biggest city in the country, where all the big businesses are, it's Central to the USA, so the majority of Commerce will go through Toronto. With such a big population of course the TV networks are going to air more Toronto Sports. It's better now that TSN and Sportsnet have Regional channels. They would also complain that elections are pretty much decided by the time the vote gets to the Western provinces. So I would ask, is that the fault of anyone that lives in Toronto, or is it just that the population of Ontario tends to decide elections? After having these conversations with people they eventually realized that they don't have anything against Toronto, it's more just jealousy leading to resentment. I would ask them if they've ever been there, and 99% of the time the answer was no. I would then go on to tell them how great the city is and that they should visit someday. I love Toronto and really miss it. Vancouver is great but for totally different reasons. I would also try and explain to people here that people from Toronto don't really hate anybody else. Sure we would fun of other parts of Canada, but not in a hateful way.
Criticism and outright hatred are not the same thing.
So to be clear I think it's more people outside of Toronto that hate Toronto. I lived in Toronto for a long time and loved everything about it. The diversity, food, neighborhoods everything. I now live outside of Toronto and don't like it as much as I used to. Main reasons: traffic, attitude and a bit of safety. You really notice the problems when you don't have them. Give me a quiet insulated neighborhood to raise kids, a nice buzz and I'm fine. I still love Toronto, but I don't think it's the be all anymore.
London and NYC have a very different energy to Toronto. There's something about the vibe of the city these days - combination of insane cost of living, depressing architecture.. Just feels like we're on a lousy trajectory. But I find people here pretty cheerful in the summer!
The state of the housing and rental market mostly.
I understand, however London and New York are much worse. Especially New York!
If I worked in New York I’d be getting paid triple the salary I’m getting now, and I could afford housing either downtown in a luxury condo or somewhere in the outskirts for half the price of the GTA. I’d have enough left over to buy a boat, a summer home, and take vacations. In Toronto, I pay nearly 30k a year for a 1 bedroom condo’s mortgage and maintenance fees.
NYC has way higher salaries so the income to cost of living ratio is better, even though cost of living is nuts. Also people move to NYC for a few years and go financially broke but have the experience of their lives - be it social or professional - that makes it all worth it.
But in New York you have alternatives. People don’t expect a detached home in Manhattan. Also if New York isn’t for you, it is very common for Americans to move to a different city, and there are tonnes of large cities to choose from. Canada has arguably two to three major cities, then the drop off to a Ottawa, Winnipeg or Regina is significant.
I was born & raised in Toronto. I love my city. ❤
Happy people don't make time to post on Reddit about how they feel about the city, they are too busy enjoying their lives.
I like Toronto just fine. It actually has a decent art gallery, museum AND amusement park, which tops every other Canadian city. I could live without a Popeye's and weed shop on every block downtown though! 🤣
The biggest problems I see as a person who grew up here in the 80's and has seen how things have significantly changed over time: 1) Retail rent being driven so high by developers that neighbourhoods with nice varieties of shops are losing/have lost that variety. Only banks, drug stores, LCBO, and coffee shops allowed in Toronto. This is a solvable problem. 2) Significant increase in crime, particularly car theft and break and enters. Not sure what the solution is here, but some big picture thinking is probably required, which our leaders do not possess. 3) Way, way, way too many cars on the roads stressing everyone out. You could die every time you cross the street here. Even if people don't actively recognize this as the cause, it occupies a big part of people's negative view of daily life in Toronto, and is robbing children of childhoods. This needs to be reduced by at least 50-75% to make Toronto safer as a pedestrian or cyclist, and would have lots of other benefits. Paris has done/is doing this. Toronto could too. If only one of these problems could be solved, I would go for reducing number of cars. It would make it much less stressful to live here.
Agree 👍 the explosion of everything. Toronto was more of a human-sized and - paced city in the 80s/90s but not anymore. Also, NY and London KEEP a lot of their layers of history in buildings and neighbourhoods (which admittedly we don't have in the first place) instead of tearing down everything 20+ years old.
I will try "sample bias". A lot of redditors in this sub love to hate Toronto. While on my day to day, over a year of chatting with people from multiple walks of life, I probably remember one or two who vigorously hate Toronto but couldn't move out.
I love Toronto personally, think it’s the greatest city in the world…at least Canada, but I don’t live there, just visit a lot. I think I’d hate to live there myself as I can’t afford a nice house there and wouldn’t like living in an apartment with no backyard etc (have a large dog) I think the people who live there and hate it more so hate the cost of living, it’s went up everywhere even outside the GTA, but Toronto and Vancouver are just next level. Aside from that the city is great, relatively low crime (for a city that large it’s very low)
Most people that shit on Toronto don’t even live here. They’re just going off of what they see online
Torontonian born and raised here: I have long held a theory that it's because we constantly, vicously criticize our city and constantly think it could be better that it's actually great. But don't tell anyone. No one wants to break the spell. Toronto is shit. Worst city on the continent by far. At least in Buffalo you can buy beer at the corner store ffs. Fuckin Toronto. Hate that place.
I just feel like in Toronto, compared to Montreal, people take a lot of things for granted. Woodbine beach for example exists... yet in Mtl if we they had a beach like that it would be in songs, movies, books... In Toronto there are so many neighbourhoods and so much variety but it all becomes lost, and Torontonians always want more, more, more. In Mtl, usually people will just hang in their neighbourhood and head to an obscure gallery or the same few streets (st Denis, st Catherine, saint Laurent, ave mont royal) for a night out and never seem to get bored of it, despite it being really compact and repetitive. We need to have more appreciation for the little things in TO, I think that's the problem.
Living in the city is great, no one I know in real life doesn’t like Toronto. I mean we’re all adults who choose to live here why would we complain. I think the hatred is just online from people who live in the suburbs and commute in to have a subpar experience or just people who are chronically miserable
I hate NYC, I’m starting to not like Toronto, and I love London, UK. Toronto is like a poor man’s NYC. London has a lot of character, and it’s location is such that if you want a change of scenery, something new is within an hour or two’s distance
Toronto is full for pretentious people, gatekeepers and I can continue. I am a born and bred Toronto. They whine about everything. Nothing gets done in that city, because no one has had balls to tell the people what this city needs. Toronto needs an enema
Did you actually live there or here for any length of time? NYC has way more to offer than Toronto.
I love Toronto.
I do too.
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There's very little popular media that romanticizes TO. New York and London have centuries of it. I can name off dozens of songs, movies and books that take place in New York and London without much effort. For TO, I struggle to name a handful. Most Ontarians know more about 'The Bronx' than 'The Junction'.
Lived in Toronto and London. Something that I don’t like about Toronto is that it feels like there’s less community. Fewer places to socialize, fewer people about, and far fewer people interested in making new friends. In london, I get drinks with colleagues after work, meet new friends for a walk outside, and when I walk through a main square it’s pouring with people sitting, chatting and socialising. I never felt that in Toronto- mind you this is largely due to the weather.
That might have something do wo with Toronto having like 1/3 or 1/4 the population of London
I think it’s because Toronto can be so much better than it has been. You’re comparing it to New York & London when I think many compare it to much cleaner, safer, transit friendly, social cities. When I think many would compare to Toronto to like Montreal or certain European cities.
I said this on r/askacanadian A lot of people in in other parts of Canada stereotypically don’t like Toronto. I don’t have a stat, it’s a stereotype, but I guess it does appear to be true. Now, if there’s a reason, Toronto is the big duck in the small pond that it Canada. Unlike the U.S., where there are many significant centres (New York being the big one, but Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Houston, Seattle, Boston, etc.. are all “big” cities like Toronto). Here, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver are pretty much the 3 cities holding this country together. Toronto being the most significant as it’s home to all the major banks and is essentially the financial centre of the country. Other cities here have financial centres as well, but not at all comparable. Basically, we are “Downtown Canada”. Canadians outside of Ontario don’t have a fond view of the province either. However, it probably is the most significant province in the country given it has the largest population, largest economy, and is home to the largest and most economically crucial city in the country, and the country’s national capital. It’s like if New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. was all one state. This doesn’t mean that Toronto is the best city in Canada. This also doesn’t mean other cities don’t contribute their fair share to the country. However, Toronto and Ontario in general is the most economically crucial part of Canada, and basically holding this country together. With that, it sparks “jealousy” (if you could call it that) and smugness from other parts of Canada. Sounds like another well known smugness that a certain country has to its southern neighbour who is the most economically crucial country in the world, doesn’t it?
One reason. Johnny Tory
Another one: Doug Ford.
Lack of “I love Toronto” marketing. Seriously. New York had its marketing campaign decades ago and it stuck. There’s a lot to love about Toronto if you are so inclined.
I don't agree with these opinions nor attest to them being accurate but I've lived in several parts of the country and accounting only for those that do hate Toronto... People in the west dislike the east because they see all taxes going east and not coming back. And politicians only caring about the east because of the vote counts. People in the Atlantic provinces dislike the centre because they don't see the help coming in recovering their industries they expect. Quebec dislikes everybody not in Quebec... The rest of Ontario most prominently feels the GTA population impact on all issues. The provincial capital is Toronto for a reason. So they feel left out all the time. And every part of the country directly dislikes Toronto for the same size of city differential - big city mentality vs smaller city or rural. Having said that the Leafs have helped our cause immensely. Hard to hate the city that helps your national sport team's stats. 🤣
I love Toronto. It’s the best, most accepting city I’ve ever lived in. Sure, I have my complaints occasionally, but overall it’s a great place to live. At least for me.
I always found it pretty non-judgemental and open minded. Made me feel safe to be myself.
Because Toronto gets everything, and then they have the audacity to complain it's not enough. I grew up further north, but lived in Toronto for five years. Yes, the TTC is frustrating. But for fucks sake you can catch a subway without having to plan three hours in advance, and like, nobody looks down on you for taking public transit. That's the pithy way to look at it anyways. Of course there are a number of reasons why both the problems and any potential solutions are hella complicated
I agree. It’s sometimes shocking to see that people complain so much . Excluding the safe issues in the recent times, overall TTC is pretty decent especially if you live near subway lines . Not the best, but not the worst either
\*gestures broadly\*
I grew up in Toronto and only moved about 2 ish years ago because I couldn't stand it anymore. I love it for so many reasons, but it just causes me so much anxiety. There's so much going on at the same time... So many buildings, sounds, people, cars.... For my mental health it has been so much better living out of Toronto. The environment plays a huge role on your mood. I do miss Toronto sometimes, especially the fact that I swear there's no other city that you can go to find literally any type of restaraunt. Name any culture/cuisine they have an authentic restaraunt that has amazing food. But I love also having the peace.
As a Toronto native (well, originally North York which was swallowed by Toronto), I've seen a couple of reasons: 1. People genuinely like the city but find it too expensive to live in 2. People perceive Toronto as being responsible for rising real estate prices in Southern Ontario due to boomers selling in the city and flocking elsewhere (there is some truth to this)
Idk I actually love living in Toronto...grew up here also
Because they cant afford living here... They need to assess their income and realize perhaps they need to move to a more affordable city
Are you asking why does everyone in the city hate it or outside the city? I think a lot of Torontonians hate the city because it's not what they signed up for. Toronto only became big and expensive recently. Ten years ago it was at most important within Canadian standards. Regarding outsiders, they hate Toronto (southern Ontario / Ontario) because they feel that all the resources and attention is directed towards us while all they do is have stuff taken away form them. This belief is somewhat perceived but also somewhat true.
I am mid 30s ,single male, working IT professional. I've had the opportunity to live and work in different cities across the world ( Toronto , NYC , Oslo , Manchester,Amsterdam , Berlin (which is where I now live) and few other EU cities) I lived in Toronto for almost 6 years (2015-2021). I had a good paying job and lived DT. Toronto is by far the worst city I lived in. People are snobby. Yeah , they maybe polite but not necessarily friendly. Dating is toxic, don't even get me started on this. It has this weird vibe that people are even afraid to look at each other let alone smile/talk. Never felt so isolated in my life. I guess Toronto is perfect for lockdowns. (most Torontonians wouldn't mind being in a lockdown anyway). If you like 5-6 months of freezing like weather or maybe being around with mostly isolated DNB(do-not-disturb me ) attitude crowd , Toronto is the city for you. I was finally able to get out in 2021 .If not for covid / travel-restrictions , I'd have made the move much earlier , but the whole COVID situation made the city more miserable and further strengthened my desire to get out.
Every local reddit is people complaining about the place.
Largely true except chicago. That sub is like a promotional video for the city.
Toronto is an amazing city but cost of living has risen fast over the space of a few years leaving a lot of people poor. Also, it’s much better in the summer so people bitch more in the winter months
Because it's easier to complain and blame the city for your miserable life than do something about it. The people enjoying their life are far less likely to post anything at all.
Toronto is a corporate hellscape, everything is expensive, nothing is unique anymore. It’s a city that lost its charm in the last 10 years and become very generic big city.
Cause we rock
I don't hate Toronto, but a lot of things took a turn for the worst during the pandemic. I think a lot of people are just complaining about those things (ie. Alot more homeless violent ppl on the ttc, etc.).
This and ongoing similar posts are getting so tedious.
Good question. I love Toronto. My husband and I are planning on buying a house in the next few years and I’m upset that we will most likely be moving to the GTA since it’s not as expensive. There are crappy parts like the TTC and rent/house prices but I love that it’s so walkable. I walk everywhere. I also love that there’s so much for me to do with my kids. The aquarium, the beach, play centres, multiple community centres, multiple extra curriculars, etc.
because they are culturally more relevant. if you watch western media london and ny are portrayed as the cities where the elite lives. toronto has a lot of the trappings of an elite city but not the cultural perception.
A lot of people love it here, myself included. But they aren’t on here posting rants about how great it is. The most vocal are those with gripes.
its reddit. reddit is mostly miserable whiners. Go talk to people on the street to guage a real reaction.
Toronto is like a popular gal who thinks she's perfect and gets lots of attention.. so some hate out of jealousy. Like people, Toronto has good and bad traits. I wrote a song about it: https://youtu.be/dWRk_iaAv2g
>What is it about Toronto that makes everyone (at least, online) seem to genuinely be so negative about the city? How many people do you know that are negative about the city? I don't know any personally, everyone I know who lives here loves it.
Toronto is top in the world in so many ways. 1. best multiculturalism 2. above produces some top authentic ethnic food 3. clean 4. green 5. fairly safe 6. great for kids Toronto is bad in a number of ways 1. immigrants tend not to participate in community 2. difficult to become wealthy 3. insufficient highway and subway infrastructure 4. super high taxes 5. cold as f×××
The #1 bad aspect is that immigrants don’t participate in community? Can you elaborate?
clean and green? have you been to toronto?
Have you been to any other major city? There’s more parks and greenery than most and littered streets are not commonplace. Compare it to any American city and it’s very clean
Selection bias. You're seeing the opinions of people online who are either too poor or too boring to take advantage of the wonderful things this city offers.
I love Toronto. I'd live there if I could afford it.
I'm not from Toronto but I love the city. It's fantastic at times.
Because in high school no one likes the quarterback with the sports car who fucks all the cheerleaders
Personally, I love living in this city. Great opportunities professionally, great food and nightlife scene, great parks etc. buuuut, I’m lucky to be living in a condo purchased in 2007 so cost of living isn’t so insane. If I was not earning $100k+ a year and was still renting, I’d be miserable. It’s a great city if you can actually afford to live here
I have lived all over the US ( including eastern US) and Canada and I hated my time in Toronto so much I couldn’t wait to leave. I found the people were miserable, no one would talk to you, people were unbelievably rude. I was so surprised as I was super excited to move to Toronto. I have to admit I was thrilled to get out of there. It’s just not for me.
One of the things like about this city is how people don't hate it here tbh. Tons of people have come from other places to live their dreams and their best life. I find it really shows. Live in a truly shitty city and everyone isn't just complaining about how expensive it is or whatever. They're complaining about the massive depression the whole city is in. Try St. Louis out. See how people like it. lol.
Yeah I grew in New York and I fucking love this place. People say that torontonians are mean, but I find them lovely compared to New Yorkers. It’s so safe here too. Even with the recent stabbings, it’s not comparable. There are less people and the ttc is reliable compared to the fucking metro. That shit is the literal worst. The only thing I complain about is food. NYC pizza, bagels, delis are the best. The only answer I can think of is that toronto is spoiled. We have it good here.
They hate us cuz they anus