Using the good old "worldly traveler" argument, I see. Yes I've been outside of North America. I think most of us have. It's not exactly a rare feat. :rolleyes:

I get the feeling that some people use "has soul" when they really mean "is attractive to me as a tourist destination" and "has old, European-looking neighborhoods". If people don't like Toronto that's totally cool, it's certainly not for everyone and it does lack in certain charms that a lot of people look for in a city, but the whole "soulless" thing is bizarre.

Anyway, if you're looking for Toronto's soul, you're in the wrong spot if you're looking for it in a cafe anywhere near the financial district or at a museum or art gallery. Toronto' soul is busy watching over a tandoor oven for a family of 18 in Morningside Park on a Sunday afternoon in August. It's taking an ESL class at the adult high school. It's getting ready to go to a raggae concert at a bingo hall in Rexdale. It's flirting with the girls at a blocko in Malvern or playing cricket in the Finch hydro corridor. It's there, but it's not something that fits nicely in a tourist brochure and it's not really something we'd want a bunch of tourists at anyway.

Regardless, that's how human emotion works. And good on Montreal for allowing so many people to feel that same thing. Toronto is awesome, don't get me wrong. It's bold, tall, impressive, and getting better every year. People are moving downtown, slowly the street scape is improving, there are more things to do downtown, and that is a great thing. TO is my home city, I feel an attachment towards to it and I love seeing the massive transformation the city has had in the past 10 years, it's simply mind blowing and unlike anything in the entire western world. I would not say Toronto has no soul, that's simply not fair. But it does have a cold feeling compared to Montreal, most people would agree with that. Toronto is more of an economic capital, while Montreal is more of a cultural capital. So it's expected the feel will be different. Both are awesome cities, Canada's best IMO. But for me... Montreal resonates with me on all levels.

I "lived" in a city of 80,000 in the UK. I wasn't just a tourist there. It had a lot of soul and character. I just don't see that in Toronto. It has little to offer. It does not have world class museums. You say Toronto doesn't want tourists. That's funny. Cities that have character usually can't keep the tourists away.

Yep, if you have an emotional attachment to a city, it can seem like the most soulful place on the face of the Earth, no matter how much another person without any attachment may say the exact opposite.

Plenty of people feel the same way about Montreal as GreatTallNorth2 feels about Toronto, and plenty of people feel the same way about Toronto as travis3000 feels about Montreal.

The end.

^ Exactly!

You're trying to objectify something purely subjective. The idea that you came to the city with no bias is impossible. Everyone has biases because we all have our own unique concept of what's beautiful or ugly, exciting or boring, impressive or mundane, etc. based on our experiences, upbringing, culture, personality, etc. and these things all shape our perspective.

What's important to remember, is that the "feeling" you get from something is not a characteristic of that object (in this case a city), but rather a characteristic of the observer experiencing the feeling. The "feeling" is not something the object is doing to you, but rather your reaction to it. One hundred people can see or experience the same object (person, place, event, etc.) and each have a different reaction to it or feeling toward it.

You may have encountered numerous people who have had similar reactions to an object, but that simply means you share similarities with those people. It doesn't mean those feelings are any more of an objective measurement.

The feelings people get from a city may not be entirely the result of bias and the city may have real, objective characteristics that set it apart from other cities. But it's up to the observer to study his reactions and discern the reason behind them, and if he finds concrete reasons, to present the reasons as evidence, and not present the feelings as the evidence themselves.

She would have bigger tits, lots of guys like that!

Unfortunately, no. Let's face it, and I say that as a highrise enthusiast, skyscrapers are penises. They're not enough to get a female grace.

Is it possible to create a new thread called "arguments" and everyone arguying about "T.O vs MTL" or "Calgary is great vs. Calgary is shit" can just discuss on there?

I, for once, come on here to learn and read about the developments and there is nothing I hate more than having to scroll through 2-3-5 pages of worthless banter every day in order to find things actually relating to "Future Canadian Skylines". I mean, am I right? :shrug:

What you see before your eyes is not banter. Banter is something people laugh at. What you see is serious, stern people who will stab you in the eye if you disagree with them.

What a bizarre post.

Definitely getting some soulful vibes from this video, but then again, I do love Toronto. ;)

As a Torontonian, I'm incapable of speaking about Toronto's "soul", or supposed lack thereof, without huge bias, but I suspect that if influential urbanists like Jane Jacobs and Richard Florida (who were originally unconnected to the city) thought it interesting enough to move here, then those who claim it to be a soulless place are mostly just ignorant of the city. Their loss.

I couldn't care less about which city some people think has more soul than another. I'm here for the tall buildings and great skylines. And on that topic, Toronto kicks all other Canadian cities butts...

A future render of Montreal is posted and look what happens after.:haha:

All I am saying is while everyone is complaining about Toronto being soulless should remember its history. Before Montreal relinquished the title of Canada's largest and premier city, Toronto was firstly and agriculturial town, like other Ontario towns of relative size, Kitchener, Hamilton, Ottawa, London, Kingston, Windsor, Barrie. Toronto although bigger was primarly engaged in the business of agriculture and food processing, not city building. That was the domain of Montreal. Remember, large swathes of North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke were massive farms right up until 50 years ago. When the political instability began in Montreal, all their wealth and commercial weight was shoved onto a town not quite ready for prime time.

Now after all this time has passed people bash Toronto, and praise Montreal in regards to great city building, forgetting the fact that if it wasn't for Montreal, Toronto would not be the city it is today. Instead a rather small and unassuming town like Kitchener, Barrie or Hamilton. No aspirations for the world stage and Montreal left to bask in the glory of being Canada's largest and most important city. Kinda like blaming Toronto for being big and huge, when its not Toronto's fault. Its Montreal's.

I somewhat agree with this.

I think that the vast majority would agree that Montreal has a distinctive soul, but it means different things to different people, and some people may actually feel it has no soul at all, which is absolutely fine. Montreal should be, at this point, mature enough not to crave acceptance.

Toronto has always had one, even when it was a British colonial backwater. It still has one today, even with all the massive highways and sterile glass condo towers. Its soul is not at all like Montreal's, but it has one, all its own. There is definitely a certain vibe that I pick up there, and I can never put my finger on it. It just feels completely different than a lot of other cities in anglo-America. Its soul has managed not to get stamped out despite all the changes that have taken place over the years. However, I think Toronto has done a horrible job of promoting (and preserving) the elements that make it unique. Instead, shallow things tend to be emphasized, which does a disservice to the real Toronto. Montreal tends to do the reverse and play up what makes it different. And I know you guys hate them, but I like the above ground electric wires, I find they add character.

You don't think large swath of Montreal weren't rural either. You make it sound as if Montreal was once twice the size of Toronto. Instability in Quebec sped up the process in which Toronto benefited however, Toronto was destined to become what it is today no matter what. We don't owe or need to blame Montreal for anything.

I do believe Montreal also has a fair number more highways.

It makes sense too that someone that every now and then travels to another city for leisure will have a very favorable feeling of the place. Those rarely stay the same once you settle in.

The built form is reminiscent of the SE United States and just about everyone of these cities has a very distinctive culture. Regardless, despite major differences betwwen Canadians and Americans, Montreal is undeniably a North American city. The presisting "Euro Flair" has no bearing on reality. Likewise, that Montreal is some sort of cultural mecca while Torontonians in their banal glass condos live to work, eat pork and chips and, then die is something you hear often out of ignorance.

I thought you were joking earlier, but apparently not. Historically, Toronto did not have an agriculturally-based economy. The Golden Horseshoe had been Canada's most populated region since the late 19th century and was the centre of the country's industrial economy - the centre of that (politically, economically, culturally) being Toronto. By 1970, Toronto was a city of 2 million (with 2.6 million in what is now the CMA, in comparison to Montreal's 2.7 million). Even if it had stagnated since, it would still be Canada's second city - not that that would have been likely mind you - the gap between Toronto and Montreal's population and economic influence started closing by the end of the Second World War, the separatism and instability of the 1970s just expedited the process. Had that not been an issue (say, if Montreal were its own province or something), it would have passed Montreal's size a decade or two later instead, and today the gap between the population of the two would be probably be under a million. But even then Toronto had the biggest towers, the longest (and oldest) subway, the most multicultural population, etc. It certainly wasn't like Barrie or Kitchener (nor were Hamilton or Ottawa, for that matter...Barrie was a town of 12,000 people in 1950).


This is a pretty fair take.

Anyone who doesn't think Toronto has "soul" (whatever that is) compared to other North American cities came to the city with their minds made up. Their loss.

You really seem to be underestimating how big Toronto was before it overtook Montreal. Toronto had big city ambitions long before Quebec nationalism, which was only one of many reasons it became the biggest in Canada. Toronto doubled in size in the 1940s and has been growing faster than Montreal since.

I was kinda joking a bit. With the harsh critiques of Toronto, these guys need to understand Montreal is a city with a 300 year head start on city building when compared to Toronto. Parts of the current city of Toronto were concession lines right up until a couple years before I was born.

Are you crazy? Movies have been filmed in Old Montreal pretending to be Europe. Montreal has a BIG euro flair, with the language, a more socialist attitude, a high sense of fashion, rich French foods, Old Montreal and it's 200-400 year old buildings, cobblestone walkways, narrow streets, churches, etc. I'm not saying it's Europe, but for people in North America who want to get a taste of Europe while staying on the continent, Montreal is a good start. That has been written in travel magazines, and websites for decades. This isn't just my opinion.

By the way while we have this futile discussion, there may be another hick farming and ranching town getting ready to take the title of economic importance from both Toronto and Montreal. Lol!

Gotta always be on the lookout for these uncultured toothless hillbillies!

Those glass condo towers aren't as bad as they're made out to be. The people who live in those buildings make up a huge 24/7 downtown population, making the city much more vibrant that it used to be. All those new people are driving growth in restaurants, art galleries, stores, offices, and general street life. The condo towers tend to have pretty boring retail on their ground floors, but that will change as they age. To tie all this into the thread topic, the forest of high rises downtown is contributing to the character of the city, not taking away from it. It's a different, more modern character than Montreal, and that's a good thing.

I think I just threw up a little. lol.

Well said. I think that a lot of this x factor came through decades of struggle; Montreal has suffered quite a bit both politically and economically. That combined with slow growth and dense urban fabric has helped to create a unique city.

I think the same way. I find the parts of Shanghai that have the most character are the old pre-war neighbourhoods near the Bund, all of which have above-ground electric wires that I feel contribute to that character.

Toronto does have soul. Some times more and some time less than other cities. Does it have the same street level vide that Montreal or San Francisco does? No, not in my opinion. But I do find several areas of Toronto quit soulful. I think Boston is a good comparison.

Put me in the camp that loves Toronto and can definitely feel the soul of the city in basically every part of it, even the new areas and far flung areas like Kipling and Islington.

You're right about it making downtown Toronto into more of a 24/7 area. It definitely makes it feel like a much larger city. I find that Downtown Toronto has more busy streets for pedestrians than Montreal (I find pedestrian traffic tends to be less concentrated in Toronto compared to Montreal. In Montreal there is Ste-Catherine and then there is everything else. Most downtown sidestreets are pretty quiet in Montreal pedestrian-wise, as are parallel streets.). I'm pretty sure that wasn't always the case, perhaps it is due to the condo influx downtown.

I dunno man, I've lived for several years in France and almost a decade in the UK, Montreal is very much a Canadian city, there's really no European vibe at all in terms of built form or culture aside from people being relatively more open (the rather small port region of Montreal with its old stock architecture is quite small though more concentrated than Toronto's old stock which is more spread out in the West End and East End of downtown). People's personalities are somewhat more open, which may be a Latin cultural trait, but then even cities as diverse as New York and Cambridge Ontario have the same trait and they're hardly Latin. I know people from Quebec who are very emotionally attached to Montreal and have built up a narrative about it having a European flair but it really is Toronto's twin in many ways. There's a sense of it being a slightly older and experienced city with a more lively political climate and tension which gives it some unique character, but overall Central Montreal has a similar though slightly quiter vibe to Central Toronto.

Montreal and Toronto are like identical twins who grew up differently. One is a sober accountant who parties hard on weekends and is faithful to his wife, while the other is a chain smoking full-contact-stripper soliciting divorcee who parties slightly harder on the weekends. But, they both still look like siblings.

LMAO! :notacrook:

edit.

I, too, find that Montreal looks like a North American city. But it's wrong to think that its historic core is limited to the old port. Old Montreal is much larger than the Old port and it is certainly large enough to be an immersive experience into a neighboorhood build during the 18th and 19th centuries with very few post WW2 buildings.

But, more importantly for me, the historic core of Montreal is actually much larger than that and expands west to Westmount, North to the limits of le Plateau and east to the Village. This is a very large swat or urbanity where you'll find one the largest concentration of victorian townhouses on the continent. These contributes to the historic feeling of the city as much as Old Montréal does. But this is off topic, sorry.

This is true but when people talk about Euro flair, they are not just talking about what the city looks like - in fact they may not be principally talking about the look of the city.

It's about the feel of a place.

Someone referred to openness on this thread and this is a good point.

Over the holidays my wife and I were watching a French (from France) comedy movie one morning at about 10 am. It was on TVA, our equivalent network to CTV or Global. The movie had full-frontal nudity in it as well as a naked couple going at it in the shower with enough of a view that you could see pelvises rubbing together.

On Global or CTV when they show Titanic at 9 pm they blur out the crudely-drawn boobs in the hand-drawn sketch that's in the treasure chest they open after bringing it up from the deep. So do the US networks.

While most of the people on here are indeed Canadians, I'd say the "Toronto has less soul or personality than Montreal" thing is not just limited to Canadians. When you have Americans, Brazilians, Australians, Japanese, Russians and Iranians telling you this, it's probably not just a question of bias or people from hick parts of Canada jealous of their country's biggest city.

Montreal feels smaller than Toronto because it is smaller. It has something like 2 million fewer people in the metro than Toronto does, which is almost a Vancouver "more". Toronto is easily one third bigger than Montreal.

What's really surprising is not that Toronto feels bigger in some respects, but that people still talk about Montreal in the same sentence as Toronto when it comes to a bunch of urbanistic measures or indicators.

I still think that, given the trajectory that Toronto seems to be taking ("the world in one city" as opposed to "a city like no other"), we will continue to have these Rio-vs.-Sao Paulo discussions about our two cities for quite some time, regardless of how much larger Toronto gets.

Yes, and no. Aside from the hyper-biggies, in the western world at least there are a ton of cities that feel reasonably the same size and Montreal is definitely in this class.

Vienna for example most definitely feels like a big city to most people it is barely half the size of Montreal.

Amen to that!

... and Calgary is second on that list hands down!

And Frankfurt am Main has the best skyline in Europe! FTW!

Strongly Disagree.

I'd take London for best skyline in Europe.

I realize it's not a slam dunk and up for debate, but I was being deliberately provocative, and trying to hammer the point that a great skyline doesn't necessarily make for a great city.

Many of the world's most awesome and celebrated cities have very little skyline.

Funny enough, I'm with Ramako, that London, and even Moscow have surpassed Frankfurt for best skyline in Europe.

And yes, the best overall cities in Europe, are also the ones with the best skyscraper skylines, Paris, London and Moscow.


(My personal favorite is Monaco!!)

Methinks you are trying to cut corners in order to suit your argument...

Moscow a better overall city than Barcelona? Or Berlin? Really?

They'd be even better with a good skyline though.

I guess it would depend on what your definition of overall is. To me Moscow would be a more interesting city than Barcelona or Berlin.

If I had to travel to Europe my first cities to visit would be Paris/London and Monaco, probably not everyone's first picks.

Interesting; where would you choose to have a weekend? Frankfurt or Amsterdam (which is pretty much flat)?. "Best" can have a different meaning for any of us. For me, it means walkability, reasonable level of culture and close access to nature. I use to live on Paris and would choose quaint, provincial Quebec City any day.

Having said that - and to stay on the *skyline* topic - buildings do have an impact on how we view our cities, therefore influencing our relationship with them. Essentially, some of us are impressed with quantity and size, others prefer quality or even space. One of the best features of Montreal is Mont Royal, which surpasses any of it's downtown buildings; and it's great to know that many Montrealers want to keep that visual relationship. I also appreciate breathing spaces between buildings; both Montreal and London have this and they feel more alive because of it.

Well, he deliberately took Frankfurt out of the equation but it most certainly has the best skyline in Germany. Is it really a better city than Berlin or Munich? Or even Hamburg?

There's no correlation in my opinion. But someone who is in banking and loves his or her career will also very probably love cities like Toronto and Frankfurt because of the local vibe will be orientated towards that corporate culture.... And for this example, tall skyscrapers = big business. I love design; I think cities such as Montreal, Barcelona and Milan are the coolest because they pull in that culture and energy in and create it as well. Big tall concrete buildings mean nothing to me in part because of my career; but I still love good design which means good architecture also. A lot of the members on this forum have got a Manhattan envy; which is something I understand as it is something great to look up to, but it takes much more than a bunch of tall buildings to make a NYC; furthermore, there's already a NYC... What's wrong with being something new or in a completely different category? Do we all have to think that a bunch of tightly packed tall boxes in our cores is our ultimate collective goal?