Baltimore or Toronto?

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I'm in Woodstock, Ont., which is only a few kilometres west of TO. I know the cold.

― Binjominia (Brilhante), Friday, 9 February 2007 06:48 (nineteen years ago)

toronto seemed to me like what a lot of hickish types would like NYC to be like - cleaner, less edgy, but still vibrant with good restaurants and culture and what not. baltimore, from second hand acounts, seems like it has some pockets of arty types doing interesting stuff and living well on the cheap, but yeah, it has some bad parts of town that go way beyond "gritty urban outposts"
to be honest, although i'm sure i could settle into toronto fairly easily as an ex-new yorker, i think baltimore would be an exciting challenge for the true urbanist

― timmy tannin (pompous), Friday, 9 February 2007 07:03 (nineteen years ago)

Swear to god I'm gonna get to Tronno one of these days.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 9 February 2007 07:19 (nineteen years ago)

Possibly not during winter, tho.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 9 February 2007 07:19 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, come during summer for sure. i've seen what "winter" is in oz ;)

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Friday, 9 February 2007 13:39 (nineteen years ago)

and if public transit is a concern for you, toronto just got a $700 million boost:
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/179913
mind you, other city services might suffer with so much thrown at the TTC

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Friday, 9 February 2007 13:43 (nineteen years ago)

kim's right - living on or near a subway line is a godsend (and i have no complaints with the bloor-danforth line). you can pretty much get anywhere 'downtown' in under half an hour.

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Friday, 9 February 2007 13:45 (nineteen years ago)

Baltimore strikes me as weird -- somehow off the map of what is supposed to fit inside one's idea of "America".

Toronto doesn't do that in terms of "Canada".

Does that make any sense?

― Collardio Gelatinous (collardio), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:31 (nineteen years ago)

no.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:34 (nineteen years ago)

i'm guessing if one has an "idea of america" then one does not live here.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:35 (nineteen years ago)

though we don't have a wal-mart yet, so there's that, i guess.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:35 (nineteen years ago)

yeah as far as climate's concerned, Baltimore gets plenty cold too, so it's not like the deep south where there's no actual winter, but I'm sure it's a lot less intense than anywhere in Canada, or NY for that matter. until Feb, this winter had been unseasonably warm, and we get so little snow that just an inch or two tends to make everybody around here freak out, close schools, and dump a metric ton of salt on every city block.

(xpost - yeah, Baltimore definitely lives up to its "weird" reputation; i mean, it's not like a living John Waters movie where drag queens are walking around eating turds or anything, but eccentricity is given a lot of room to fester and thrive)

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:36 (nineteen years ago)

it's weird...i haven't actually lived in the city itself for almost seven years now and yet i still basically think of philly as my "home city." i'd feel more comfortable talking about it than baltimore, despite the fact that i really have no idea what's going on there right now.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:41 (nineteen years ago)

i can certainly tell you which of west chester's many dunkin donuts is the best.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:42 (nineteen years ago)

man this thread is making me realize how much i love baltimore

― whatever i do, it's right (teenagequiet), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:42 (nineteen years ago)

(the one on west chester pike with those fierce white chocolate raspberry scones i can't find anywhere else.)

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:45 (nineteen years ago)

well yeah, I think wherever you were before a certain age is always going to feel like your hometown. my girlfriend still thinks of herself as a West coast person but hasn't lived out there since she was a kid (and she never much liked Baltimore until we got an apartment in the city a year and a half ago, but the place grew on her like a fungus and now she wants to buy a house here).

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:46 (nineteen years ago)

people keep telling me to buy a house here and i'm all "u mad, u mad."

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:47 (nineteen years ago)

not that i think it'd necessarily be a bad place to settle down (not that i have any plans to) but i can barely remember to pay my BGE bill on time. the idea of a mortgage is just....yeah.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:50 (nineteen years ago)

Re: Universities, if that's the case, York University is not the most pleasant of campuses (concrete slabs-a-go-go) and it's also waaaay the fuck out of town. Having said that, my girlfriend's been doing her PhD there for five years, and she's doing fine.

Living downtown (between Dufferin/Jarvis and King/Eglington, or on the Danforth) is absolutely necessary, as mentioned above. Whatever you do, don't get stuck in Etobicoke or Scarborough or Oakville or Vaughan. And Ontario itself (save some lovely patches of cottage country up north) is pretty dull.

Other than that, I haven't visited Baltimore, but I moved to Toronto in 2003 from London, UK, and absolutely love it here. Great for movies, music, galleries, secondhand bookstores, ethnic food and general hanging-out; museums and clothes, could do better. The newspapers are also pretty decent, and you can buy the NYT almost everywhere. I find it strange people think Toronto's unfriendly -- compared to London, at least, it's like everybody here is drunk. (It's not Northern California-friendly, but where is?)

There is (as mentioned above) a somewhat precious and annoying indie aesthetic here -- but it's very easy to ignore. I don't get the Montreal vs. Toronto thing at all. They both seem like lovely cities with their own niches.

That said, I love the Wire more than life itself, so Baltimore.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:56 (nineteen years ago)

yeah i feel you, i'm honestly scared to even know what my credit rating is, but buying real estate here is more affordable and a better investment than pretty much any other city in the region. (xpost)

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:57 (nineteen years ago)

haha loving the wire is a very bad reason for moving here

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:57 (nineteen years ago)

i can assure you that even in my limited experience all of our drug dealers are not charming sociopath studs with barely suppressed british accents attempting to better themselves through education.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:58 (nineteen years ago)

I can assure you that even in my limited experience, if you live in Toronto, you will see Eugene Levy filming an American Pie straight-to-DVD movie.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:01 (nineteen years ago)

why in the hell am i in baltimore then?

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:04 (nineteen years ago)

wait wait wait...are you telling me new york minute...wasn't filmed in new york??

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:04 (nineteen years ago)

next you'll be telling me they're not really twins.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:04 (nineteen years ago)

well, Baltimore is becoming Toronto to D.C.'s New York -- I know someone who saw Bruce Willis a while back when he was here filming Live Free Or Die Hard. (xpost)

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:06 (nineteen years ago)

Hah, I saw New York Minute at the Paramount, and some of the scenes were shot directly outside the cinema. I thought the Olsen Twins were going to walk into the theater, Blazing Saddles-style.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:07 (nineteen years ago)

i have a very blurry snapshot of bruce willis on my phone.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:08 (nineteen years ago)

it might just be a homeless guy.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:10 (nineteen years ago)

all of our drug dealers are not charming sociopath studs with barely suppressed british accents attempting to better themselves through education.

or charming gay sociopaths with a dark sense of humor and a strong sense of outlaw morality?

(omar was in my dream last night. he invited me to a movie.)

― lauren (laurenp), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:21 (nineteen years ago)

two years pass...

IT IS INCREDIBLY CHEAP TO LIVE HERE

still true (about baltimore)??

― velko, Saturday, 20 June 2009 22:42 (sixteen years ago)

not when you're broke as a joke in baltimore

― harbl, Saturday, 20 June 2009 22:43 (sixteen years ago)

i wonder what happened

― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Sunday, 21 June 2009 00:39 (sixteen years ago)

eleven months pass...

Toronto

― admrl, Thursday, 17 June 2010 03:31 (fifteen years ago)

gtfo

― teflon donk (samosa gibreel), Thursday, 17 June 2010 03:38 (fifteen years ago)

Dirt bikes

― admrl, Thursday, 17 June 2010 03:39 (fifteen years ago)

i should admit i have never been to baltimore but i have lived in montreal my whole life and was brainwashed to know toronto as an uncooler, more boring, and economically efficient older brother city from a very young age. also, the time i have spent there and broad generalizations about the type of people who live there based on torontonians i have known--it's the truth

― teflon donk (samosa gibreel), Thursday, 17 June 2010 03:43 (fifteen years ago)

booooo.

― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Thursday, 17 June 2010 03:46 (fifteen years ago)

Xpost: I'll support Toronto with all or at least most of my might, but yeah, ultimately, that is true. Though Toronto-Montreal rivalries are at best silly if not downright stupid (though on that note I find Montreal to be totally overrated, barring some select things. It's party-harty cheap rent, ample alcohol, hipper younger brother persona has done nothing for me lately, and 2 years ago when I was spent 5 weeks there, I just felt like I going home)

Then again, lots of Torontonians are assholes, development and gentrification spreading like cancer have made downtown increasingly lifeless and trite, and it feels like corporate, conservative bureaucracy rules all.

I can't say Baltimore seems much more appealing, though.

― Tonight I Dine on Turtle Soup (EDB), Thursday, 17 June 2010 15:12 (fifteen years ago)

Baltimore's dirt-bike love is pretty awful.

― kkvgz, Thursday, 17 June 2010 15:18 (fifteen years ago)

i've been to Baltimore since this thread was started and i'm 100% serious when i say it's about as nice as Phnom Penh.

― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Thursday, 17 June 2010 15:22 (fifteen years ago)

and i was not really aware there was still a Toronto-Montreal rivalry. i was to understand we were united in our loathing of Vancouver.

― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Thursday, 17 June 2010 15:24 (fifteen years ago)

http://img1.loadtr.com/b-424886-Phnom_Penh.jpg

― how do i spud webb (am0n), Thursday, 17 June 2010 15:26 (fifteen years ago)

That Hampden there?

― kkvgz, Thursday, 17 June 2010 15:27 (fifteen years ago)

xxpost: I think this might actually be a result of Toronto's paranoiac personality and general inferiority complex, where everyone is convinced the rest of Canada hates them (which may very well be true, actually) and that it sees Montreal (the most viable source of "competition") as a threat, and projects the idea that there's a rivalry.

Ultimately I think a lot of this actually boils down to hockey allegiances, of which I personally have no part.

― Tonight I Dine on Turtle Soup (EDB), Thursday, 17 June 2010 15:31 (fifteen years ago)

ah the PP museum. it's v lovely. outside the place:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/147/428917176_4f1be62ad4.jpg

― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Thursday, 17 June 2010 16:53 (fifteen years ago)

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