Why I Hate Toronto

So, I currently live in Toronto. While being as charitable as possible, I must say that this is the ugliest, unfriendliest North American city I've ever had the displeasure of living in, or even visiting briefly. I qualify this by saying I've never visited or lived in Baltimore, Portland, or Detroit; the only cities besides Philly that spring to mind as potential challengers to Toronto's crown.

Why do I call this city (and I use that word as loosely as an anorexic's g-string) The Hollow City ?

Well, here's my theory on the components of a successful metropolis: architecture, amenities, and attitude/ambience.

Toronto Architecture:

The entire town has the feel of being seconds away from crumbling into wind-driven dust at the sound of an especially hard word. At a more granular level, individual residential buildings exhibit a subtle state of disrepair - you look closely and can't quite put your finger on it, but you're sure that these structures look 10 years older than they actually are.

Urban planning is extremely poor in the city center: cutting edge glass-fronted buildings abut beautifully restored lofts in some commercial districts.... and one street over you find dilapidated, boarded-up warehouses with blown-out windows next to a homeless shelter/hooker hangout/park full of derelicts. Now, this can happen in any city, but it happens with stunning regularity across the downtown Toronto grid.

Unlike, say, Chicago or New York, there is no unifying architectural theme (yeah, yeah, so Chicago gets a headstart because of the after-fire rebuild). To me architecture reflects intimately on the city's denizens.

In NYC midtown, first-time visitors can catch a heart attack because of the scale of the buildings (people think, dream, act big). Chicago has a more human scale, with architecture no less beautiful or ornate (it's a more approachable town, yet the cityscape hints at the moniker 'City of Big Shoulders').

In Toronto ? There's no theme, maybe because Torontonians don't have much to say.