Theres a lot of toxicity there. Been punched in the head, throat, kicked in the back (lol), spat on, had slurs screamed my way, and hit by cars (yes, plural).
But hpx, what’d you do to provoke all this?
Nothing, friend. I’m quiet, polite in interactions, keep my yap shut and mind my own business. Every single one of these happened out the blue with little to no input my end. Each left me more flabbergasted than the last.
Some I actually get - unhoused or mentally compromised folk lashing out at unlucky targets. But others had more malice - the pack of skinheads looking for a fight or drivers who felt inconvenienced because they had to stop at crosswalks.
But hey, least it ain’t Calgary. Fuuuuck that place.
Paris is shitty for tourists who follow the main path. It certainly has many cool places and things if you care to look. You just won’t see any camera wielding Japanese tourists there. And of course it has all the crime and poverty problems you expect from a city that attracts anything and anyone of note from the whole country.
Now Lille, that felt off. Or any place on the Mediterranean in winter.
Tbh, it has been a while and maybe I am confusing it with another city. But it just felt… like nothing special. No reason to be there. Mediocre at best, lame at worst. Big ugly cities usually have a thriving subculture, or surviving there is an experience by itself at least. But it just felt like the city equivalent of the word “meh”
As a lifelong NYer now living in Toronto I beg to differ. Sure it’s smaller than NYC by almost every metric except land size, but it has hidden pockets of community and life if you look for them. Compared to NYC, Toronto is greener, friendlier, and better for artists. It has lots of third spaces, which are all but extinct in NYC. Parts of NYC truly are nothing more than dystopian concrete slabs (ever visit Midtown?)
Unfortunately, both cities are victims to festering capitalism and governments that hate us, so you are correct in your assessment of gentrifiers stripping it for parts. The same exact thing can be said about nearly every city in the US and Canada. It’s almost always done against the will of the people who actually have to live with their changes. In NYC, just last year we all banded together to narrowly defeat a proposal that threatened to demolish Coney Island and replace it with a dystopian mega casino - and that was just one of six casino proposals that year. At the same time in Toronto, Ford’s spa was a mirror of the same type of development and now Sneaky Dee’s is at risk of becoming condos. I don’t see this as a failure of each city but rather a casualty of right wing politics and the greater class war.
For what it’s worth, I do miss NYC and all my friends and loved ones out there. As they say, you can take the NYer out of NY but you can’t take NY out of the NYer. I truly do love both cities and look forward to the day I can reunite them.
…Toronto? Wtf is wrong with Toronto
Spent 30 odd years in TO.
Theres a lot of toxicity there. Been punched in the head, throat, kicked in the back (lol), spat on, had slurs screamed my way, and hit by cars (yes, plural).
But hpx, what’d you do to provoke all this?
Nothing, friend. I’m quiet, polite in interactions, keep my yap shut and mind my own business. Every single one of these happened out the blue with little to no input my end. Each left me more flabbergasted than the last.
Some I actually get - unhoused or mentally compromised folk lashing out at unlucky targets. But others had more malice - the pack of skinheads looking for a fight or drivers who felt inconvenienced because they had to stop at crosswalks.
But hey, least it ain’t Calgary. Fuuuuck that place.
OP must be québécois.
I don’t get Paris either. It’s a big city, what do you expect? I love it. I’m currently in Prague and I reaaaalllly prefer Paris.
Paris is shitty for tourists who follow the main path. It certainly has many cool places and things if you care to look. You just won’t see any camera wielding Japanese tourists there. And of course it has all the crime and poverty problems you expect from a city that attracts anything and anyone of note from the whole country.
Now Lille, that felt off. Or any place on the Mediterranean in winter.
I’d be curious to know what felt off in Lille?
Tbh, it has been a while and maybe I am confusing it with another city. But it just felt… like nothing special. No reason to be there. Mediocre at best, lame at worst. Big ugly cities usually have a thriving subculture, or surviving there is an experience by itself at least. But it just felt like the city equivalent of the word “meh”
There’s a strong organized crime presence
Hey Doug Ford is a provincial problem
It’s just NYC without any sort of character. Concrete buildings and dystopian. I just don’t like being there.
As a lifelong NYer now living in Toronto I beg to differ. Sure it’s smaller than NYC by almost every metric except land size, but it has hidden pockets of community and life if you look for them. Compared to NYC, Toronto is greener, friendlier, and better for artists. It has lots of third spaces, which are all but extinct in NYC. Parts of NYC truly are nothing more than dystopian concrete slabs (ever visit Midtown?)
Unfortunately, both cities are victims to festering capitalism and governments that hate us, so you are correct in your assessment of gentrifiers stripping it for parts. The same exact thing can be said about nearly every city in the US and Canada. It’s almost always done against the will of the people who actually have to live with their changes. In NYC, just last year we all banded together to narrowly defeat a proposal that threatened to demolish Coney Island and replace it with a dystopian mega casino - and that was just one of six casino proposals that year. At the same time in Toronto, Ford’s spa was a mirror of the same type of development and now Sneaky Dee’s is at risk of becoming condos. I don’t see this as a failure of each city but rather a casualty of right wing politics and the greater class war.
For what it’s worth, I do miss NYC and all my friends and loved ones out there. As they say, you can take the NYer out of NY but you can’t take NY out of the NYer. I truly do love both cities and look forward to the day I can reunite them.