Living as I do in more or less the shadow of the CN Tower (it has to be a pretty sunny day and the planet has to be tilted pretty badly for the sun to be shining from that angle [basically due north] but the shadow nevertheless), it is easy to forget that the rest of the country hasn’t the fond feelings for Toronto that colour my days with neon happiness and iridescent sparkles of joy.
Take for example, the preponderance of Toronto-centric news. Â I can recall at least one time in the last year when traffic tie-ups on the 401 made the top of the hourly national news on CBC. Â It wasn’t even for a particularly large or gruesome accident. Â Just your standard volume of a weekday in the big smoke. Â I think it is the responsibility of the 2.3 million people who live in the Atlantic provinces to understand the depth of suffering of the 5.5 million who are all somehow stuck in the 20 kilometres of 18-lane-mayhem that make up the 427-404 corridor across the top of the city.
The radio morning shows are great to listen to as well. Â They don’t bother me with pesky details like traffic headed to any other part of the broadcast area, going so far as to simplify the QEW’s directional mess to ‘eastbound’ and ‘westbound’. Â Here, for reference, is the routing of the QEW:
The morning shows also help me to avoid any local entertainment entanglements by never, ever focusing on any portion of the broadcast area further afield than Oakville.
There is also a level of convenience to Toronto unseen in any other city in Canada. Â I think specifically of the IKEA situation. Â The entirety of the rest of southern Ontario goes either to the Ottawa or Burlington IKEA stores (approx. 7 million people/2 stores = 3.5 million people per store. Â They’re considering replacing hot dogs with Soylent Green). Â Torontonians have the benefit of 3 IKEAs amongst their 5.5million people (roughly 1.83 million people per store which translates to a vacant wasteland full of LACK shelving and lonely meatballs spinning through the void). Â Lee Valley is even more opulent in its space allocation in TO. Â 1.83 million per store for three stores. Â Compare to Vancouver’s claustrophobic 2.1 million people to one store. Â I feel that store-based population demographics is a shockingly under-reported aspect of the census process.