Is the blond hegemony crumbling?

As Toronto has grown, the share of Toronto-born-and-bred residents of the city is ever smaller. As part of that diminishing minority, I’ve noticed that many people who move to the city later in life are blissfully ignorant of the significance of being from one part of the city or another. Overall, this is a goodcontinue reading

Oh, come on, people –

Wikipedia: Starting with the execution of John Boyd in January 1908, [[hanging]]s at the Don took place in an indoor chamber, which was a converted washroom, at the northeast corner of the old building. Previously, condemned men had been hanged on an outdoor scaffold in the jail yard. The Globe: 1908 John Boyd is thecontinue reading

Totally Toronto

– is CBC Radio 1’s slogan at the moment, unless they’ve taken it off the air out of embarrassment – it’s hard to miss. One the one hand, this is just truth in advertising – CBC Toronto, which serves all of south-central Ontario, at least in principle, has always been indifferent to the large partscontinue reading

Snap, crackle, and possibly pop

Finally, an article on real estate appears in the Canadian media that is not written by someone using the Canadian Real Estate Association talking points. Saturday’s Financial Post has a comment from a Lakehead University economics prof, who has done some basic analysis of prices to annual rental value to come up with a price-to-earningscontinue reading

Torontoist’s TTC Survey

Thought the TTC survey was a bit skimpy? You might like this one better. I know I did! Edit: link fixed. Now how did that get there? Sheesh…

Cognitive dissonance

The fundamentals in Toronto don’t point to continued accelerated growth in the housing market: Toronto CMA unemployment went up by 0.1% in July to 7.0% — one of the highest u/e rates in the country and higher than the headline 6.0%. Toronto’s wage growth was smack in the middle of national wage growth at 3.6%continue reading

The whole beast

I went to the brand-new Cherry St. T&T’s today. It does seem like it should have a place in our grocery routine, though I’m still working out what it would be. TMQ and I cook from a set of ideas that are mostly English and Italian, while T&T as far as I can tell iscontinue reading

Housing prices vs. rent

I recently had a conversation with an acquaintance who had bought a house to renovate and resell in the Bloor and Ossington area. She mentioned that she was amazed by the price rise in the area, and noted that if she wasn’t able to sell the house, she wouldn’t be able to rent it outcontinue reading

Testy of the Danforth

We missed Taste of the Danforth, except for the first night, when we got to enjoy the all-night whooping afterparty in Withrow Park. (1) Needed. 2) More. 3) Cops.) We went camping after that, not at all coincidentally. But Val Dodge went, and wrote a satisfying rant for Torontoist: So the question remains, why docontinue reading