Toronto: Land of a Thousand Creators

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Since I was born, Toronto has been my home, growing up just west of it in the suburb of Mississauga. I was 12 when I started going into the city on my own for school, sowing the seeds for leaving my suburban life behind me and eventually becoming a proper Torontonian down the way.

Toronto, Ontario—What Are You All About?

Toronto’s not an especially massive city, with a few million in its borders and surrounded by a few million more and a lake, but in all of that is some of the richest diversity that you’ll find anywhere on the planet. More than half the city’s made up of visible minorities and we have people from virtually every country in the world—it’s a city filled with stories, each of them more individual than the next.

But I’d say Toronto has a bit of an identity crisis, with its oodles of diversity making it difficult to determine what this city is about. If you think about Paris, you think about fashion, wine and baguettes. You think about China and its dim sum, dragons and dynasties. But despite having a couple of centuries under its belt, Toronto’s still relatively young. In a city that’s often liberal enough to let people do what they want to do and be who they want to be, how do you find its one true story amongst the millions happening simultaneously?

The answer’s deceptively simple—one by Torontonian one.

Let’s Teach You a Little About Toronto.

Toronto might not be as stylish as Montreal or outdoorsy as Ottawa or Vancouver. Still, with eight per cent of Canada’s population in 0.03% of its inhabitable land, it stands out as something different in the Canadian landscape.

But what that difference is will depend on who you talk to.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a single twenty-something could tell you about Toronto’s nightlife, its sprawling downtown with all manner of food and drink. A parent might tell you about its green space, speckled by parks across 630.2 square kilometres with countless rivers, beaches and ravines. Film festivals. Botanical gardens. Arenas, museums and more. There’s something for just about everyone in this city—you need to know where to look.

But Ain’t Everything Pretty in the City…

But, as much as I love Toronto, I know that my city’s not perfect—plenty is lurking beneath everything that makes it amazing. Like a housing market with great amenities for the people who can afford it, but is rapidly pricing more and more people out of the city and holding many financially hostage. Or Toronto’s sheer verticality, with its centre stretching ever upward while racial and income inequality keep too many people out in the city’s fringes. We come packing cold dispositions and carry 15% of the nation’s homicides each year—the city has plenty of bad to go with all its good.

That said, you won’t learn everything about Toronto from my words alone—my perspective’s just one of many, and everyone brings something different. We’ve got food bloggers, tech bloggers, and all sorts of people just looking to share their slice of the story—let me introduce you to the many sides of Toronto and all the things we have to say!

Toronto: Land of a Thousand Creators, City of a Million Stories.

Now, Toronto has thousands of creators spread across the 140 neighbourhoods we call home. No two neighbourhoods are alike, each having a character uniquely and utterly its own, and our stories don’t stop there. Urban sprawl filled our suburbs in the millions, with so many people moving in and out of the city daily. It’s a story of its east and west sides, of those who live in Toronto and those in “Toronto”… we’ve got many layers that come with this turf. The rest of Canada thinks we see ourselves as the Centre of the Universe. We disagree on what our downtown is depending on where we live in the city. But it’s challenging to find all those stories in one place, and that’s something I’m looking to change.

I’ve been all about the lists lately, looking to give some shine to the communities that help me do what I do. I’ve done one for all the dad creators across Canada and started one for my fellow Dad 2.0 alumni. And now, I’m putting one together for all my fellow creators in the Toronto area and looking for some help!

I hope this list brings you value whenever you’re looking for Toronto creators—I expect it’ll keep growing over time!

Toronto bloggers. Toronto YouTubers. Some of the top Toronto influencers in the GAME—we’ve got ’em all!