Writer says Torontonians too modest to brag about city

Watch above: Are Torontonians too modest to brag about the city? Marianne Dimain reports. 

TORONTO – Are Torontonians too modest to be proud of their city? Yes, according to an American writer who recently spent the day biking through the city.

Henry Grabar, a New York City based writer for Salon.com , recently wrote Torontonians  have a hard time selling the city, other than to say it’s “a pretty interesting place.”

He was in Toronto last week for a transit conference and spent a day cycling around the city. He said the people he asked for advice on where to go in Toronto suggested he spend the day exploring the city’s neighbourhoods rather than a specific museum or attraction.

“I think they tend to feel a little bashful or humble about giving that advice. Instead of sending you to a museum or to the top of the CN Tower, or some other sort of landmark you might find on a post card,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

“[Canadians] are not as aggressive in their civic boosterism as to what you might find if you went to Chicago, or Los Angeles or New Orleans or especially New York.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "[Canadians] are not as aggressive in their civic boosterism as to what you might find if you went to Chicago, or Los Angeles or New Orleans or especially New York."

But tourists are being drawn here by something. The number of international visitors to the city hit a record high in 2013, according to Tourism Toronto.

So what does Toronto have to be proud of? The city is the largest in Canada, has an historic – though losing – hockey team, outstanding architecture, a burgeoning film industry and the Pride parade.

“It’s hard for a city to be one thing,” Andrew Weir, the vice-president of Tourism Toronto said. “The great thing about Toronto is it isn’t one thing, it isn’t just that one image, that one postcard, that one idea, for some people it’s the diversity, for other people it could be the centre of finance, or the centre of learning and knowledge and the breakthroughs in medicine.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It's hard for a city to be one thing," Andrew Weir, the vice-president of Tourism Toronto said. "The great thing about Toronto is it isn't one thing, it isn't just that one image, that one postcard, that one idea, for some people it's the diversity, for other people it could be the centre of finance, or the centre of learning and knowledge and the breakthroughs in medicine."

He admitted however that Torontonians, like all Canadians, might not be the strident civic supporters that are seen in the United States. But, he said, city residents are finding their swagger.

“More and more people are recognizing what we have here, whether they live here or they’re visitors, and they’re discovering deeper and looking deeper into the city and that’s when Toronto really shines, when you get out in the neighbourhoods,” he said.