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A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go

jacobfilipp.com

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Re: A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go

#71

Post by 8372049 »

magneticnorth wrote: post #22
nomdep wrote: post #3

Why almost every store have their names written in Chinese (?) and English. Is the post a joke with photos from Asia malls (or AI generated)? Or it’s just common in that part of Canada?

I'm curious where you live that this seems so unusual. I'm in the USA, and any area with a large immigrant population will have a shopping mall or at least a few stores where signage is in English & the language of the local immigrant population.

I was wondering about the same thing as GP. I live in a European capital (one of the smaller ones), and I basically don't ever see anything like this. If there's any signs in other languages then they're almost always in English. (We don't get much immigration from English-speaking countries.)

Re: A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go

#72

Post by magneticnorth »

8372049 wrote: post #71
magneticnorth wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious where you live that this seems so unusual. I'm in the USA, and any area with a large immigrant population will have a shopping mall or at least a few stores where signage is in English & the language of the local immigrant population.

I was wondering about the same thing as GP. I live in a European capital (one of the smaller ones), and I basically don't ever see anything like this. If there's any signs in other languages then they're almost always in English. (We don't get much immigration from English-speaking countries.)

Interesting! Is that because you don't have large immigrant populations, or is it more cultural where it's seen as important for newcomers to assimilate to the local culture?

In the US & Canada, of course, the vast majority of the population is descended from people who immigrated here. It would make sense for it to be more normalized here for public spaces to cater to those who don't yet speak the local language.

Re: A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go

#73

Post by underlipton »

ogurechny wrote: post #64
underlipton wrote: post #2

I think there is a strong argument for the Library of Congress or some other public/quasi-public entity to archive Google Maps/StreetView data. Redevelopment has been an ongoing fact of life for much of the time I've lived in my area, and huge swathes of the landscape are nigh unrecognizable from when I was a kid. However, a lot of the way things were is preserved in that map and image data. I think this is valuable…

Why rely on Daddy Google so much in the first place? A couple of months ago, I was puzzled enough by the lack of large scale urban history services in the West to post this question (with examples of what was possible): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38090473

Going forward? We probably shouldn't. Unfortunately, there's no way to go back to 2008 and build a rival dataset. Not without an elaborate space mirror/FTL craft/telescope set-up, at least.

As to your question, if I may wax poetic: the history of America (the nation) is short and filled with episodes its residents would like to forget. That brevity makes those events (and the desire to bury them) all the more poignant. As way of an example, which I only recently learned about: Why is much of the East Coast forested? It's not because we didn't clear cut hundreds of thousands of acres of old-growth timber to use for slave-worked farmland which was scarred by the over-planting of cash crops, apparently.

I'm sure that's not the whole story, but I imagine that it's part of it. It's so much easier to push New Thing if people don't know what Old Thing is being demolished to make way for it.

Re: A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go

#74

Post by underlipton »

mattpallissard wrote: post #30
morkalork wrote: post #17

I can empathize with the author after moving away from Toronto almost 20 years ago, so much from when I was a teenager is gone. I'm not "from" where I live now, and where I'm "from" no longer exists, I just feel perpetually detached from everywhere now.

I've tried explaining this feeling to people so many times. Unmoored is a good word. We now live in a place where the locals are warm and welcoming, but I'll never be one of them. My kids are, but I'm just a little different. When I go back to where I was raised, I'm no longer a local there either, just a little bit different. It's more than the place itself changing. It's as if there is some continuity that's been b…

As a military brat, time is intrinsically connected with place for me. Once I leave someplace, it's often some time before I'm able to visit again, if I ever get to. I became aware very early in adulthood (maybe, unconsciously, in childhood) that what's thought of as familiar is reliant on temporal as well as geographic proximity. Things cease to exist as you knew them quite quickly.

Even if nothing gets built or demolished, trees grow.

Re: A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go

#75

Post by voisin »

pstrateman wrote: post #46
joemaller1 wrote: post #26

> The good thing is that, after 5 years of > construction, a beautiful new mall stan… just kidding! > > This is Canada. The place where construction > has to stop because you’re not allowed to uproot > a tree on your own property. Or a vindictive neighbour > holds up your project in Committee of Adjustments, until > you build them a new deck as a bribe. Or construction > is blocked by a surprise Heritage Listing on y…

surprise heritage listing? that's not a thing, you would 100% know when buying that a building was listed

Not true. Many buildings are on the heritage “of interest” list and remain there for decades and as soon as someone goes in for permit to do something drastic, it gets moved to the heritage protection list and your rights are severely limited. Sometimes just being in a heritage district but not having a specific listing is enough to get classified when you want to do work.

This is from direct experience in Canada working in this industry.

Re: A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go

#76

Post by 8372049 »

magneticnorth wrote: post #72
8372049 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering about the same thing as GP. I live in a European capital (one of the smaller ones), and I basically don't ever see anything like this. If there's any signs in other languages then they're almost always in English. (We don't get much immigration from English-speaking countries.)

Interesting! Is that because you don't have large immigrant populations, or is it more cultural where it's seen as important for newcomers to assimilate to the local culture? In the US & Canada, of course, the vast majority of the population is descended from people who immigrated here. It would make sense for it to be more normalized here for public spaces to cater to those who don't yet speak the local language.

We do have large immigrant populations, but have a fairly active integration policy. It's not a major success, but at least free language education seems to have helped a lot.

There's foreign languages on "call family in your home country" type ads and on various official information (e.g. posters during the pandemic), but very rarely on storefronts and the like.

Re: A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go

#77

Post by VHRanger »

acchow wrote: post #49
joemaller1 wrote: post #26

> The good thing is that, after 5 years of > construction, a beautiful new mall stan… just kidding! > > This is Canada. The place where construction > has to stop because you’re not allowed to uproot > a tree on your own property. Or a vindictive neighbour > holds up your project in Committee of Adjustments, until > you build them a new deck as a bribe. Or construction > is blocked by a surprise Heritage Listing on y…

> The place where construction has to stop because you’re not allowed to uproot Strange take for Toronto where houses are being torn down and rebuilt as larger houses or high rises everywhere

The reason this happens is that effectively anything except a single family home is banned.

So when a multifamily project is approved on a lit, developpers are thrilled to put a high rise - there's so much pent up demand they know it'll sell out.

On the other end, the ultra rich want bigger mcmansions.

What's still lacking is sane 2-8 unit zoning.

Re: A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go

#78

Post by jfil »

acchow wrote: post #49
joemaller1 wrote: post #26

> The good thing is that, after 5 years of > construction, a beautiful new mall stan… just kidding! > > This is Canada. The place where construction > has to stop because you’re not allowed to uproot > a tree on your own property. Or a vindictive neighbour > holds up your project in Committee of Adjustments, until > you build them a new deck as a bribe. Or construction > is blocked by a surprise Heritage Listing on y…

> The place where construction has to stop because you’re not allowed to uproot Strange take for Toronto where houses are being torn down and rebuilt as larger houses or high rises everywhere

My understanding of what's happening here in Toronto: it is such a hassle to fight for any new construction, that the only projects that are "worth it" are highrises. This means that 4-5 storey residential condos/rentals are not being built. Only the biggest buildings.

Re: A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go

#79

Post by jfil »

pstrateman wrote: post #46
joemaller1 wrote: post #26

> The good thing is that, after 5 years of > construction, a beautiful new mall stan… just kidding! > > This is Canada. The place where construction > has to stop because you’re not allowed to uproot > a tree on your own property. Or a vindictive neighbour > holds up your project in Committee of Adjustments, until > you build them a new deck as a bribe. Or construction > is blocked by a surprise Heritage Listing on y…

surprise heritage listing? that's not a thing, you would 100% know when buying that a building was listed

I am the post's author, and I was referring to a specific building [1]. My understanding is that the owners bought it, unlisted, with the intent to develop it into something else. The City then suddenly made a case for designating it as a heritage property.

This is an area with powerful neighbours who have a lot of time on their hands.

I actually think there's a strong case for preserving this property. I love the look. The architecture is very unusual for Toronto and it looks striking. But, it is always a bummer when you purchase a property with plans to do X, and then get a surprise designation after you pay the money.

[1] https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2018/cc/bgrd/backgroundf...

Re: A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go

#80

Post by jfil »

morkalork wrote: post #17

I can empathize with the author after moving away from Toronto almost 20 years ago, so much from when I was a teenager is gone. I'm not "from" where I live now, and where I'm "from" no longer exists, I just feel perpetually detached from everywhere now.

When I first moved out on my own, I went to live in a very hip neighbourhood in Toronto - West Queen West. It was gentrifying, and had a lot of artsy spots, cafes, hole-in-the-wall nightclubs. It was an amazing time living there. A little bit of grit, a little bit of hip. Electro music. Coffee culture.

But, looking back, I was the gentrifier.

I've seen what it was a few years before moving in there: prostitutes on the street at night. Mobile soup kitchen feeding them, and a group of eccentric locals who included a man without legs in a wheelchair. Folks who got pushed out of other parts of the city - finding a home and a place to just _be_

What I'm trying to say is that: your "from" and your nostalgia was somebody else's "to". Somebody else lost what was there, and then you came. And then you left and something else came. The city builds up layers. And there is a longing and a nostalgia and a wrenching... but those feelings are part of what's always been there even before you. Now that you feel those feelings, you've joined in another part of the cycle.

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