I tweeted this out last night:

blogTO then picked it up and it got quite a bit of engagement.

Some people, okay a lot of people, used it as an opportunity to be tongue in cheek and respond with things like: cheaply built condos, boarded up Starbuckses, Hooker Harvey's, Drake's house in the Bridle Path, the crumbling Gardiner Expressway, and that McDonald's at the northwest corner of Queen and Spadina (this one is no longer a contender for me now that they've gotten rid of their walk-up window).

Of course, there were also a lot of the usual suspects: The Sky Dome, The Gooderham Building (our miniature Flatiron Building), Casa Loma, The Royal Ontario Museum (specifically the expansion by Studio Libeskind), "New City Hall", The Royal York Hotel, Honest Ed's, The St. Lawrence Market, Robarts Library (University of Toronto), and a bunch of others that you might find displayed on the seat screen on your next Air Canada flight.

But I'd like to unpack the initial question a bit more. Because what does it really mean for something to be a symbol of a city? And is there an important distinction between the symbols that resonate with locals on a personal level and the symbols that get exported around the world as a city's brand and identity? Indeed, one of the criteria in most global city rankings is a prominent and recognizable skyline. Icons are important.

Let's consider an example. I agree entirely with Sean Marshall that "New City Hall" is a deeply symbolic building. Built in the early 1960s after decades of work, New City Hall was the outcome of an international design competition. And it was decidedly modern at a time when Toronto really wasn't that modern. Montréal was the biggest and most global city in the country and multiculturalism hadn't yet become a federal mandate. And so New City Hall symbolized our genuine ambitions to becoming something more.

But does the rest of the world care? If you were to ask somebody my question on the streets of Rio de Janeiro or Tokyo, what would they say? What would they remember? The thing about most tall buildings or other city symbols is that they become abstractions. They turn into pictures on social media -- like logos of a company. But maybe that's all we can reasonably ask of the world. Maybe all that really matters is that a symbol has local significance; it's then up to us to export it and tell that story to the rest of the world.

The last time I was in Paris was in 2006. That's a long time ago and so it was great to be back in the city earlier this week. I don't know the city as well as I do many other cities, but I speak enough French to be dangerous and we spent a good amount of time on this trip just exploring. On average, we clocked about 20,000 steps a day. So here's a list of some of the things I was reminded of or learned of on this visit. If any of you are more familiar with the city, please feel free to speak up in the comment section below.

• I love Paris.

• The Parisian art of people watching is alive and well. One of my favorite things about Paris is how so much of the cafe seating faces out toward the street. That's what you're supposed to be watching: urban life.

• Most cities have a clear message. In Los Angeles, it's probably that you should be more famous. In Boston, it's arguably that you should be smarter. And in New York, it is perhaps that you should be richer. In Paris, the message feels loud and clear: You should be more fashionable.

• Compared to Toronto, the center of Paris feels far more static. Less construction. Less change. Less that is new. That's not such a bad thing given how beautiful the city is. But in my view, cities are about balancing preservation and progress. From what I could tell, a lot of the new construction seemed to be happening in the suburbs and in the outskirts of the city.

• That said, COVID feels much further along in Paris. The city was very open and everyone seemed to be back in the office. Locals said that the city was operating at maybe 80%. It felt busy.

• Dress shoes are dead in Paris. Everyone wears cool sneakers no matter how young or old. Think business suits with Nike Air Maxes. My hypothesis is that it's just far more practical given how much people walk in Paris. I plan to adopt this strategy immediately.

• In addition to walking, everyone seemingly bikes and/or uses an electric scooter. Again, it didn't seem to matter how young or old. Paris also seems to have solved the scooter clutter problem, as has many other cities. There are designated spots (painted lines next to on-street car parking) and that's where you'll find the scooters. Toronto needs to get on board.

• Traveling at 300 km/h on a train is a highly civilized way to move between urban centers.

• There's nothing wrong with having a picnic and drinking a bottle of wine (or two) in a park. In fact, it is probably something that should be celebrated. Let people be grown-ups.

• When you purchase a baguette, you should immediately take a bite out of it to see how fresh it is.

• The Eiffel Tower, much like the CN Tower, looks far better when illuminated.

• Balconies of any size can be wonderful. We had a small Juliet balcony off of our hotel room in Nice and we used it every day for croissant eating and to dry our bathing suits. In a more permanent situation, I am sure we would have started growing things on it.

• Midrise buildings do indeed create nice urban street walls. But it's important to keep in mind that Paris' midrise blocks are also deep and dense and with lots of courtyard conditions. That's how the city is able to house so many people at such low building heights.

• Facing conditions between buildings is less of a concern when you employ less glass. Smaller punched windows allow you to better manage privacy. I would go so far as to argue that if Paris were an all-glass city, much of its current built form would be fairly unlivable.

What did I miss in this list?

Photo by Alexander Kagan on Unsplash

This morning I watched the sun rise from the the roof of Ten York Condominiums, some 735 feet up. This is what that looked like (the sky initially had a purple hue to it):

It was cold as all hell, but sometimes you have to work for your photos.

Some of you may also remember that I wrote about this building a few months ago. Tridel, the developer, is calling the project its first “smart condominium.”

Regular scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.