# Maple Valley? No.

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2018-12-22

cities, happy-holidays, maple-valley, new-york, new-york-city, silicon-alley, tech, tech-workers, the-economist, toronto, uncategorized, urbanism

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At this time of year, I am always amazed by the number of mass emails that I receive from unknown people and companies. They have my email address, clearly, and yet I only receive one email a year from them – a happy holidays email. I am not opposed to holiday cheer. I love Christmas. But if you’re looking to build any sort of meaningful rapport with an audience, my sense is that you ought to send more than one email a year.  

In other news, [the Economist published an article](https://www.economist.com/business/2018/12/22/indian-technology-talent-is-flocking-to-canada?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/indiantechnologytalentisflockingtocanadamigratingnerds) this past week talking about how Toronto is attracting disaffected (Indian) tech workers from the US and, more particularly, Silicon Valley. It is largely a story of immigration and diversity. But at the end of it, the Economist also reports that some people are now calling Toronto, Maple Valley. Toronto immediately reacted to this moniker – [negatively](https://www.blogto.com/tech/2018/12/economist-toronto-maple-valley/).

Nobody refers to Toronto as Maple Valley. And these sorts of names are stupid. In the 1990s, the Flatiron District in Manhattan started being called [Silicon Alley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Alley) (at least by some). That name was also stupid. New York is New York. And Toronto is Toronto. If you’re going to assign a nickname, it should not be derivative. And in the case of Toronto, you probably also want to avoid kitschy Canadian stereotypes.

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/maple-valley-no)*