this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
96 points (89.3% liked)

Ask Lemmy

39943 readers
1045 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Ones that come to mind for me are Vegas, Toronto, Paris

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

....Toronto? Wtf is wrong with Toronto

[–] hpx9140@fedia.io 13 points 1 week ago

Spent 30 odd years in TO.

Theres a lot of toxicity there. Been punched in the head, throat, kicked in the back (lol), spat on, had slurs screamed my way, and hit by cars (yes, plural).

But hpx, what’d you do to provoke all this?

Nothing, friend. I’m quiet, polite in interactions, keep my yap shut and mind my own business. Every single one of these happened out the blue with little to no input my end. Each left me more flabbergasted than the last.

Some I actually get - unhoused or mentally compromised folk lashing out at unlucky targets. But others had more malice - the pack of skinheads looking for a fight or drivers who felt inconvenienced because they had to stop at crosswalks.

But hey, least it ain’t Calgary. Fuuuuck that place.

[–] lemmyng@piefed.ca 12 points 1 week ago

OP must be québécois.

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't get Paris either. It's a big city, what do you expect? I love it. I'm currently in Prague and I reaaaalllly prefer Paris.

[–] LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Paris is shitty for tourists who follow the main path. It certainly has many cool places and things if you care to look. You just won't see any camera wielding Japanese tourists there. And of course it has all the crime and poverty problems you expect from a city that attracts anything and anyone of note from the whole country.

Now Lille, that felt off. Or any place on the Mediterranean in winter.

[–] Miaou@jlai.lu 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'd be curious to know what felt off in Lille?

[–] LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

Tbh, it has been a while and maybe I am confusing it with another city. But it just felt... like nothing special. No reason to be there. Mediocre at best, lame at worst. Big ugly cities usually have a thriving subculture, or surviving there is an experience by itself at least. But it just felt like the city equivalent of the word "meh"

[–] HeHoXa@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There's a strong organized crime presence

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

Hey Doug Ford is a provincial problem

[–] rabber@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's just NYC without any sort of character. Concrete buildings and dystopian. I just don't like being there.

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

As a lifelong NYer now living in Toronto I beg to differ. Sure it's smaller than NYC by almost every metric except land size, but it has hidden pockets of community and life if you look for them. Compared to NYC, Toronto is greener, friendlier, and better for artists. It has lots of third spaces, which are all but extinct in NYC. Parts of NYC truly are nothing more than dystopian concrete slabs (ever visit Midtown?)

Unfortunately, both cities are victims to festering capitalism and governments that hate us, so you are correct in your assessment of gentrifiers stripping it for parts. The same exact thing can be said about nearly every city in the US and Canada. It's almost always done against the will of the people who actually have to live with their changes. In NYC, just last year we all banded together to narrowly defeat a proposal that threatened to demolish Coney Island and replace it with a dystopian mega casino - and that was just one of six casino proposals that year. At the same time in Toronto, Ford's spa was a mirror of the same type of development and now Sneaky Dee's is at risk of becoming condos. I don't see this as a failure of each city but rather a casualty of right wing politics and the greater class war.

For what it's worth, I do miss NYC and all my friends and loved ones out there. As they say, you can take the NYer out of NY but you can't take NY out of the NYer. I truly do love both cities and look forward to the day I can reunite them.