S4E58: Things Truly Torontonian with Denise Balkissoon

Published: Oct. 11, 2014, 7:01 p.m.

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At Toronto\'s Queen and Logan, Colin Marshall talks with\\xa0Denise Balkissoon, co-founder of\\xa0The Ethnic Aisle\\xa0and\\xa0writer on a variety of Torontonian subjects from multiculturalism to real estate for publications like\\xa0Toronto Life, the\\xa0Toronto Star, the\\xa0Globe and Mail, and\\xa0The Grid.\\xa0They discuss her reputation as an astute observer of the multiculture; what happens at the intersection of multiculturalism and real estate; the wealth flowing into downtown, and the resulting push of "racialized communities" toward the periphery; the formerly working class neighborhood around Queen and Logan and its current, rapid gentrification; the appeal of "tiny little backyards"; how the real estate market\'s "ferocious competition" made it an interesting beat, but may yet make it boring; on what levels Toronto has lived up to its multicultural promise, and on what levels it hasn\'t; what her Trinidadian family of engineers, lawyers, and medical professionals thought of her choice to go into journalism; exploring neighborhoods through one\'s own social links to them, or, alternatively, through the oft-joked about "festival every weekend" Toronto offers; the city\'s reputation for a lack of physical beauty, and what preservation problems have to do with it; what you find "out there" in the suburbs, an essential part of modern Toronto\'s multicultural experience; the nature of "Toronto\'s moment," including but not limited to residents\' newfound happiness living there and their enjoyment of the Malaysian, Uighur, and Tamil cuisine on offer; what count as things truly Torontonian, if anything does; the always-personal nature of Toronto\'s appeal, and what a moment like her husband not eating the heads of shrimp and getting made fun of for it says about that; the Toronto articles she fantasizes about writing, such as studies of housing as a whole, a look at the emergence of "generation rent" as a political force, and the interactions between different waves of immigrants; and whether, after the election, people will still feel like they live between "two Torontos."

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