I'm sure anyone reading this (if there is, in fact, anyone reading this) has used Google Maps and zoomed in to a particular area only to have the map turn gray and display this message:

"We are sorry, but we don't have imagery at this zoom level for this region.
Try zooming out for a broader look."

It's as if Google read my mind. This often happens to me when discussing parts of Toronto that I know I should recognize but for the life of me, I cannot picture. This is particularly true when listening to traffic updates (Major Mackenzie? Steeles? Sheppard?) The map of Toronto formed in my head is full of these gray areas; voids where nothing is seen. Obviously there are many intersections in Toronto I've never been, but there are many more where I have and for whatever reason, in conversation with someone, I'll find myself nodding, as if I understand completely yet in my head I'm just seeing grayness and thinking, "...we don't have imagery at this zoom level for this region. Try zooming out for a broader look." Nothing...no Second Cup, no toppled mail box, no restaurant, no unusual brick house, no glaring dry cleaner sign, nothing to cling to visually at all.

I think of the city as bordered by the Humber, the Lake, the Don, and the 401. Yet this leaves large swaths of the city missing from my mental map. For years, there was a blankness in the neighbourhood I now call home, so there is hope. The grays can be filled in. Until online maps came along though, I didn't really know how to verbalize this nothingness. For now, if in conversation with me, you mention an intersection and you notice my eyes drifting up and to the right, don't be surprised if I say,
"I'm sorry, but I have no imagery at this zoom level. Try zooming out..."

Thank you for your patience.

1. You really don’t think of the Danforth and the Beaches? Never been to the Opera House?

   As someone who’s lived both across the Don and across Eglinton, I’m often amused by people’s mental maps of the city. The northern border varies (Bloor, the hill at Davenport, the furthest Street Car, The Silver City at Eglinton) but the Don’s usually present. I realize that as a (large) feature of the natural landscape it’s a bit more work to project oneself across the valley than to extend an arbitrary line toward suburbia, but why see that feature as a wall at all? I’ve been down there, and it’s pleasant enough, but I’ve always thought of the valley itself as the void, and not that which falls east of it. You can take the subway over it, not three stops from Bloor, and then you’re right back in the city.

   Correct me if I’m wrong, as I’m not up on my CanLit, but I thought a popular paradigm was Toronto as the city riven, with streams and ravines falling beneath the plane of the street grid. How does that reconcile with a two-dimensional view of the Don Valley as some sort of wall? Is it qualitatively different than the Vale of Avoca?

   Posted by Wrenkin  on  01/02  at  04:52 PM

2. Of course, I didn’t say my brain’s map of Toronto was “correct” or even in agreement with my experience. Before moving to the West end, Roncesvalles and High Park felt like the outer reaches of the universe, while the Danforth felt comfortably close to home (we considered moving there several times). All of which makes the City’s boundaries in my mind’s eye even more curious. When driving, Toronto feels walled in by the 427, the Don Valley Parkway, the Gardiner and the 401, yet when traveling by Subway-those highways don’t exist. I have stranger black-outs at Queen and Dufferin or Dovercourt, intersections I go by every other day but for some reason, just fail to stick in my head. For years, my Toronto was confined to within the “U” of the Spadina and Yonge Subway lines. I’m hoping the longer I live here, the fewer gray-blocks I’ll have.

   Posted by Peter  on  01/03  at  12:00 PM

3. This is exactly the motivation i had to start walking when i moved here 6 years ago—my mental map—my psychogeographic map—of toronto had loads of blank, grey, dark areas and it made me uncomfortable. Been filling them in ever since. TTC rides, sometimes drives, mostly walks. Toronto’s LA sized sprawl means we have lots of fodder for exploring for years to come.

   Posted by Shawn Micallef  on  01/03  at  02:37 PM

4. I lived in Toronto for most of my life and for me, most of the grey areas of Toronto are in the west. When I was a teenager, I would drive my car from the outer reaches of Scarborough down into the core and just explore. I loved trying to get lost so I could discover some new area of town.

   When I bought my first house there was no doubt I was going to live in the city (rather than the suburbs). Riding my bike (both for pleasure and as a courier), taking the TTC, walking, driving my scooter… all added to filling in my mental picture of Toronto.

   Last August I moved to Singapore and have had to start the whole process all over again. I wrote a bit about it here: http://singaporecharlatan.blogspot.com/2006/09/mapping-space.html

   What always astounds me is that there are people who are not interested in exploring their cities. How can you not be interested in the place you live in? To me those greyed out areas are like little potholes just desperate to be filled in…

   Posted by  on  01/03  at  09:03 PM

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