» Go North, Young Man!
The Canadian edition of Who’s Your City? is finally out. Richard Florida has published rankings of the top Canadian cities for a few broad cohorts. But the territorial capitals (can Iqaluit actually be considered a city?) do so well it makes me think his statistical tools break down in extreme cases. And then there’s the inexplicable high scores of Toronto and Calgary… 
| Young singles | Mid-career | Families | Empty-nesters | Retirees | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Calgary | Ottawa | Ottawa | Toronto | Ottawa |
| 2 | Iqaluit | Calgary | Toronto | Ottawa | Toronto |
| 3 | Ottawa | Whitehorse | Calgary | Calgary | Calgary |
| 4 | Victoria | Yellowknife | Fredericton | Victoria | Victoria |
| 5 | Yellowknife | Iqaluit | Yellowknife | Canmore | Montréal |
| … | |||||
| 8 | Victoria | ||||
Anyway, I’m going to go see if one of the 295 single women under 30 in Iqaluit strikes my fancy…
Where is Victoria for Families? It is zero?
Jack
24 Apr 09 at 6:21 pm
The more I think about those rankings the more they weird me out. Isn’t the whole point of Toronto “mid-career” people? Who else works at all those banks — they’re not all CEOs. Or is it just failing at supporting them?
Jack
24 Apr 09 at 11:45 pm
Don
25 Apr 09 at 4:59 am
I think the analysis he’s using for these is very different from his creative class analysis. But I haven’t read the book and no reviews I’ve read have mentioned any methodology.
I can only speculate on what’s wrong with Toronto. But it’s obvious that Victoria sucks for young families because they’re the only people who have reason to own a detached home and they can’t afford to in Victoria.
Jared
25 Apr 09 at 2:36 pm
Victoria has been a site of spiritual pilgrimage and ritual for thousands of years. Dead cults worshiped here long before the rise of the Son of Man. The Gorgelands are liminal, the harbor’s bidirectional waterfall revered in the past as the balancing point of the whole world.
Ley line intersections pull in pagans and witches from the surrounding area (we’re the occult capital of Canada). Their thelemic manipulations of the power inherent in the land thin the membrane sealing off the Orbis Alia everywhere else.
Tír na nÓg and Tír na mBeo intersect here, at least on the high feast days. That’s why Alex came here for the season of Rebirth, and why I was able to be reborn in him. The eye of the mind was shut, and now it is open.
Next Samhain I’ll mix a potion and conduct a ritual for everyone curious that’ll work as a proof-by-example. The truth is inaudible, but not invisible, and no one interested would be prepared before Beltane or Lammas.
From Wikipedia:
Consider the invitation extended, Don
In short: Victoria is for children and the dying because it’s the closest place on Earth to their source, or to their destination. That proximity comforts people suffering psychic whiplash — birth and death are stressful.
Florida’s statistics can’t measure the quality I’m talking about, a quality which is self-evident to everyone here even if they call it by some other name. He might as well try to objectively quantify the qualia of orange. Orange has the quale of orangeness, Victoria has the quale of Victorian-ness.
The city appears Apollonian, being one of the fourteen seats of temporal power, but to the initiated its hidden Dionysian side is in rare, perfect balance.
Victoria is magick.
Jack
26 Apr 09 at 12:46 pm
[...] Fleshbot just re… »Don on The Clock is Ticking, Sisters and Brothers »Jack on Go North, Young Man!Victoria has been a site of spiritual pilgrimage a… »Jack on The Dreamer Has AwakenedI think [...]
Victoria Must Burn | MentalPolyphonics
28 Apr 09 at 7:56 pm