Writing the city, at arm's length

Here's a well-meaning but fairly bland thing on writers "mapping" Toronto through their writing. What's notable, aside from all that is missing, is the tone of most of the examples given: detached, passive, chronically amused/bemused, seeing the city's most obvious landmarks through the wrong end of the telescope. Nowhere is the observer immersed in the city, a part of it. A flea on the back of a dog doesn't stop to say, "What strange and wonderous things, these dogs!" or write prose poetry about canine physiology.

More on writing Toronto here.