Plans Announced to Turn Toronto into a “Music City”
Can Toronto brand itself as well as Austin when it comes to music? We’ll see.With apologies to the rest of Canada–including you, Montreal–the centre of the Canadian music industry is in Toronto. It just is. And it has been for a long time.
Sadly, though, like so many other things about the city, it just hasn’t been able to get its act together on certain issues (cf. transit, congestion, waterfront development, bike lanes, mayors). And despite having more musicians than any other city in the country, Toronto has never been able to effectively capitlize on that.
But it may change. Music Canada–the lobby group for record labels–has launched an initiative to brand Toronto as Canada’s music city, similar to what Nashville or Austin has done. The new project, called “4479” (a reference to the city’s latitude and longitude), hopes to set up a dedicated “music office” at City Hall from where they can push all things Toronto and musical.
