The following outrage, noted via the Mock Turtle blog (some DRIVEN comments after the fold):

“I got a little excited when I saw this month’s Atlantic Monthly on the newsstand. The suburbs lose. The sun belt fades. Toronto wins. How the crash will reshape America, touts the cover over a nighttime shot of Toronto seen from the lake. A little strange, granted, since Toronto is in Canada and there is no sun belt here, unless you’re talking midnight sun—but, with the author listed as Toronto-based urban affairs guru Richard Florida, it made sense.

“Except… the article doesn’t mention Toronto.”

So, the March 2009 issue of The Atlantic posits a bright enough economic near future for certain urban territories in what we’ll call the Greater America Area, but the truth of the matter is that Toronto does not actually rate beyond the level of being a target market.

Consider that the magazine published four separate covers for this story, subbing the ‘winner’ for different markets—”Toronto wins” for the Canadian edition, “Chicago wins” and “San Francisco wins” for those respective cities, and “New York wins” for every other territory. As Mock Turtle noted, the article itself fails to examine Toronto in any truly applicable context (University of Toronto and Globe and Mail are both referenced).

To make matters worse, Chicago and San Francisco (and, it goes without saying, New York) do get some weighty ink.

To make matters disproportionately disappointing, article author Richard Florida lives and works in Toronto. In fairness to Mr. Florida, it’s highly unlikely that he was in the editorial loop for the multiple covers, so until I hear differently, I’ll cut him some cautious slack.

Speaking of which: I’m tired of apologizing to the rest of Canada for Toronto’s perceived, mostly fairly, ‘New York’-factor. Like Mr. Florida, I live and work in Toronto. And for my part, I’m pretty happy here. I live in an actual neighbourhood, where kids still play road hockey and adults wave hellos. New York—to us, anyhow—is a matter of transportation, not aspiration. (Sorry, bad rhyme.)

I think that The Atlantic owes Toronto an apology on this one. By making us a stand-in for Canada, they’ve made us a sellout. My understanding of selling out, though, is that it’s supposed to be a matter of personal choice…

CN Tower + lightning image by Mathias Rousseau; Side-by-side Atlantic covers from Torontoist blog.