In the 1970s, Toronto (Canada) promoted itself as a cleaner, more livable New York City. Film production went to Toronto (Remember those “New York” scenes in Short Circuit?). It was called the “New York of the North.”
 
From the late 1990s to the present, Glasgow, Scotland has also used “New York of the North.” I once spent a memorable time in Glasgow at a videogame parlour called “the Big Apple.”
   
Other Toronto nicknames include “Big Smoke,” “Broadway North,” “Centre of the Universe,” “Hogtown,” “Hollywood North,” “Little Apple.” “Muddy York,” “New York Run by the Swiss,” “Queen City,” “T-Dot,” “T.O.,” “The Six” and “Toronto the Good.”
 
 
5 September 1978, The Globe and Mail, pg. P8:
Toronto’s big flaw: no big city soul

When, oh, when will people stop trying to create a false image for Toronto? Let us assure you, this New York of the North nonsense, this wildly exaggerated stuff about Toronto’s super-sophisticated and liberated lifestyles, is getting out of hand and ought to be toned down.
 
 
16 November 1984, The Globe and Mail, “Toronto’s unrealistic view from an empty office tower,” by Philip Webb, pg P7:
While some apparently dream of creating a “New York of the North,” others have reacted with predictions of neighborhood destruction, transit overload and the revival of expressway building.
 
 
18 January 1999, The Guardian, pg. 4:
New York of the North.
It’s still flash and brash, but Glasgow yearns to be famous for more than Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the deep-fried Mars bar. Jonathan Glancey reports
 
 
8 May 2000, Toronto Star, pg. GT01:
It appears that with each year of budget slashing, downloading, merging, melding and amalgamating, Toronto has coasted on its reputation as New York of the north: a cleaner, quieter, friendlier version of the cosmopolitan theatre and restaurant centre of North America.
 
 
13 June 2001, Real Estate Weekly, pg. 3:
Calling Toronto “the New York of the north,” officials from the Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance urged participants at a Cushman & Wakefield panel to consider doing business in Canada’s financial capital.
 
 
5 October 2004, Evening Times, pg. 4:
One London Newspaper described Glasgow as the New York of the North.