Scarborough fighting for its good name.

Here's an interesting story making the rounds yesterday. Check it out:

It's huge -- and takes up about one-third of Toronto's land mass. Its borders are Victoria Park Ave. to the west, Rouge River and Pickering townline to the east, Lake Ontario to the south and Steeles Ave. to the north.

First settled in 1796, Scarborough evolved as its own township before joining Metropolitan Toronto in 1953.

It was swallowed by the new City of Toronto in the amalgamation of 1998.

Today about 607,000 people live in the giant suburb, with about 53% of those residents having been born in other countries.

The place has no shortage of celebrity alumni. Its most famous natives include Mike Myers, Jim Carrey, the Barenaked Ladies, Paul Tracy, Eric McCormack, and hockey players Rich Tocchet, Mike Ricci, Chris Stewart, Anson Carter and Kevin Weekess.

But just like Toronto enjoys a list of nicknames including T-dot, Hogtown, and The Big Smoke, Scarborough also has its own informal monickers -- Scarberia, Scarlem and Scartown.

And while some might see those names as affectionate or a badge of honour, others say they're disparaging and offensive.

Councillor Norm Kelly remarked as much yesterday, saying many Scarborough residents take those nicknames personally.

Journalist Don Gillmor, an eight-time National Magazine Award winner, appeared yesterday before the Scarborough Community Council to discuss and debate his profile of Scarborough in the December 2007 issue of Toronto Life.

Entitled "The Curse of Scarborough," and dubbed a "portrait of Toronto's unluckiest suburb," Gillmor's piece set off a wave of condemnation from the infuriated councillors, who in November invited him to appear before the council to discuss Scarborough's "media image."

"The notion that's written by reporters and so on that Scarborough's a bad place, it's a place infested with crime, is inaccurate, and it has to stop".

The councillors took turns lambasting the piece -- which Gillmor defended as fair and accurate.

As someone who grew up in Scarborough I think I am qualified to answer this question. Anything good or bad that is reported about Scarborough, is labelled as in Scarborough. News stories written about other area's in Toronto are different. Jane and Finch is considered a high crime area, but Jane and Finch is a community within the former borough of North York. The point being is that other former boroughs of Toronto have many different communities within them. When something bad happens, those communities become the location of the crime, not North York. Scarborough doesn't have that luxury. Sure there are good parts of Scarborough and there are bad parts, just like any where else in the GTA. But no matter where the crime occurs within Scarborough, it occurs within Scarborough as a whole. And that is why Scarborough has the rep that it does. Don't get me wrong, there are many communities within Scarborough itself, such as Agincourt, West Hill and Wexford to name but a few. But for some reason, it is just never reported that way. Fair or not, that's just the way its been for as long as I can remember.

courtesy of http://www.torontosun.com