One of the many reasons I'm so down on Toronto is just how oppressively hot it can get. I've lived in some hot places (Los Angeles, Southern Spain, Vanuatu, Cuba, the Dominican, Melbourne...), but Toronto, in my opinion, is the hottest. I don't care what the number on the thermometer reads — I care how I feel. How I sweat. What a slog it is to get from place to place as a pedestrian — and, to me, there is no worse place than Toronto in the summer. (It also has the worst traffic, but that's another post.)
Anyway, there's a great long-form piece by Sam Bloch in Places Journal about Shade.
