There’s nothing like a list of rankings in which Toronto has a stake to start the twaddle rolling in the Queen City. After the Englishmen at the Economist magazine ranked English-speaking cities first, third, fourth (Toronto) and fifth among 140 livable cities, the experts were un-caged to comment. In Toronto the tedious Christopher Hume was moaning about everything from transit to affordability to the apparently multiplying number of “priority neighborhoods” Okay, but do people who live in such places even know they are cast in this unsavoury light? The Anglo prejudices of those chappies at the Economist notwithstanding, Toronto is a nice place because of the people who founded it, and whose polite and tolerant culture prevails for the most part to this day. All are welcome and somehow those who came later really get that, because they like it here. It’s common knowledge in the affluent realms of Beijing that you send your precious sons and daughters to Toronto not Chicago. Perhaps it is a low blow to point out that Damascus (for heavens sake) was last on the list and Mogadishu somehow or other got left out. Hey, we didn’t compile the list. Previous post
