Toronto ranked the best city to live in the World

by the Economist.

Here's the article: EIU White Paper



Nice!



I'd just like to follow that up with my favorite Toronto inspired instrumental ... YYZ ...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa0C5Uxpd3c

Cheers

Not surprised about Toronto. Its a beautiful city. Very clean, friendly and nice.

I am surprised New York even made the list at all. Its expensive, dirty and people are not friendly. I know, that because I lived in it my whole life and Im trying to get out of it.

Rob

Proudly lived in No. 19, and No. 21. Great cities.
Currenty living in No. 24 - not too shabby either - besides Big Brother up North being a bit of a control freak

Cheers,
Slug

See, Vancouver used to get up near the top of those
lists, til it resulted in everybody coming here, and
now the house prices are so high we're knocked off
the list entirely. Also surprised to see LA on that
list, but not Seattle or Portland.

It wasn't due to people coming here to Vancouver. It was due to our government's idiotic policy of allowing unrestricted foreign access to the real estate market. Now we've got Chinese money flooding in to buy housing because the Chinese see buying land here as a safe investment as they can get their savings away from the Chinese government and into a tangible asset in a place that still has the Rule of Law. End result? Ridiculously over-priced housing market with absentee landlords so we have high rises in Yaletown that have zero percent occupancy on paper but 75% of the units are empty. Parts of Kerrisdale and Kits that used to have a vibrant, welcoming vibe to them where neighbourhood block parties on summer weekends were the norm are now practically ghost towns as the old character homes are bulldozed in favour of lot filler mega-houses that sit empty. Crime's up out in the eastern part of Metro Van in places like Surrey and PoCo as the working classes find that they're spending more and more of their income on housing, taxes, and transports but the governments don't care. The province is thrilled to have foreign money coming in. The municipalities in MV love the property taxes they get to charge on the inflated land valuations and, in areas like Kerrisdale, they don't have to provide as many services due to the large number of empty dwellings.

They really should put in a rule requiring owners to be residents at least 6 months plus a day each year or require them to open their property up for rental. Never happen though.

DC, Chicago and LA are on the list; therefore it can be safely assumed that the study is botched.

And New York. Man if those are some of the world's best cities then they're all basically Gotham hell holes.

And that's that. Calling this "study" a "comprehensive list" is a little like calling the MLB finals "world series".

Toronto doesn't have the nickname of Fogtown for no reason, and it not because of a certain football game.

I think they just gave the #1 spot to Toronto for having put up with RoFo for 4 years with relative grace

Didn't they include climate in the study?
I would prefer a more warm mediterrain location.

Yeah, really. And what about Scarecrow's brain?



The Jedi Master

exactly, that was my first thoughts... I wouldn't live in any of those cities.

Yeah it looks like the study just focused on the biggest cities for each country and compared them.

Still Toronto and Montreal are two great cities I've never been to but hope to visit sometime, heard nothing but good things about them from people who've been there (other than the Rob Ford circus).

That list is about as meaningless as those "happiest countries in the world" lists that come out from time of time.

Three US Liberal #%&*$# holes that aren't fit to live in...two of the three I wouldn't visit after dark without Kevlar.

I am proud to say I never lived in any of the cities on that list nor have I ever visited them.

Do I get a prize for a perfect score?

You're going to get the thread moved...

The best cities as ranked by British accountants...

Montreal is about the only large Canadian city that's sort of world class, Toronto seems very grey and generic despite having its share of big city amenities.

They must have put them number 1 to make them feel better...............especially LEAF fans!! HAHAHAHAHAHA 8 in a row............losers.

fixed

They be diving faster than a sub doing a crash dive.

World Class in what exactly? Grand Theft Auto?

Toronto Song

First trip to Toronto, I cashed in the free nights stay I got for using Holiday Inn and booked a room at the Crowne Plaza near the station and the Roundhouse Brewery.
When I got there I found they had upgraded my weeks stay to a penthouse suite with a magnificent view over Lake Ontario, not to say the girl friend was chuffed

While we were there the tall ships race was on and we could see them tacking across the lake towards the canal entrance at Port Weller. We went down to Port Weller to see the ships and go on board some of them. Also took a trip up to Niagara Falls on the jet boats again great fun. after that we took our hire car and headed off up north to Timmins to visit the GF's mother Canada Day and it snowed heavily

But I have very fond memories of my time in Toronto, great city, oh and the view through the floor in the CN tower is knee shaking

I'm in Calgary and we didn't even make the list, which surprises me.

I'm shocked Detroit and New Orleans didn't make the list if DC did.

Toronto?!?


REALLY?


I mean... its 'not bad'... but... NUMBER ONE?!?!! IN THE WHOLE WORLD?!!

Look at the criteria:

Entrepreneur:
you'd be better off in Edmonton or Calgary than Toronto, by a wide margin.


Safe City:
Toronto? The shootout capitol of Canada? Uh... SURE! Just about any other city in Canada would be better.

Cost of Living:
Toronto, the MOST expensive in Canada. Is this a joke?! Are we being punked?!

Liveability:
??? Not sure this one isnt overinflated. Does this mean every ethic restaurant does delivery? That there are live plays every weekend? Seems a bit unclear to me.

Food Security:
Toronto?! Toronto beat Calgary and Edmonton?! PLEASE!

"Democracy Index":
I guess they forgot about all the arrests at the G8 summit a few years ago... Were they even aware of the deportation of homeless people to other counties a decade ago?


Toronto ain't bad, but it doesn't even rate as the best in Canada, much less the best in the world!

LA is not a city, or at least it doesn't look like one.

My advice to anyone who wants to visit the United States and see a large city is to skip LA, unless there is a particular event or thing they want to see there, because it doesn't resemble a city at all. Suburban sprawl is a better description. There are things to see and do there, but people with ideas of what it might look like are often mistaken and disappointed when they actually get there. Disneyland is not in LA, it's in one of the less posh areas of Orange County.

As for why people compile the lists they do is going to be subjective, but many of the objections are equally off base. LA gets a lot of flak, but it's still very important commercially and economically to California and the United States, as much as people don't like to admit it- so is New York, so is Chicago. If that is your only regard for your choice in a city, those aren't bad choices (that is, if you can actually make it in those places).

Entrepreneur: Alberta's economy is dependent entirely on petrochemical. No high oil prices = no development. The current situation is emblematic of that. It's just too volatile.

Safe City: As of 2012 Toronto was 10th for firearm related violent crime in Canada (after aforementioned Calgary and Edmonton).

Cost of Living: This part I agree with. The cost of living here is exorbitant, but the Canadian housing market in general is hugely over-inflated.

Liveablility: this is typically a cultural events thing. Is there stuff to do? Hell yes. World class music, theatre, arts, film and food. Plus you're not faced with super harsh winters and the summers are typically pleasant. Lake Ontario provides a recreational haven as well for those seeking a more aquatic lifestyle.

Food Security:
Toronto is encircled by massive expanses of farmland and is adjacent to the Niagara peninsula which in turn supplies a lot of fruit and veg. But by far the best security is the fact that Saskatchewan and Manitoba ship all their good stuff here to be processed at the major food plants in nearby Hamilton.

"Democracy Index": Without getting too political, I agree. However the state of Canadian democracy has been on a downslope for decades now so who knows. I guess the fact we get to vote at all is what counts? (I will also say that polling stations are EVERYWHERE come election time. There's really no difficulty finding where to vote.)


Ultimately as a few have said the whole thing is totally arbitrary. Live wherever you're happiest.

It sure does. It requires you to visit those cities in order to collect it though.

I'll bite. Is there a particular reason someone is proud not to visit Osaka? Tokyo? Taipei? Seoul or Hong Kong? Or is it just 'cities- hate 'em.' That might be someone's particular taste, but to simply react like that if you've never visited them is as misplaced as any set of arbitrary criteria which declares any of them the best.

Agreed with Mechanus. It's the same unreasonable attitude that some people have concerning rural areas and small towns.

Some cities are good for a one time visit. When we plan for a vacation we prefer to go around most or all of them.

Personal taste. (most) Cities, I hate em

I find that aside from different cultural norms and architecture people are the same everywhere you go. If I were to visit Tokyo or Paris it'd be to see the historically significant places, not random people. It's not a pride thing, it's indifference and an aversion to gigantic crowds and the politics, drama, and degeneration of the countryside that come with them. I'm pretty proud not to have been stuck in traffic for long in concrete jungles like New York, Chicago, or DC, but as for Europe and such the limiting factors are money, time, and priorities.

ETA: Haggart brings up another point. I wouldn't mind driving through some cities just once to see the sights, but to live there for years would be exhausting and depressing.

I dunno, the wife and I loved our vacations to NYC, Boston, Berlin, Seattle, SF, etc. Great places to visit for a week or so, just walking around and looking at stuff (and eating).

But visiting and living someplace are two different things. Atlanta is a nice place to visit, but living in the Atlanta area sucked.

The thing about this list is it assumes a certain level of income that isn't typical of the average Joe. Having an opera house and a zillion cultural attractions is great - if one can afford to attend them. DC is a city of two worlds; if one has the means to live where the advantages of the city are close (all those great restaurants and bars) it's wonderful - but most DC residents don't live there; they live in places where the corner store has a bullet proof barrier from counter to ceiling and money is slid through a one way tray.

Indeed, the affluent of DC don't actually live in DC. They live in towns bordering it (ditto Atlanta). The inverse is true for San Francisco, where only the affluent can afford to live in the city and the worker bees all have to commute in to work.

[edit]

The other thing is that Toronto is in Canada. I don't have anything against Canadians or Canada, but I really don't care if they hand out rainbows and BJ's on the street corners - I'm not going to immigrate to a foreign country. I'm sure Canadians think the same way.

I was surprised to see Seoul way down the list. I really liked that city when I lived near there.

Deserved or not, I'm glad to see the city where I was born is considered the best city to live in the World

From everything that I know and been reading, if for some reason Toronto shouldn't be considered the best in this category, it surely deserves to be on the top 10 or even in the top 5 (considering cities with millions of inhabitants of course).

Why are L.A., NY, Chicago, Washington D.C. on that list?

I guess lots of people dont mind driving in terrible traffic, paying high taxes and having an inflated cost of living.

I agree it's very odd.

Worse even: why are Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo on that (top 50) report since they are among the most violent cities in the world? (And traffic isn't probably better than the American cities listed above)

Again, I don't think the article is geared to the average Joe.

Then again, if one is in the Upper Class I think just about any major city would be a good place to live. It's just a function of selectively hiring one's staff.

Ted Turner's experience living in Atlanta is probably vastly different than the one I had.