Something tells me there are at least a few places in Toronto that would remove some stars from her eyes (although I haven’t seen them yet), and the part about shoveled sidewalks is a flat out lie (!), but there is a lot of truth in this Common Dreams piece on my current place of residence:
How typical is it to go north for a winter vacation unless you are a skier or snowmobiler? Not very typical. Nevertheless, my husband and I “did” Toronto for the holidays and were quite surprised by the quality of life in this metropolitan area of 4.4 million people.
As we walked the neighborhoods and streets, tried out ethnic restaurants and talked to local residents at an evening pot luck, we discovered a whole new world free of distractions from the usual sightseeing repertoire and instead learned something about life in this popular Canadian city that is very appealing.
The most significant impression I had of Toronto is that its people are so civilized.
Imagine that people in the fifth most populated city in North America actually praise themselves for their tolerance of ethnic and racial differences, which are evident everywhere you go.
[…]
As far as I’m concerned, Toronto serves as both a model and an inspiration for cities because it illustrates that what it takes to “make a village” is for the people who live there to summon the political will to determine what urban life can and should be.
It would be an easy decision to go to Toronto to live (barring tough immigration restrictions) or even to move to the many wonderful American cities that offer their residents a good life. However, don’t we owe it to ourselves and our families to invest in our own communities where we are and to make them good places to live?
Read the rest here.
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