As a Torontonian, I doubt I’m alone in saying that it still feels odd to see the words “Toronto” and “world class” published in the same paragraph. These days it seems that every few months a new survey comes out ranking Toronto at the top of its list. (It wasn’t always this way, was it?)

This past year Toronto was voted #4 on The Economist’s livability scale – ranked out of 140 world class cities – for the fourth year in a row, and #3 on an annual report by PwC.

I suppose it’s normal to get complacent about a city that you live in. Here, you can’t help but get mired in Toronto politics, caught up in the things that need improvement. You focus too intently on who’s to blame. You forget how brilliant and vibrant your city is; how lucky you are to live in Toronto; to have the freedoms to wander around at your leisure and feel relatively safe doing so; to have unlimited access to culture, education, freethinkers, artists, any kind of cuisine from any part of the world; to bike anywhere in the city under an hour tops; to have green spaces and parks to sit and enjoy those delicious little Portuguese custard tarts you love so dearly.

We’ve got it all here in Toronto. I don’t know why I complain about it so often?

Thanks to family friends, Brian & Kathy, for giving us an excuse to experience Toronto through fresh eyes and for reigniting our love affair with our modest world-class hometown. (The next time you visit, we promise we’ll make reservations for dinner ahead of time.)