ABSTRACT
The city of Toronto provides a good case for the examination of a livable city because in many ways it is a good, positive example of a livable city. The city of Toronto is considered a strong core to the region as it is an inclusive and multicultural city, where the last census data indicated that more than half of the city’s population was born outside of Canada. However, it is far from perfect, as it faces a number of challenges, in some cases the result of poor political decisions, or the lack of decisions, or the lack of funding.
Livable can be defined in terms of how cities score, and the rankings of livable cities by publications and organizations, or it can be ranked by people in terms of the fact that it is a desirable place to live. Toronto, the fourth largest Metropolitan area in North America and one of the fastest growing areas, appears to perform well by both standards. Toronto continually performs well in the livable cities rankings published by organizations such as Mercer (Quality of Living Index) and The Economist (Safe Cities Index). The growth of Toronto and its attractiveness to new immigrants demonstrates that despite rapidly rising housing prices, there is great demand and interest to locate in Toronto.
There are policies in place at the provincial and local levels that support sustainable planning and livability. Provincially, there is the award-winning Growth Plan, Places to Grow, for the Toronto region, Greater Golden Horseshoe, and the Greenbelt Plan that protects greenspace, the Oak Ridges Moraine surrounding Toronto. Locally, municipal land use plans must be consistent with the regional growth plan, and municipal strategic plans have components that support sustainability. There are some local metrics that are used to measure the performance of Toronto. These include the annual Vital Signs report published by the Toronto Foundation that measures Toronto’s performance year over year regarding a number of key policy areas and issues. There is also the Toronto Global Cities Scorecard on Prosperity published by the Toronto Board of Trade that compares Toronto with 24 international cities on key measures of economic performance and livability.
Despite the many aspects of attractiveness and strong economic activity—the region accounts for almost 25% of Canada’s GDP—there are certain groups for whom the city is less livable. This is in evidence in the report about Toronto’s Three Cities that demonstrates the disparity between the rich and poor areas of the city has been growing over the last several census periods. Lower-income households are challenged by the high prices in the housing market as the provision of affordable housing is an important local issue. Also, a number of the lower-income areas have a lower quality of transit service, as investment in public transit over the past 20 years or so has not kept up with the demand and needs.
This chapter discusses the key components that make Toronto livable, some of which may be fairly unique to Toronto, as well as the challenges it faces to make the livability more inclusive for all of its residents.
