Toronto is in crisis, but Toronto is still a good place to be

As Olivia Chow takes the reins as the first left-wing mayor of Toronto for many a year (in fact, since David Miller, back in 2010), she must be heaving a big sigh at the enormity of the task before her.

It's not just me getting old and ornery (although that is happening too), but it is widely agreed that the city of Toronto is not in a good place right now, partly as a result of feckless hands-off governance by Rob Ford and John Tory, but partly as a result of circumstances outside of anyone's control.

There is a homelessness crisis, an affordability crisis, an opioids crisis, a mental health crisis, a transit crisis, an office vacancy crisis, a violent crime crisis. Stabbings on the subway, syringes in back alleys, makeshift tents festooned around our parks. Hell, there is a crisis crisis. 

There is so much crisis around that it's easy to forget that Toronto actually still has a lot going for it. It's still the 98th most livable city in the world (out of 173) according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. There are still more construction cranes at work in the city than in any other city in North America (more than in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington DC COMBINED). It is building new parks, schools, community centres, and redeveloping the huge Port Lands area. Hundreds of thousands of newcomers continue to stream into the city. The TTC is expanding, albeit excruciatingly slowly, with much-needed subway lines and rapid light transit. Toronto has seen 32 homicides this year, which sounds bad, but compares to over 300 in similarly-sized Chicago.

Hmm. Maybe things are not so bad.