Dr. Richard Florida

"...What I love about Toronto is its 'messy urbanism' - high-rise condos next to ramshackled Victorians, luxury boutiques next to mom-and-pop shops, sylvan streets that run smack into highly trafficked commercial routes, stunning ravines that cut through dense urban neighborhoods, bike commuters sharing the road with street cars, buses, and luxury sedans". p.168

Dr. Richard Florida upon moving to Toronto:

"...my wife and I were looking for a house in Toronto last spring (2007). Noting the high prices in Toronto's inner-ring residential neighborhoods (significantly higher than northwest Washington, D.C. , where we were coming from), I asked our real estate agent what was driving this. She replied without missing a beat: "Foreign buyers, not Americans, mainly Russians, are taking virtually all the properties at the high end of the market (luxury housing market)." p.133 

"Toronto, where we live now, is an amazing places for families with children. Our neighborhood is a mile and half from the university (Univeristy of Toronto) and less than two miles from the downtown core. It has great public as well as private schools, and is filled with families with children. The suburbs versus the city tradeoff does not really exist here." p. 258

Excerpts from Dr. Richard Florida's book: Who's Your City?

Roger Martin, Dean of Rotman School of Management at the Univeristy of Toronto:

"In Toronto, our youngest has been biking to school since he was 13 years old-and school is about a twenty-minute bike ride along one of the main north-south streets of the city-without inducing even a mild concern. We simply do not worry about their personal safety here." (opinion verus his experience in Wellesley Hills, Boston) p.258

Excerpt from Dr. Richard Florida's book Who's Your City?