Shocking because I live in Toronto, also because ‘elegance’ has an undertone of a sense of quality and character which I believe Toronto possesses in heaps, nevertheless, it didn’t make it to that list. Instead, Montreal (ranked 31) and Vancouver (46th) were the only two cities chosen from our great nation.
The ranking was conducted by Zalando, a UK based fashion label based on 3 factors, namely, Fashion, Urban, and Accessibility, and the final list of the World’s Most Elegant Cities was published with a methodology on how the outcome was derived; Paris took the pole position and I certainly vouch for that. What surprised me was that despite having a definite character in the areas of fashion, urban planning, and accessibility factors our city failed to make it to the list. Perhaps the design thinkers and urban planners of our city could scope out the shortcomings and publish a sustainable argument about how Canada’s financial capital missed out on ‘elegance’ whereas Montreal and Vancouver scored above us; I’ve lived in both the cities and they are amazingly elegant in every respect. Though I believe Toronto with its parks, the trails, and the lush waterfront is full of style and culture as well. Speaking of accessibility and the urban architecture it’d be hard to ignore the design of some of the TTC stations and the iconic CN Tower.
Zalando thinks differently about Toronto vis-a-vis elegance than me, but I took to Twitter and marked our mayor John Tory on the outcome.
On the World’s Most Elegant Cities list, only Montreal (31) and Vancouver (46) from Canada. No Toronto. @JohnTory https://t.co/OJGeHZcDrN
— Bhooshan Pandya (@Bhooshan) October 25, 2017
Source: The Most Elegant Cities In The World
