It'd be easy being smug about Santa Fe, if it weren't for our socio-economic imbalance — and even on that count, there are many social, educational and downright sweaty efforts, from the "living wage" movement through Habitat for Humanity to volunteer mentoring programs that allow us to say we're at least giving it the ol' college try to make things better.

Meanwhile, ours is a community continually ranked by national publications as a great place to visit — and, often enough, as a great place to live. But you knew that even before those out-of-town writers said so, ¿qué no?

Well, yesterday, city leaders were trumpeting something else we already knew — but a national organization made it official: Canyon Road, where every Santa Fean should take a stroll whenever he or she wonders if our town is worth the hassles, has been named one of America's 10 top streets.

It's part of the American Planning Association's rankings, which also lists 10 great neighborhoods.

The other leading streets, in the planners' view, are Bull Street in Savannah, Ga.; Delmar Loop in St. Louis; Main Street, Northampton, Mass.; Monument Avenue, Richmond, Va.; Ocean Drive, Miami Beach; 125th Street in New York, St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, and South Temple Street in Salt Lake City.

That's very nice company; city planners tend to know their papas about such things. For example, their choice of outstanding neighborhoods includes Chatham Village in Pittsburgh; Eastern Market in Washington, D.C.; Elmwood Village in Buffalo, New York, First Addition in the Lake Oswego area of Portland, Ore.; Hillcrest in San Diego; North Beach, San Francisco; Old West Austin, Texas, Pike Place Market in Seattle and West Urbana, Ill.

In making these designations, the planning association to a great degree is congratulating itself: The association's Great Places program highlights the role planners and the planning process play in building communities of lasting value.

The honored neighborhoods and streets were chosen for several characteristics, especially good design, functionality, sustainability, and community involvement.

Canyon Road was deemed a "Great Street" for Santa Fe's creative planning, zoning and historic-design programs that have preserved, and nurtured, Santa Fe's "culturally rich artistic community."

A great step toward achieving that was the city's adoption of the Historic Style Ordinance 50 years ago. What a nice golden-anniversary recognition!

Historic preservation, difficult as it is, and irksome as it sometimes can be, is Santa Fe's bread and butter: It makes ours the town everyone wants to see, so tourism tends to flourish here.

For that, we can thank many: John Gaw Meem, Irene von Horvath, Oliver LaFarge, Sam Montoya, and the others who helped write the historic-design laws, then those who've served on the Historic Design Review Board, often bucking big interests while coming down, even erring occasionally, on the side of preservation.

Yesterday at El Zaguán, ceremonies were held for the planning-association announcement. They also unofficially honored today's historic-preservation advocates — and, of course, those who've gone before.