We launched Canada’s Most Livable Cities last year with the goal of helping readers identify communities where they could thrive. With so much emphasis placed on the cost of real estate, we wanted to consider other factors that define a city, from the weather, to amenities, to the local economy. The big question we want to help Canadians answer: Even if you can afford to live in a city, would you want to?
Since we unveiled our initial ranking, readers have reached out to let us know what we got right and, perhaps more importantly, what was missing from our first attempt. In addition, we posted an online survey on The Globe and Mail’s website asking for feedback – and more than 300 of you shared your thoughts. We took that feedback into consideration in planning the second annual ranking.
One of the most frequent criticisms of our initial ranking was it failed to consider the effect that climate change might have on a city’s long-term livability. To address this, we used data from Environment and Climate Change Canada to evaluate not only a city’s current weather but also what conditions will be like over the next 25 years. How many extremely hot or cold days will the city have, and how much annual precipitation will there be?
Climate wasn’t the only new variable. We also added new considerations such as the availability of museums and galleries – a popular request in the survey responses.
In total, we evaluated 448 communities based on 50 variables, which spanned 10 categories such as Transportation, Amenities and, yes, Housing. We tweaked the importance of various categories based on what our readers told us. People care more about a community’s amenities and less about education than we had originally thought. We adjusted accordingly.
We weighted and averaged the scores to find a composite score for each city. No community is perfect – our top-ranked city this year, North Vancouver, received a near-bottom score for Housing. But the ranking offers a holistic view of the strengths of each community’s overall livability.
The primary purpose of our rankings is to help Canadians identify communities where they can flourish based on their own circumstances. With the help of our interactive tool, you can prioritize the attributes you value most as well, tailoring the ranking to your needs.
Just like last year, we have also created subrankings tailored to life stages. Whether you’re graduating from college, starting a family or business, navigating midlife changes, embracing retirement or embarking on a new chapter in a new country, we can help you find the most livable city for you.
Explore our list of the 100 most livable cities below. You can personalize the ranking to view the top 20 cities per region, select features most important to you or search for any city out of the 448 we included in our analysis to view its unique profile. You can also see how many places each city has moved [↑↓] compared to last year’s ranking.
Select a region to view its ranking:
Select features most important to you to increase its weighting in the ranking:
Our methodology
When people are considering relocating to a new city, there are many factors worth considering. It’s a highly personal decision, but a ranking with the livability of a city at the centre can help provide some guidance.
This year, The Globe and Mail’s second annual Most Livable Cities ranking included 448 cities across the country, each with a population exceeding 10,000. The ranking was enhanced by a survey sent to readers, asking for insights on what matters most to them when choosing a place to live and how improvements can be made to our rankings.
Our evaluation involved an analysis of 50 variables, which spanned 10 categories that we’ve identified as particularly crucial when an individual contemplates relocating to a new area. These categories are Economy, Housing, Demographics, Health Care, Safety, Education, Community, Amenities, Transportation and Climate. This included new variables, such as the density of museums and galleries – a popular request in the survey responses – and projected climate metrics, adding more forward-looking elements to the ranking.