Canada’s Best Places to Live 2011

 

What makes a city or town a great place to live? Can a community’s “livability” be measured? MoneySense believes that, to a certain extent, it can.
Canada’s Best Places to Live 2011 is based on data compiled from 180 Canadian cities and towns with populations over 10,000 people. Cities were rated based on home affordability, climate, prosperity, crime rates, access to health care and lifestyle, with subcategories in each area. Points were also given for the categories of transit, ammenities and culture. These categories are not included in the online list but are included in the full spreadsheet available for download.
Scoring highly on this list is not unlike being a scratch golfer. A community need not be perfect in every category. Being above average in all categories is enough to crack the top 10. Having excellent health-care options and a low unemployment rate will certainly help a city’s chances, but these are cancelled out if it’s too dangerous to walk the streets at night and the air quality is terrible. Consistency is key.
This year, for the second time in a row, our top city was Ottawa with a score of 71.7 points out of a possible 105.