Where Are You Toronto?

Moneysense Magazine recently came out with a ranking of the most liveable Canadian cities. The top 25 list features such places in Ontario as Ottawa, Guelph, London, North Bay, Burlington and even Newmarket. Suspicously absent from the the top 25 though was Toronto.

As I peered down the list I saw Toronto was nowhere to be found. Not in the the top 35, or top 50 not even in the top 80. Out of 108 cities Toronto ranks a sad and surprising 108!

Items that are being evaluated here include: weather, household income, new cars on road, population growth, low crime, affordable housing, discretionary income, job prospects, access to health care and walking or biking to work.


To be brutally honest, I was quite shocked we ranked so low. Maybe I was a bit over zealous to think we would be in the top 25 but at least the top 50. Toronto is nowhere near the perfect place to live of course but there are many benefits of being a “Torontonian”. The weather can be cold in the winter, rainy in the spring and of course humid in the summer, but for the most part the weather is not as bad other places. Yes crime is higher than many other smaller cities, but at the same point Toronto is not a hub of crime either. It could be much worse! Toronto is a very accessible city to health care having many fabulous hospitals at a hop, skip jump away as well as many doctors in different trained practices. Yes there is a vast amount of unemployment but there is job growth as well. All in all, yes there is more that can be desired from Toronto but it is not a bottom dwellar type of city either.

So what does this all mean for us? What does this all mean for Toronto? It means that this popular magazine and its popular article will be read by a large quotient of Canadians, and many might get the idea that Toronto is not a liveable city. For most though, people will shrug it off. To be brutally honest rankings like this are enjoyable reads, but how fully accurate are they?

What I found increasingly interesting was another notable low ranked city—Vancouver. Vancouver like Toronto is a huge Canadian hub. Vancouver was the host city for 2010’s Winter Olympics and saw tourism reach record highs, yet one year later it is way down the list (albeit better than Toronto!) Peculiar!

Further in Toronto, the magazine has even gone further to delve into more ratings: Value (C-), Momentum (C+), Economy (B) and overall (C). Now this is a little more encouraging (Okay, maybe not when compared to Moncton, New Brunswick that respecively got an A+, A, B and an A overall!)

So Toronto love it or loathe it Toronto may not be viewed as the most liveable city, but it is home sweet home.

Toronto 88 out of 108, what do you think?