Ontario wins big in ranking of best place to live in Canada
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The best weather? Summerland, BC. The best place to retire is...Toronto
CBC News · Posted: Aug 12, 2019 3:18 PM ET | Last Updated: August 13, 2019
Burlington, Ont., has topped a Maclean's magazine ranking of the best places to live in Canada. (Kate Bueckert/CBC)
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It's near Hamilton and Niagara, it has natural areas, and a highway runs through it so people can zip to Toronto. And those are all part of what earned Burlington, Ont., the No. 1 spot in Maclean's magazine's inaugural "best communities in Canada" list.
The magazine came out with its first-ever ranking this month. Editor Claire Brownell ranked 415 communities on factors such as hospital wait times, access to a doctor, crime and taxes. She ranked them in terms of best place to retire (Toronto?), best weather (the aptly named Summerland, B.C.), most affordable homes (Salmon Arm, B.C., near Kamloops) and best place to raise a family (also Burlington).
Here are the top 10:
- Burlington, Ont.
- Grimsby, Ont.
- Ottawa, Ont.
- Oakville, Ont.
- New Tecumseth, Ont.
- Salmon Arm, BC.
- Brant, Ont.
- Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
- Russell, Ont.
- Tecumseh, Ont.
CBC News asked Brownell about the rankings. Here's what she had to say.
What information did you use to figure out which communities in Canada are the best?
We know there are lots of intangible factors that go into deciding where you want to live. Where your friends and family live, does it have a view of the water, that sort of thing. But there are also lots of things that you can measure, and we tried to think about as many of those things as we could.
We gathered data in 10 different categories. We gathered data on employment rates and incomes, housing affordability, the weather and crime. We even looked at the percentage of artists in various communities. We assigned each category a weight based on what would we thought would be the most important to the average person. Then we compiled the list that you see.
Why is Burlington No. 1?
Burlington did really well across a broad range of categories, which is what you need to get ot the top of the list. So in six of the 10 categories, it was in the top 25 per cent.
Burlington has benefited from its hybrid location. It's part of the GTA with lots of people commuting to Toronto. It's also part of the Hamilton-Niagara economic region, so it benefited from the strong labour statistics there. That area is doing really well. People, I think, are cashing in their expensive homes in Toronto and the GTA and are moving farther west to Hamilton and Niagara. That's reflected in job numbers and population growth, and that's why it's doing well.