Toronto shut out of Top 10 in best cities ranking

Toronto was shut out of the Top 10 spots in MoneySense magazine’s best places to live in Canada.

In fact, thanks to the city’s unemployment record and high cost of living, it was shut out of the top 31 spots.

Toronto dropped four spots in the last year. This year the city came in at No. 32 overall, compared to 28th spot in 2013.

“Unemployment rates are slightly higher in the urban centres like Toronto, while incomes and household net worth are high. It’s the affordability that undermines the city,” Mark Brown, the managing editor of MoneySense, said Wednesday.

“Toronto really is suffering from high unemployment this year, around nine per cent, and it’s hard to get into the Top 10 with that kind of unemployment score,” MoneySense deputy editor Sarah Efron added.

The magazine looks at factors that contribute to the quality of life in 201 cities and communities across Canada, including employment, housing prices, crime, weather and household income.

MoneySense says the prominent trend in rankings show nearly half of the top 20 cities are in Western Canada and it was two cities in Alberta that were named the best places to live in Canada.

St. Albert earned the top spot — for the first time in the magazine’s Best Places to Live in Canada ranking — followed by Calgary. St. Albert was ranked No. 2 in 2013.

“It was a bit of a race in Alberta for the top spot — Calgary continues to do well,” Efron said.

With respect to St. Albert, which has a population of 64,000, Efron said “it’s a bit of a surprise…do you even know that community? A lot of people have never heard of it.”

“It’s a very affluent community…a very family-friendly place to live.”

Located on the fringe of Edmonton, St. Albert has an unemployment rate near four per cent, with incomes near the top in the country and a low crime rate.

MoneySense also says Alberta has a strong economy and many high-paying jobs.

Elsewhere in Ontario
In Ontario, Burlington and Oakville took the fourth and sixth spots, respectively; while Burlington was named top mid-sized city in Canada.

“Oakville does very well. It’s also on our richest cities list — on the flip side, housing prices are very high,” Efron said.

The latest edition of MoneySense also looks at the best places to raise children, best places for weather, best places for new immigrants and best places to retire.

Read the full story and rankings on MoneySense.ca. The magazine will be on newsstands this week.

Canada’s Best Places to Live 2014 (top 10 out of 201)

  1. St. Albert, Alta.
  2. Calgary
  3. Strathcona County, Alta.
  4. Ottawa
  5. Burlington, Ont.
  6. Boucherville, Que.
  7. Oakville, Ont.
  8. Edmonton
  9. Regina
  10. Quebec City

Top small cities in Canada (top 5 out of 140)

  1. St. Albert, Alta.
  2. Strathcona County, Alta.
  3. Boucherville, Que.
  4. Lacombe, Alta.
  5. Rimouski, Que.

Top mid-sized cities in Canada (top 5 out of 46)

  1. Burlington, Ont.
  2. Oakville, Ont.
  3. Regina
  4. Kingston, Ont.
  5. Lévis, Que.

Top large cities in Canada (top 5 out of 15)

  1. Calgary
  2. Ottawa
  3. Edmonton
  4. Quebec City
  5. Winnipeg

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