Canada’s major cities typically score highly in “best city” rankings. Vancouver is frequently named among the principales villes dans le monde à vivre, et Toronto also ranks high on many “best of” scales.

Mais la récente Scorecard sur la prospérité Rapport, compiled by the Toronto Board of Trade (the city’s chamber of commerce), reached a different conclusion: basé sur compétitivité économique as well as overall quality of life, l' “meilleure ville sur la planète” est…Calgary.

Pourquoi Calgary? The report noted that:

Calgary’s blistering economy over the past five years may have powered it to the top, mais its overall favourable environment provides a solid basis for attracting and keeping people. Dans le domaine de l'économie seule, Calgary gagne sept grades "A", coming in as the top performer in five indicators: employment growth, la croissance des revenus, unemployment rate, non-residential building permit growth et indice du revenu total (TTI). On measures of Labour Attractiveness, La force de Calgary vient de son low incidence of low-income population, low homicide rate et, somewhat surprisingly, its relative housing affordability.

Classement juste derrière Calgary étaient Dallas et à Hong Kong, à #2 et #3, respectivement. Fourth-place was a four-way tie between Toronto, Boston, Londres, et à New York. Emballage en place le haut 10 étaient de Vancouver et à Seattle (à égalité #8) et Québec à #10.

Cependant, the data for this report was compiled when the economy was still flying high, leading the authors to conclude that “Calgary’s continued domination is currently under threat, as weaker energy prices and tighter credit conditions have slowed oil and gas activity in the province of Alberta.”

L' full report is available as a PDF file or in an abbreviated online presentation version.

Photo © Carolyn B. Vrai démon