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Ottawa reclaims top spot in MoneySense's 5th annual "Canada's Best Places to Live"

I wasn't attacking the bus network in Toronto. I love buses, just give them their own reserved lanes so that they can drive faster. I was just criticizing the boneheaded decision to replace overcrowded buses along congested corridors with overcrowded light-rail trams along congested corridors, whilst masquerading it off as something it is not. Its placing the same people into a different vehicle type yet offering no real time advantage. Comparatively, I can from Rogue Hill GO to the CBD in under a half hour. It takes 1 hour and 45 minutes aboard the 54 Lawrence East bus just to get from that same GO station to Yonge Street. So assuming suburban commuters to the CBD/downtown core can afford to live within a 2 kilometrer radius of a GO station, looks like they may have it a little better off than a lot of city-dwellers.
 
I find it really curious Markham is rated so low, what's the reason? How does it differ much from it's 905 neighbors? If anything it has a lot more employment, so you'd think that would help - and homes aren't that expensive there ... although it does have pricey areas. Maybe it's because it doesn't have many *cheap* raeaches? But going by that Toronto should rate high as small parts of Scarborough / North York / Etobicoke (i.e. 416) probably have some the cheapest housing in the inner 905.
 
I'd be interested to see the methodology, but it's apparent that transit means nothing in this list, so why debate transit over it?
 
^^ I agree. Perhaps we should instead argue about how this report really gives no good indicator about how good a place is to live.
 
The indicators are all on the website if anyone would bother to look. These are all the categories MoneySense used to rank the cities:

Prosperity
Average household income
Household discretionary income
New cars
Unemployment
Provincial income tax¹
Provincial sales tax¹

Housing
Average house price
Time to buy a house¹

Lifestyle
Walk or bike to work
Population growth
College
University
Transit (wanna eat your words, kettal?)
Culture

Crime
Crime rate
Violent crime rate
Crime severity rate

Health
Doctors (per 1,000)
Health professionals

Weather
 
The fact that nine out of the top 10 cities/towns have no real rapid transit system - and the one that does had a 51-day transit strike last year, something that could never happen in a city that actually relies on transit - sure does indicate transit was an important factor in these rankings.
 
Fresh Start said:
The indicators are all on the website if anyone would bother to look. These are all the categories MoneySense used to rank the cities:

Prosperity
Average household income
Household discretionary income
New cars
Unemployment
Provincial income tax¹
Provincial sales tax¹

Housing
Average house price
Time to buy a house¹

Lifestyle
Walk or bike to work
Population growth
College
University
Transit (wanna eat your words, kettal?)
Culture

Crime
Crime rate
Violent crime rate
Crime severity rate

Health
Doctors (per 1,000)
Health professionals

Weather
Click to expand...

Okay Fresh Start, it's pretty clear the weighting given to 'lifestyle' was dismal at best.

Now here's my question ... I saw the specifics, but please enlighnt me how Markham and Vaughn and Richmondhill are so vastly apart in the rankings ... they all have seemingly similar house prices (Vaughn's cheaper I'm sure, but not much), pretty much every other catagory should be close to idental ... I think Markham may have an edge in Unemployment and I think population growth is again similar.
 
Oh my God! Oh dear! What does this mean? They must be wrong! Who the hell do they think they are???

Typical Toronto anal-retentive reactions for 500, Alex.
 
GraphicMatt said:
The fact that nine out of the top 10 cities/towns have no real rapid transit system - and the one that does had a 51-day transit strike last year, something that could never happen in a city that actually relies on transit - sure does indicate transit was an important factor in these rankings.
Click to expand...

I cannot believe I'm letting myself get trolled by you, but if transit was a non-factor in this listing as was claimed it wouldn't have been mentioned at all. Remember this is an economics magazine, not Toronto Life. Yes Toronto has a lot of glitzy nightlife and "art", but it means little if it's out of the average person's price range to afford a night out on the town. That's the reality for millions here in the GTA. For most going to the mall, High Park or the movies is their big thrill. Millions lose millions of dollars per day in lost productivity due to long commutes, even if going just from Rexdale or east Scarborough to the subway.

But bus-oriented transit networks such as in those Top 10 cities, whereby most routes congregate at a central hub (usually a train station, shopping centre or central business district) can allow for one to take their local bus into the terminal, then onto another to work and back again. It might sound barbaric to you, but that's how 90% of the country functions. Just because other places don't have streetcars and subways doesn't mean more people wouldn't switch to public transit usage if given the opportunity to. Lack of frequent service is the biggest drawback.
 
The percentage of people who take transit in all those Top 10 cities (except Ottawa, but even then...) is pathetically low.

Millions of people do not lose millions of dollars per day due to long commutes in the GTA.

High cost of living is an issue, but it's common to all major cities - which is probably why they all scored so low.
 
SimonP said:
More accurate measures of quality of life are the international rankings. The Economist has Toronto in 4th in the world while Mercer's puts Toronto in 15th. Both have Toronto as the 2nd highest ranked city in North America after only Vancouver.
Click to expand...

One of the reasons for the different placings is the definition of Toronto. Economist, Mercer, etc. all use GTA data. On other words, by referring to Toronto they are referring to the GTA. MoneySense uses municipal definitions so Toronto is Toronto proper. Unemployment, income disparity, crime rates, poverty, growth, culture attractions, are vastly different between the different members of the GTA.
 
SimonP said:
These rankings seem to mostly be based on cheap housing costs. What it misses, is that places like Moncton, Repentigny, Levis, and Winnipeg, Brandon have cheap housing because not many people chose to live there. Low demand = low price.
Click to expand...

Moncton is growing faster than Ottawa or Vancouver. It's one of the ten fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country.
 
The last time I remember visiting Moncton was in August last year, and there were s___load of constructions throughout the city. TC-2 widening, rise of suburban neighbourhoods near Wheeler Blvd, industrial areas expanding within & out of Moncton border and growing number of accommodations. BTW, there is an already downtown developments as good as Port Credit (as opposed to my assumption that it would look close to nothing more than VCC look-alike before the visit). Not much down around Hali or Fredericton though as opposed to Moncton. Truly it appears to grow at a pace of Mississauga's.
 
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