2012 Best Places To Live In Canada

[undercoverbrother]

i just moved from Calgary to Sylvan and I don't miss Calgary at all. well i miss going to flames games, but now i can go see the Admirals or Generals. i do miss my circle of friends, but that's it. this is my first experience living in a small town and i love it.

[Regular_John]

I grew up in Brandon, MB. While it has a number of nice qualities such as walkability, home prices & basic amenities it severely lacks in one key area, career opportunities.

While you can get an education in Brandon the basic career options are the maple leaf plant, the call centre or the hospital. Other than that it's basic service industry work and even starting your own business up & supporting yourself is a long shot.

For the established worker in their mid 30's or so it's not a bad place to settle at all if an opportunity arrises. But for a young person trying to establish themselves in the work force? Forget it, the opportunities are just not there.

[Bill Bumface]

I agree this list is garbage, but I think a lot of people read "Kelowna" and think "Oh, there's a beach there! How nice!" and don't realize what a scuzzy poophole it actually is. Just go to Kelowna in winter and it's immediately apparent.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

i just moved from Calgary to Sylvan and I don't miss Calgary at all. well i miss going to flames games, but now i can go see the Admirals or Generals. i do miss my circle of friends, but that's it. this is my first experience living in a small town and i love it.

You may be in the honeymoon stage. Put a few years of small-town life under your belt then tell us how great it is.

[shermanator]

Are we still better than East St. Louis?

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Sliver

You may be in the honeymoon stage. Put a few years of small-town life under your belt then tell us how great it is.

you might be right, but much like every thing else i reckon it will have it's plueses and minuses, i might just love it.

i have loved in big cities my whole life, and todate there is nothing i miss

[Ruttiger]

Originally Posted by Sliver

You may be in the honeymoon stage. Put a few years of small-town life under your belt then tell us how great it is.

And those of us that have spent large parts of our lives living in small towns as well as Calgary, and can't wait to get back to a smaller centre? Be careful you're not projecting your version of what's best onto the rest of us - everyone has their own criteria. And frankly, while I enjoy certain things that come with living in Calgary, I would downsize in a heartbeat if the timing was right and wouldn't look back.

[Mass_nerder]

Nice, I moved up from Calgary at 14, to Halifax at 4.
And people laughed and said I was moving in the wrong direction!

[cmyden]

Took their spreadsheet data and made my own conclusions.

Removed:

New Cars (didn't care), Population Growth (didn't care), Weather (seems way off) and Culture (too ambiguous and seems way, way off)

Adjusted:

Everything else that remains gets an equal weighting...

Walk/Bike, Housing, Income, Discretionary, Crime, Doctors, Jobless

These factors seem to have less ambiguity to me, and there's probably some actual decent stats available for them.

Result:

Top 15 places to live:

1. Canmore, AB
2. Ottawa, ON
3. Kingston, ON
4. Calgary, AB
5. Strathcona County,
6. Saanich, BC
7. Lacombe, AB
8. High River, AB
9. Burlington, ON
10. Yellowknife, NT
11. Edmonton, AB
12. Stratford, ON
13. St. Albert, AB
14. Strathmore, AB
15. Halifax, NS

And no I didn't play around with the data until Calgary moved up Just used the data I felt was less ambiguous and then gave them all equal weighting.

spreadsheet: http://www.2shared.com/document/XM9V...live_2012.html

[darklord700]

Originally Posted by Mass_nerder

Nice, I moved up from Calgary at 14, to Halifax at 4.
And people laughed and said I was moving in the wrong direction!

You moved in the right the direction that favors alcohol consumption.

[Diesen]

Funny, I don't see Airdrie on the list.

[Save Us Sutter]

Wait... Yellowknife is number 1 in discretionary income? Really? A loaf of bread is like 8 bucks. How much are these people making?

[Nuje]

Havinig lived in Winnipeg, I have to say anybody calling it a better place to live than Calgary is out to lunch. Now that Winnipeg has the NHL....Edmonton's advantage over Winnipeg is being closer to Calgary, and bigger. Being from Winnipeg, I'd prefer that just because I know places to go, and places to avoid. This list is idiotic.

[lifetimefan]

Regina, the city that smells like it sounds. No way I'd ever live there.

[darklord700]

Problems with survey like this is people don't put equal values across all the criteria. I think most people would weight income to be a much important criterion than bike paths. But the survey weight them the same. Even if you are a bike freak, you probably would still want to have higher income than longer bike path.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by darklord700

http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulli...bility_ranking

The Economist knows better. They rank Calgary the 5th best livable city in the world!

Personally, I think any list that puts Vancouver at #1 is also deeply flawed. Sure it's pretty to visit, but the place is bitterly expensive and doesn't really have much of an economy. How exactly is the average person supposed to enjoy that scenery when they can barely afford to live there?

I know people here poo-poo anything from the east, but I think Toronto is much more deserving of such a title.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by lifetimefan

Regina, the city that smells like it sounds. No way I'd ever live there.

you might have you nose in the wrong places.....

[likwid888]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

According to the rankings, Winnipeg has better weather than Kelowna. That's hilarious.

I'm guessing they take yearly, disastrous forest fires that threaten to destroy the city into consideration.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

i just moved from Calgary to Sylvan and I don't miss Calgary at all. well i miss going to flames games, but now i can go see the Admirals or Generals. i do miss my circle of friends, but that's it. this is my first experience living in a small town and i love it.

It won't last. You will be back in Calgary in due time. The only people that I know that can handle living their lives in small towns are people born and raised in them.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

It won't last. You will be back in Calgary in due time. The only people that I know that can handle living their lives in small towns are people born and raised in them.

ok, thanks for that....