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Calgary tops list of Canadian cities
Research organization warns ability of urban centres to attract 'best and brightest' may be in jeopardy
CAROLINE ALPHONSO
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
December 12, 2007 at 5:00 AM EST
TORONTO — The lure of a red-hot economy has attracted thousands to Calgary and made it the most attractive city in Canada, a new study concludes.
Toronto and Vancouver finished second and third, respectively, in the Conference Board of Canada report to be released this morning. It ranks the country's large metropolitan areas for the first time based on economy, health, society, housing, environment, innovation and education.
Alongside the ranking, the report issues a stark warning: Cash-strapped cities need more money from Ottawa and provincial governments or they will fail in the global competition to attract talent.
"Cities without the ability to act as magnets and attract new people will struggle to stay prosperous," says the report, titled City Magnets: Benchmarking the Attractiveness of Canada's CMAs [census metropolitan areas].
To rank Canada's 27 cities with a population over 100,000 (based on the 2001 census), the board compiled data for each of the seven categories, and assigned explicit weights to each. Under health, for example, it looked at the number of doctors per 100,000 people.
Calgary earned an A or B grade across all seven categories. Even in housing, it received an A because high incomes mean homeowners have fewer affordability problems than those in Vancouver and Toronto, the board found.
The Conference Board also compared Canadian cities to 27 in the United States, again using the seven categories. Cities from all regions of the United States were analyzed, but there was a particular interest in border cities and those with economic ties to Canada. Calgary finished third behind Washington and Austin, Tex., in this aggregate ranking. No other Canadian city ranked in the top 10.
Some of the weakest performers among Canadian cities were in Ontario and Quebec, where a struggling manufacturing sector has caused economic headaches. Thunder Bay, hit hard by no employment growth and very low income growth, ranked at the bottom of the list.
The report called on federal and provincial governments to help cities such as Thunder Bay and Windsor, Ont., recover from a manufacturing downturn. Vancouver, too, needs help addressing its housing needs, especially because the average homeowner devotes 42 per cent of his or her income to mortgage payments - twice as much as the average Calgarian, the board said.
Anne Golden, the board's president and chief executive, said in an interview yesterday that cities don't have the resources to address the economic challenges and social responsibilities facing them.
The credentials of highly educated immigrants are not being recognized, and their failure to achieve earning parity with their Canadian-born colleagues is "a collective failure of business and all levels of government, not the cities' alone," the report states.
Ms. Golden said Canadian cities are competing with others around the world for talent to address a looming labour shortage.
"Our cities have to be able to attract the best and brightest from around the world," she said. "You're seeing cities struggling. You're seeing cities underinfrastructured and underperforming. It is cities competing against cities in a global economy right now."
City rankings
Rankings of metropolitan areas and overall grades from the Conference Board of Canada. The board compares the performance of 27 Canadian cities in seven different categories: economy, innovation, environment, education, health, society and housing. It also then compared Canadian cities with U.S. cities.
Canadian cities
Rank City Grade
1 Calgary A
2 Toronto A
3 Vancouver A
4 Edmonton A
5 Victoria A
6 Ottawa-Gatineau A
7 Halifax B
8 Oshawa, Ont. B
9 Kitchener, Ont. B
10 Abbotsford, B.C. B
11 Quebec City B
12 Sherbrooke B
13 Saskatoon B
14 Montreal B
15 Hamilton B
16 St. John's B
17 Regina B
18 London, Ont. C
19 Winnipeg C
20 Kingston C
21 Sudbury C
22 Trois-Rivières C
23 Windsor, Ont. C
24 St. Catharines-Niagara C
25 Saguenay, Que. D
26 Saint John D
27 Thunder Bay D
Canadian and U.S. cities
Rank City Grade
1 Washington A
2 Austin, Tex. A
3 Calgary A
4 New York B
5 San Jose, Calif. B
6 Boston B
7 Houston B
8 San Francisco B
9 Denver B
10 Orlando B
11 Edmonton B
12 Dallas B
13 Seattle B
14 Portland, Ore. B
15 Toronto B
16 Vancouver B
17 Atlanta B
18 Ottawa-Gatineau B
19 Minneapolis, Minn. B
20 Nashville B
21 Victoria B
22 San Diego B
23 Columbus B
24 Hartford, Conn. C
25 Chicago C
26 Quebec City C
27 Los Angeles C
Calgary tops list of Canadian cities
Research organization warns ability of urban centres to attract 'best and brightest' may be in jeopardy
CAROLINE ALPHONSO
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
December 12, 2007 at 5:00 AM EST
TORONTO — The lure of a red-hot economy has attracted thousands to Calgary and made it the most attractive city in Canada, a new study concludes.
Toronto and Vancouver finished second and third, respectively, in the Conference Board of Canada report to be released this morning. It ranks the country's large metropolitan areas for the first time based on economy, health, society, housing, environment, innovation and education.
Alongside the ranking, the report issues a stark warning: Cash-strapped cities need more money from Ottawa and provincial governments or they will fail in the global competition to attract talent.
"Cities without the ability to act as magnets and attract new people will struggle to stay prosperous," says the report, titled City Magnets: Benchmarking the Attractiveness of Canada's CMAs [census metropolitan areas].
To rank Canada's 27 cities with a population over 100,000 (based on the 2001 census), the board compiled data for each of the seven categories, and assigned explicit weights to each. Under health, for example, it looked at the number of doctors per 100,000 people.
Calgary earned an A or B grade across all seven categories. Even in housing, it received an A because high incomes mean homeowners have fewer affordability problems than those in Vancouver and Toronto, the board found.
The Conference Board also compared Canadian cities to 27 in the United States, again using the seven categories. Cities from all regions of the United States were analyzed, but there was a particular interest in border cities and those with economic ties to Canada. Calgary finished third behind Washington and Austin, Tex., in this aggregate ranking. No other Canadian city ranked in the top 10.
Some of the weakest performers among Canadian cities were in Ontario and Quebec, where a struggling manufacturing sector has caused economic headaches. Thunder Bay, hit hard by no employment growth and very low income growth, ranked at the bottom of the list.
The report called on federal and provincial governments to help cities such as Thunder Bay and Windsor, Ont., recover from a manufacturing downturn. Vancouver, too, needs help addressing its housing needs, especially because the average homeowner devotes 42 per cent of his or her income to mortgage payments - twice as much as the average Calgarian, the board said.
Anne Golden, the board's president and chief executive, said in an interview yesterday that cities don't have the resources to address the economic challenges and social responsibilities facing them.
The credentials of highly educated immigrants are not being recognized, and their failure to achieve earning parity with their Canadian-born colleagues is "a collective failure of business and all levels of government, not the cities' alone," the report states.
Ms. Golden said Canadian cities are competing with others around the world for talent to address a looming labour shortage.
"Our cities have to be able to attract the best and brightest from around the world," she said. "You're seeing cities struggling. You're seeing cities underinfrastructured and underperforming. It is cities competing against cities in a global economy right now."
City rankings
Rankings of metropolitan areas and overall grades from the Conference Board of Canada. The board compares the performance of 27 Canadian cities in seven different categories: economy, innovation, environment, education, health, society and housing. It also then compared Canadian cities with U.S. cities.
Canadian cities
Rank City Grade
1 Calgary A
2 Toronto A
3 Vancouver A
4 Edmonton A
5 Victoria A
6 Ottawa-Gatineau A
7 Halifax B
8 Oshawa, Ont. B
9 Kitchener, Ont. B
10 Abbotsford, B.C. B
11 Quebec City B
12 Sherbrooke B
13 Saskatoon B
14 Montreal B
15 Hamilton B
16 St. John's B
17 Regina B
18 London, Ont. C
19 Winnipeg C
20 Kingston C
21 Sudbury C
22 Trois-Rivières C
23 Windsor, Ont. C
24 St. Catharines-Niagara C
25 Saguenay, Que. D
26 Saint John D
27 Thunder Bay D
Canadian and U.S. cities
Rank City Grade
1 Washington A
2 Austin, Tex. A
3 Calgary A
4 New York B
5 San Jose, Calif. B
6 Boston B
7 Houston B
8 San Francisco B
9 Denver B
10 Orlando B
11 Edmonton B
12 Dallas B
13 Seattle B
14 Portland, Ore. B
15 Toronto B
16 Vancouver B
17 Atlanta B
18 Ottawa-Gatineau B
19 Minneapolis, Minn. B
20 Nashville B
21 Victoria B
22 San Diego B
23 Columbus B
24 Hartford, Conn. C
25 Chicago C
26 Quebec City C
27 Los Angeles C
.
