Vaughan drops in Moneysense's best places to live in Canada ranking

Yorkregion.com
March 13, 2014
By Kim Champion

What goes up, must come down and when the city of Vaughan jumped from 102 in 2012 to 23 in 2013 in the annual Moneysense magazine rankings of Canada’s best places to live, it was almost inevitable there would be a drop this year.

When the rankings were released yesterday, Vaughan found itself down 33 spots to No. 56 on the list of Canada’s top 201 places to live, still well above the 2012 number.

The city also fell out of the top 10 in mid-sized Canadian cities (100,000-400,000 population), slipping to 19th and, unlike it’s runner-up status as best place to live for immigrants, Vaughan wasn’t even in the top 10 this year, as decided by the editors of the magazine.

For the other York Region municipalities that made the list, Aurora was first, rising to No. 24 across the country from No. 58 one year ago, almost flipping spots with Vaughan, while Newmarket slipped from No. 10 last year - best in the Region - to No. 31 this year.

Richmond Hill was 50 while Markham was No. 80. Like Vaughan, Markham had gone from No. 135 in 2012 all the way to 34 in 2013 so was due for a fall.

St. Albert, Alta., a small city of 64,000 outside Edmonton, rated 1st overall this year, knocking last year’s top city, Calgary, down to second. Toronto rated 32.

The rankings, now in their ninth year, rate cities on 34 different criteria that include income levels, employment, housing prices, public transportation, weather, crime rates and access to medical professionals among others.