The top 3 cities to live in Canada are all in Ontario

MoneySense Magazine has announced its list of Best Places to Live 2016, highlighting the top 219 cities in which to live in Canada. We are very proud to see that Ontario dominated this year, snagging the top three spots.

Coming in first is Ottawa, thanks to its high incomes, low taxes, low crime, sufficient walking, biking, and transit infrastructure, good weather, and strong arts and sports community. Last year, Ottawa came in second, so we guess it just got better over the last year.

Ottawa

Ottawa’s median household income is $91,510 and the average household discretionary income is $52,923. Over the last five years, the crime rate has fallen 27.5%. When it comes to biking, walking, and taking transit, Ottawa is among the top 10; a whopping 15.1% of Ottawa residents take public transit to work.

Coming in second is Burlington, which also jumped up one position from last year. Burlington finds itself in second thanks to low unemployment, high incomes, healthy population growth, low crime, good weather, and a strong arts and sports community.  

Burlington

Burlington has also seen a big dip in crime, with the crime rate dropping 31.3% over the last five years. This significant decrease in crime means Burlington is among the top 10 cities in Canada with the lowest crime rate. Burlington has some of the best weather in Canada with 125 days of 2015 being warmer than 20 degrees celsius.  

Placing third is Oakville, which made a big jump from sixth place. Oakville is the third best place to live in Canada because of its high incomes, healthy population growth, low crime, good weather, and strong arts and sports community.

Amazingly, Oakville experienced the exact same decline in crime as Burlington, dropping 31.3% over the last five years. Burlington and Oakville neighbour each other so they share similar weather patterns, which means that Oakville also offers some of the best weather in the country.

Oakville

Somehow, Toronto dropped from 35th to 43rd. According to MoneySense, the only good things Toronto has going for it at the moment are the low taxes, the high walkability, bikeability, and transit infrastructure, a strong arts and sports community, and the good weather. To be fair, Toronto did make it into the top 10 for all of those categories, except for good weather.

So, if you’re shopping for a new home, it looks like you should be looking in Ottawa, Burlington, and Oakville!

To determine these rankings, MoneySense used data provided by Environics Analytics, Statistics Canada, IHS Automotive, driven by Polk, Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation and Environment Canada.