Ottawa has been declared the best city to live in Canada by a magazine. MoneySense magazine released its annual ranking of Canadian cities recently, which considered various factors like housing prices, weather and crime rates as the basis for the findings. They considered a total of 179 cities and towns in Canada that have more than 50,000 inhabitants.
Earlier, Ottawa was placed at the top slot in 2007 and 2008, however, in 2009 Victoria displace the city. As Victoria’s cost of living is growing for the average Canadian, Ottawa has restored the top rank once again, thanks its economy, job opportunities, low crime rate and stable population growth.
According to Duncan Hood, the magazine’s editor, Ottawa has many reasons to be in the first spot on the list of cities and towns. Foremost, the city happened to be the most recession-proof city among all Canadian cities, followed by adequate job opportunities. Ottawa has the most public service workers and these workers did not lose their employment, neither they had cuts in their salary. Thus, while most Canadian cities had to experience the reverse results of the aforementioned, Ottawa remained firm during the recession.
Below are the top ten cities to live in Canada according to MoneySense’s study:
- Ottawa-Gatineau
- Kingston, Ontario
- Burlington, Ontario
- Fredericton, New Brunswick
- Moncton, New Brunswick
- Repentigny, Quebec.
- Brandon, Manitoba
- Victoria, British Columbia
- Winnipeg, Manitoba
- Levis, Quebec
The full list of best places to live in Canada will be released on May 3, 2010.
