Note: In 2022 The Economist ranked Calgary the third most liveable city in the world, tied with Zurich, only Vienna and Copenhagen were ranked ahead of Calgary. Calgary ranked just above Vancouver at #4 and higher than Amsterdam #9 and Melbourne tied at #10. The blog below written in 2019, explains how this and other city rankings are calculated.

Once again (2019) Calgary was ranked in the top 10 places (5th place to be exact) in the world to live by The Economist, a weekly magazine of news and opinion published in London, UK and regarded as one of the world’s preeminent journals of its kind (Encyclopaedia Britannica). And Calgary has been in the top 10 for as long as I can remember.

Link: Calgary is the 19th best city in the world to move to?

While some Calgarians herald this as evidence Calgary is doing okay, others gave their heads a shake and ask “how can Calgary be a better place to live than Paris, Barcelona, Copenhagen or any one of a number of dynamic cities around the world?”

On social media, several Calgarians noted Calgary’s high unemployment rate and high taxes for small businesses as evidence Calgary is no longer a great place to live. Yet others see it as simply “click-bait.”

Let’s have a look at why Calgary is ranked so high.

Calgary: Where First Nation culture meets western culture!

Calgarians of all ages and backgrounds love to picnic in one of their 5,600 parks and open spaces

How cool is it to have breakfast on a bridge?

Calgary has lots of funky architecture and off the beaten path picnic spots

Grain of salt

As with any benchmarking, the ranking depends on what you measure. In the case of The Economist, 30 parameters are divided into five umbrella categories that are then weighted to determine the final Global Livability Index. The five categories are stability (25% weighting), healthcare (20% weighting), culture and environment (10% weighting), education (20% weighting) and infrastructure (20% weighting).

The study’s authors acknowledge the ranking favours cities with a population of about 1 to 5 million as these cities “hit the sweet spot between being overcrowded and underdeveloped.” They also recognize wealthy countries like Canada and Australia with good public healthcare, education programs, relatively new infrastructure, low crime rates and stable governments are also favoured.

There is only 5 points difference between the #1 city Vienna and Hamburg at #20, which means if you adjusted the weighting even a little bit, you would get a different ranking. For example, what would happen if culture and environment was weighted 25% instead of 10% and stability reduced from 25% to 10%? I expect, cities like Paris and London and New York would rank much higher.

Indeed, the results of The Economist’s Global Livability Index must be taken with a grain of salt.

Calgarians love to embrace winter with skating in Bowness park

Dog parks are busy even in the winter, especially when it is sunny. DYN Caglary has about 333 sunny days a year?

Other City Rankings

In fact, there is also the annual Mercer Quality of Living Ranking that measures 10 parameters that are very similar to The Economist’s - environment, economy, recreation, consumer goods availability etc. – that arrives at very different ranking. (Mercer is a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies a global professional services firm, that delivers advice to organizations on health, wealth and career needs of a changing workforce.)

While Vienna was ranked as #1 for the tenth straight year in 2019, Zurich was #2 not Melbourne as was the case for The Economist’s Global Livability Index. And, Mercer’s rankings for Canadian cities was significantly different than The Economist’s, Calgary dropped from #5 to #32, Toronto also fell from #7 to #16, but Vancouver improved to #3 from #6.

In 2016, The Conference Board of Canada did a City Health Scorecard for 10 Canadian cities - Saskatoon, Calgary and Winnipeg top honors. All got As.

The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, using the Conference Board’s Scorecard template evaluated 20 international cities, using 38 key economic and social indicators and determined Singapore was #1, Calgary #2, Seattle #3, San Francisco #4, Copenhagen #5, Toronto #6, Vancouver #7, Manchester #8, Seoul #9 and Montreal #10.

It can’t be coincidence that Calgary ranks high on all of these city evaluations. Regardless of which study you believe or even if you think city ranking and benchmarking is a waste of time, these studies are valid attempts at being objective indicators of a city’s global competitiveness in recruiting or retaining the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

Even our suburban developers love public art.

Cowtown’s Udderly Art Pasture has some strange cows.

We love our festivals e.g. Chinatown Street Festival

Stampede is fun for all ages and backgrounds

There is festival or two every weekend in the summer

Horse jumping fun at Spruce Meadows attracts an international audience.

Arts Commons is one of the largest performing art complexes in North America with 5 performance spaces and 3,200 seats.

The Stampede Show Band is recognized internationally as one of the best.

The Bow River is not only a great place to paddle, but one of the best fly fishing rivers in the world.

Yes, we like to dress up for fly fishing.

For many Calgarians our 1,000 km of pathways is their happy place.

Family walks are a tradition in Calgary.

Stop focusing on the negative

Too often Calgarians (including myself) focus on the negative things about living in our city. Yes, Calgary isn’t perfect (no city is), but it is better than many give it credit for. While it might not be boom times, more people are still moving to Calgary than leaving – the 2019 census showed 9,560 more and 11,588 in 2018. That tells you Calgary is still attractive to newcomers.

And when it comes to a place to live, Calgary has lots to offer especially when it comes to buying a home. Calgary is significantly more affordable than Vancouver, Toronto, Seattle or San Francisco where condos cost over $1,000 per square foot, compared to Calgary’s $500, and single family homes anywhere near the City Centre cost nearly two million dollars if you can find one.

The average one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco and New York City is $4,500/month Canadian.

Calgary is home to several major shopping malls including The Core downtown with its huge skylight.

Or there are several tradition Main Streets with local shops, cafes and restaurants.

Caglary boasts numerous Framers’ Markets and food halls, with more being added each year.

Calgary boasts hundreds of community gardens.

Calgary boast everything from mega train shows (annual train show at Genesis Centre) to trade shows.

Housing Development

New affordable (by global standards) City Centre condos are being added to Calgary’s Beltline, Bridgeland, Inglewood and Kensington communities every year. Even our established communities are improving as a place to live with new condo projects in Marda Loop and Britannia and new master-planned urban villages like Currie, Greenwich, Quarry Park, Trinity Village, University District and West District.

Our City Centre is evolving into a more attractive place to live every year with the addition of public amenities like the new library, West Eau Claire Park, St. Patrick’s Island Park and the Beltline mural program. And Calgary adds thousands of new infill family homes each year that revitalize our inner city communities.

Calgary’s new suburban master-planned communities like SETON are being developed with more diversity of uses, housing options and density. And last year, we added two of the largest YMCA-operated recreation centers in the world - one in the north and one in the south.

For those living at the northern edge of the city, Cross Iron Mills meets most of their shopping and entertainment needs and it is a short commute to work in the NE warehouse district that includes the Calgary International Airport.

Indeed, Calgary has some of the best suburbs and one of the best city centres in North America.

ATCO Village for Veterans (photo credit Calgary Herald)

New suburban villages at the edge of town

Environment

Calgary is a model city when it comes to wastewater management. The City has made significant investments over the past decade in such things as the Pine Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant ($430 million, the equivalent of two Central Libraries or two mega recreation centers), Compost Facility ($143 million) and ongoing upgrades to the Bonnybrook Wastewater Treatment Plant ($1 billion).

Link: CBC: The $1B Calgary megaproject you don’t know about

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Culture, Entertainment & Recreation (CER)

While Calgary is no Paris, New York or London when it comes to culture and entertainment, it does have a lot to offer, when it comes to theatre, music and recreation. Over the past few years, Calgary has improved dramatically with places like the new Central Library, National Music Centre, Bella Concert Hall, Shane Homes YMCA at Rocky Ridge, Brookfield YMCA at SETON, Big Four Roadhouse and new Calgary Climbing Centre (Rocky Mountain).

Add those investments up and that’s over one billion dollars in new CER facilities for Calgarians of all ages and backgrounds. In addition, let’s not forget Calgary also has several unique CER attractions including Stampede Park, Spruce Meadows, WinSport, Olympic Oval, Canada’s Calgary and District Cricket League, Bow River fly-fishing and Calgary Polo Club.

When it comes to festivals Calgary has an impressive list of year-round festivals, including the unique Beakerhead a smash-up of art, science and engineering, launched back in 2014.

Oh, and did I mention Calgary now has about 1,000 km of mixed-use pathways - including the 138-km Rotary/Mattamy Greenway - making it one of the best cycling cities in the world? And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Calgary has over 5,000 parks including two of the largest urban parks in the world – Nose Hill and Fish Creek.

Shane Homes YMCA at Rocky Ridge is the second largest in the world.

Calgary is home to several contemporary art galleries

Our glass buildings often become huge Picasso paintings.

Calgary is home to numerous independent bookstores.

Calgary has some amazing places to read.

We also have hundreds of clubs eg. Canoe club

Calgary is home to on of the largest public skate parks in North America.

Last Word

So, while the grass might seem to be greener in other cities, especially in the winter, Calgary has a lot to offer anyone wanting to live in a city that is clean, safe and affordable, with access to great parks, recreation and entertainment activities. Calgary may not be the best at “anything,” but I expect we are better than most at a lot of things.

No city can afford to be the best at everything. That’s the flaw in doing “best practices” benchmarking. You can always find someone who does it better than you.

Calgary’s challenge today is how can we capitalize on being one of the world’s most livable cities to attract more investment, start-up businesses and entrepreneurs to move to Ca