LIVIN' RIGHT

Toronto fourth most livable city in world: Economist

Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary keep their high rankings on The Economist's list.

By: The Star Staff

Torornto Star August 28, 2013

Three of the top 10 most livable cities in the world are Canadian.

Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary are third, fourth and fifth, respectively, on the list compiled annually by the Intelligence Unit of the business and political weekly magazine The Economist. That’s also where they stood last year.

Both Toronto and Vancouver won perfect 100-point scores for stability, healthcare and education. The 100-point score for infrastructure The Economist gave Melbourne and Vienna propelled them to first and second place on the list.

Melbourne has been the top city on the livability list since 2011, when it squeezed out Vancouver. Toronto and Calgary have traditionally been in the top five as well.

The Economist bases its ratings of 140 cities on 30 factors across five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.

Seven of the top 10 cities are in Canada and Australia, which the Intelligence Unit points out reflects them being mid-sized cities in wealthier countries with relatively low population density and good healthcare and education.

The other cities on the top 10 list, from fifth through ninth, are Adelaide, Sydney, Helsinki and Perth.

Half of the bottom 10 cities are in Africa: Douala, Cameroon; Tripoli, Libya; Algiers, Algeria; Harare, Zimbabwe and Lagos, Nigeria.

Syria’s capital of Damascus ranks dead last because of the civil war tearing apart the country. Damascus also registered the biggest decline in livability over the last five years, by more than 20 per cent.

The livability list also highlights the cities with the most improved scores over the last five years. Bogota, Colombia, improving the most: by 7.9 per cent since 2008, because of an end to violence created by the drug trade and guerrilla activity.

Top ten cities (overall score)

Melbourne, Australia 97.5

Vienna, Austria 97.4

Vancouver, Canada 97.3

Toronto, Canada 97.2

Calgary, Canada 96.6

Adelaide, Australia 96.6

Sydney, Australia 96.1

Helsinki, Finland 96.0

Perth, Australia 95.9

Auckland, New Zealand 95.7

Photo by: stephenk1977

MARKS ON THE MARKET

High marks for Canada's real estate market
National Post · Saturday, Jul. 10, 2010

Canada may no longer be the most transparent housing market in the world, but it's close, according to a biannual survey of 81 countries.

Canada came in second behind Australia in the 2010 Jones Lang LaSalle Global Transparency index, which measures countries' legal and regulatory environments, market strength and real estate debt transparency, among other metrics. Canada ranked first in 2008.

"Canada differentiates itself on having a combination of a sound banking system, well-developed commercial real estate lending standards and stable property markets with relatively low vacancy and rental volatility," the report states.

The country's large, conservative financial institutions contributed to its high ranking, as did its relatively stringent protections for investors. Canada's largest investment banks are housed within its chartered banks, which have strong deposit bases and high capital reserve ratios, making bank runs and wholesale failures unlikely.

In addition, Jones Lang La-Salle notes that cashflow and collateral value of real estate loans are adequately monitored in Canada.

Canada and the United States (sixth place) were the only two countries in the Americas to score in the "highly transparent" category. The next closest, Chile, placed 34th ( "semi-transparent").

"The global recession which started in the United States has kept transparency levels stagnant as the flow of information, business and capital has declined," the report says.

Also in this third-tier category with Chile were Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica and Brazil, the only major economy to register notable progress.

Fully one-third of the world markets surveyed showed no change or declined from the 2008 index. Among the countries that showed improvement were Turkey, China, India, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Greece and Hungary.

Algeria came in last place, one of three countries labeled "opaque." (The other two were Syria and Sudan.) Pakistan showed the largest decline from the 2008 survey.