Ottawa Drops to #19 on City Ranking

Ottawa has slipped from 18th to 19th place in a survey of the best places to live in the world, but those who administer the survey say the change is hardly worth mentioning.

The capital was one of five Canadian cities ranked by Mercer, a company that does the survey to help governments and corporations decide where to send employees on international assignments. It released results for 215 of the 350 cities it surveys. Cities are given a point-scoring index, with New York City offering a base number of 100.

Zurich was ranked as the best city in which to live, with a score of 108, while Ottawa was at 104.7, down from last year's score of 104.8.

It's a minor change. This is not meaningful in any way. There's nothing noticeably different in the quality of life for people living in Ottawa. Ottawa still ranks higher than 90% of the 215 cities sampled.

Vancouver was the most desirable Canadian city in which to live, placing 4th in the world, while Toronto remained in the same position as last year -- at 15th -- and Montreal remained in the 22nd spot. Calgary took 25th place, down from 24th last year. Cities are ranked according to their political stability, economic and socio-cultural environment, health and sanitation, schools and education, public services and transportation, recreation, consumer goods, housing and natural environment.

Mercer also conducts a personal safety survey and all five Canadian cities tied for 22nd place. Luxembourg was deemed the safest city in which to live, while Baghdad ranked 215th.

European cities dominated the upper echelons of the quality-of-life survey, with Zurich coming 1st, followed by Vienna and Geneva. Besides Vancouver, other cities in the top 10 included Auckland, Dusseldorf, Munich, Frankfurt, Bern and Sydney. That means Switzerland and Germany each had three cities in the Top 10.

The Top 3 U.S. cities were Honolulu, in 28th spot, San Francisco in 29th place, and Boston in 37th.