Vancouver is Better Than Your City

Survey of the Day: Global rankings for quality of life put Canada's major cities near the top, with Vancouver doing better than all others.

An annual survey of the best places in the world to live has found that Vancouver, home to stunning mountains, beautiful beaches, great food, and hilarious hockey riots, is the best place to be in the Americas. Mercer Consulting's list put Vancouver at No. 5 among cities with the highest quality of living, behind Vienna, Zurich, Auckland, and Munich. Canadian cities fared far better than their American counterparts, as Vancouver, Ottawa (14th), Toronto (15th), and Montreal (22nd) all beat out the top ranking American city, Honolulu (29th). San Francisco came in at No. 30, while Calgary took a respectable 33. Of the cities reviewed, Baghdad was found to have the lowest ranking for both personal safety and quality of living. Mercer looked at a host of different factors to determine quality of living, including housing, access to consumer goods, healthcare, public services and transportation, schools, recreation, the environment, and more.