About CityScore

Helping Canadians find where they'll thrive

Both MoneySense Best Places to Live (discontinued 2018) and Maclean's Best Communities (discontinued 2021) are gone. No active, interactive Canadian city prosperity comparison tool exists. CityScore Canada fills that gap — aggregating open data from Statistics Canada, CMHC, and ECCC into a single, comparable index covering all 35 Census Metropolitan Areas.

Who is this for?

Job Seekers

Compare economic vitality and unemployment rates across cities before making a move.

New Immigrants

Find cities with the highest immigration share and best quality-of-life scores.

Remote Workers

Weigh housing affordability and environment scores to find your ideal base.

Researchers

Access a transparent, open-data index of Canadian urban prosperity with full source provenance.

What is a CMA?

A Census Metropolitan Area is Statistics Canada's definition of an urban economic region with a core urban area of at least 100,000 people. CMAs often extend well beyond the central city.

The Toronto CMA includes Mississauga, Brampton, Markham, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, and 20+ other municipalities
The Vancouver CMA includes Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond, Coquitlam, and the North Shore
The Ottawa–Gatineau CMA spans two provinces — Ottawa (Ontario) and Gatineau (Quebec)
The Kitchener–Cambridge–Waterloo CMA is three cities treated as one urban region

All data on this dashboard reflects the entire CMA, not just the city core. This is why Mississauga does not appear separately — its data is included in the Toronto CMA.

Example: Toronto CMA

Toronto (core)2,794,356

Mississauga717,961

Brampton656,480

Markham338,503

Vaughan323,103

Richmond Hill209,922

Oakville213,759

+ 20 more municipalities~700,000

Toronto CMA Total6,202,225

Default Dimension Weights

These weights reflect the relative importance of each dimension to Canadians making location decisions. You can adjust them on the Rankings page.

Dimension	Weight	Constituent Metrics
Economic Vitality	25%	Unemployment rate, employment rate, median household income
Housing Affordability	25%	Average rent, vacancy rate, new housing price index
Quality of Life	20%	Consumer Price Index, 5-year population growth
Safety	15%	Crime Severity Index
Environment	10%	Air Quality Health Index (30-day average)
Demographics	5%	5-year population growth, immigration share

Adjustable Weights

The Rankings page lets you drag sliders to change how much each dimension matters. Your custom weights are saved locally and applied in real time — no page reload required. Weights must sum to 100%.

About This Project

CityScore Canada is an independent portfolio project. It is not affiliated with Statistics Canada, CMHC, ECCC, or any level of government. All data used is publicly available and freely accessible from the sources listed on the Data Sources page.

Built with Next.js, Tailwind CSS, and deployed on Cloudflare Pages. Data sourced from Statistics Canada's Web Data Service, CMHC's Rental Market Survey, and ECCC's AQHI data. Last updated: November 2024.