During the State of the City event hosted by the Brampton Board of Trade on Feb 9, some troubling ranking statistics were raised by Money Sense magazine. Brampton is ranked 154th out of 209 cities overall (up from 166th last year). The highest ranked large city is Ottawa. Burlington, Ontario was ranked first for the medium city category, and Boucherville in Quebec was ranked as the best small city. Yes, overall rankings are subjective. Let’s take a look at specific category rankings for Brampton:
- 14th out of 15 Major cities overall (pop. 400,000+)
- 130th on property tax to income ratio (2.6%)
- 130th on Property Tax (2.81%)
- 208th Percent of residents that walk to work (1.6%)
- 190th Percent of residents that cycle to work (0.3%) Highest: Victoria (10.6%)
- 37th Percent of residents that take transit to work (11.6%)
- 196th Access to health care
- 9th Best place for Business
- 173rd Unemployment (8.4%)
The city needs to prioritize improvement to transit access and usage, increase employment, increase access to health care and get property taxes inline relative to other cities of similar size.
Some other interesting stats from local municipalities in our area:
- Highest % of public transit use in Canada: 36.4% (Toronto)
- Highest % of population with kids under 15: 25.2% (Milton)
- Highest % of home ownership: 95% (Erin)
- Lowest crime rate in Canada: 2,090 per 100,000 (Caledon)
Nationally:
- Most linguistically diverse: 59.9% (Richmond, BC)
- Highest % of new cars that are luxury: 12.5% (West Vancouver)
Take a look at the full rankings on the MoneySense website and let us know if you find anything interesting.
