What makes Burlington No. 2?
Mayor Rick Goldring considers the numbers behind city’s favourable MoneySense ranking
A crowd of more than 200 people at the Burlington Convention Centre Monday got to hear why the City of Burlington was ranked the second best place to live in Canada of 219 municipalities in Canada.
Mark Brown, the managing editor of MoneySense magazine and author of the “Best Cities to Live in Canada” told a luncheon gathering hosted by the Burlington Chamber of Commerce that the annual survey gets incredible feedback.
“People at every level of government, from federal cabinet ministers to mayors, have reached out to us. We’ve been targeted by letter writing campaigns, Facebook groups and even websites.” he said.
The 2016 “best place to live” ranking placed Ottawa in first ahead of Burlington. Oakville ended up in third place. Hamilton was ranked 62nd, down from 41st the year before. Burlington did well because of relative affordability and higher income levels as well as lower unemployment and positive population, among other things. The city ranked third last year.
Burlington came in 10th as the best place for business in Canada, largely because of the large market in and around the city, an educated workforce, relatively low unemployment and good construction activity, said Brown.
Burlington Mayor Rick Goldring said it will be interesting next year to see how rankings change with the release of new census data.
He noted that the rankings have been relying to some extent on 2011 census findings, and extrapolated information from it.
One area that he disagrees about is Burlington’s population. The magazine says 192,000, whereas Goldring believes it is 182,000.
Asked how Burlington could improve its “place to do business” status, he noted that next year the city will be opening an innovation centre to help young entrepreneurs get started.
“That’s something that will help the business climate in Burlington,” he said.
Also speaking at the luncheon was Craig Wright, chief economist for RBC Royal Bank, who talked about the Canadian economy.