Alberta · Civic arena
Brooks drinking water hardness is 234 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.
Civic arena · hometown HUD
#201 of 343
49% City Score XP
7/8 pillars on the board
Decade trail
Brooks packs 7 of eight open-data pillars into its composite standing. Tap a rival below to see how the hometown stacks up head-to-head.
Rivalries on deck
Hardness, pH, and lead from municipal reports on the OpenStats water atlas.
Full Brooks water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Innisfail · vs BanffHardness guide
Watershed to tap · system map
Source, treatment, and distribution for Brooks from municipal and provincial water records. Hardness and grade are published readings.
Drinking water first, then permits, tax, internet, radon, and hazards for Brooks.
Brooks sits at City Score rank #201 with a standing of 49%, from 7 of 8 open-data pillars (tax, construction, connectivity, indoor air, water, seismic hazard, growth, safety). Missing pillars score at median standing so thin coverage cannot inflate the rank. Rising 120 places versus 2022 (#321 → #201).
Latest owned placements: building permit value rank #185 of 343 (2025); indoor radon rank #203 of 343 at 134 Bq/m³ survey mean; residential mill rate rank #53 of 343 (12.43 mill rate). Full tables and method notes live on each study edition; atlas readings for the same slug open from the topic buttons.
Arena loadout
Arena rank #201 of 343
7/8 pillars · main XP bar
Rank #70
Rank #185
Rank #160
Rank #203
No placement
Rank #53
Achievements
Published residential mill-rate context for Brooks.
East-side park used for Canada Day, with the Everyone Plays Playground, spray park, outdoor fitness gear, and baseball diamonds beside
Main recreation campus with the EID Aquatic Centre, Sparrow Arena, fieldhouse, fitness centre, Cenovus Flexhall, and Brooks Public Library
The EID Aquatic Centre inside the JBS Canada Centre includes a 200-foot waterslide and lazy river.
Where Brooks sits in published building-permit figures for July 2026.
Brooks sits in County of Newell country, where the Brooks Bulletin still covers town and rural beat as one community. Municipal history puts irrigation at the centre of the story: the Brooks Aqueduct finished in 1915, then local farmers took the works over as the Eastern Irrigation District in 1935. That water system turned dry land into a service centre for livestock, grain, and vegetables. Oil and gas joined the mix in the late 1970s, and the city still wears the Alberta's Centennial City trademark from its 2005 incorporation.
Weeknights run through the JBS Canada Centre. The EID Aquatic Centre handles lane swims and the leisure pool, Sparrow Arena keeps shinny on the calendar, and the Cenovus Flexhall fills with programs. Bigger ice nights and concerts land at the Centennial Regional Arena, the bowl-seat barn with an indoor track. Brooks Public Library sits inside the same rec complex, so a swim and a stack of holds can happen in one stop.
Outside, Lake Stafford is the big water in town, with a paved path locals treat as the default loop for bikes, strollers, and birdwatching near the little lighthouse point. Duke of Sutherland Park hosts Canada Day, the spray park, and ball diamonds. Evergreen Park links pathway loops toward West End and Pleasant parks past the old CPR Engineer's House. The Brooks Dog Park on Sutherland Drive East is fundraising custom fence signs, and Veterans Park sits downtown beside City Hall for Remembrance. Curbside recycling is arriving in 2026, another practical city-desk story after years of irrigation and energy headlines.
Drawn from City of Brooks - History, City of Brooks - JBS Canada Centre, City of Brooks - Parks & Playgrounds, Brooks Bulletin.
City Score from 2016–2025 across eight open-data pillars. Individual study placements are listed in the panels below.
Each study below is its own ranking. Where a study has more than one edition for this city, the chart shows standing across those years only.
Connectivity · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by estimated best advertised download (Mbps). Anchored to the current ISED National Broadband Data vintage, then backcast along a national speed curve with city-specific fiber-arrival and 50/10 availability paths so relative ranks can change over the decade. Not a claim of audited historical hex maps for every year.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Construction · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by calendar-year building permit value. Direct rows sum Statistics Canada Table 34-10-0292-01. Cities without a direct reading use population × provincial per-capita permit intensity (estimated), so every seed city has a year-varying construction signal.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Composite · OpenStats
OpenStats
Dimensional average of OpenStats open-data pillars for each panel year 2016–2025: tax, construction, connectivity, indoor air, water, seismic hazard, population growth, and crime severity. Each series is scored 0–1 within its edition; series in the same pillar are averaged, then all eight pillars are averaged with equal weight. Missing pillars score at median standing (0.5). Growth and CSI use StatCan annual tables; permits, mill rates, and broadband use live rows plus documented year-varying estimates where needed. Radon, water, and PGA may be survey/model vintages carried forward and are flagged when static for more than two years. External commercial livability lists are never inputs.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Safety · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by Statistics Canada Crime Severity Index (Table 35-10-0026-01). Rank 1 is highest CSI (worse). Values are CMA where a metro match exists, otherwise provincial CSI. Hometown pages label the grain.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Water · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by municipal drinking-water hardness (mg/L as CaCO₃). Hardness changes slowly; the atlas vintage is carried across panel years and flagged when static for more than two years.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Water · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by reported lead (µg/L) on the OpenStats water atlas. Carried across panel years until annual municipal report panels are ingested.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Health · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by Health Canada survey mean indoor radon (Bq/m³). Rank 1 is the highest mean. Decade panel years without a new survey carry the CMA survey vintage forward; they are not annual retests.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Growth · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by year-over-year population growth from Statistics Canada annual CSD estimates (Table 17-10-0155-01). Rank 1 is fastest growth. A few places without a clean CSD match use a provincial-path estimate anchored to seed population.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Property tax · OpenStats
OpenStats
Municipalities ranked by residential mill rate. Rank 1 is the highest rate. Published municipal years are used when available; gaps are interpolated or follow the provincial median path so the tax pillar moves year to year for every city.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Livability
Maclean's
Successor-style municipal livability ranking published by Maclean's for 2019 and 2021 (no 2020 edition).
Single edition · 2021
Only one published edition places Brooks in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Livability
MoneySense
Annual composite ranking of Canadian municipalities on economy, housing, crime, health, and weather.
4 editions · 2014–2018
Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.
The Eastern Irrigation District took over CPR irrigation works in 1935, anchoring Brooks as a farm service centre.
The EID Aquatic Centre inside the JBS Canada Centre includes a 200-foot waterslide and lazy river.
Centennial Regional Arena seats about 1,700 with standing room and floor seating for concerts and special events.
Brooks Dog Park covers 9.4 acres of fenced space for small and large dogs on Sutherland Drive East.
Largest lake in Brooks, with a popular paved shoreline path, picnic tables, a non-motorized boat launch, and a lighthouse structure on a point. Easy loop for a morning walk or bike.
Main recreation campus with the EID Aquatic Centre, Sparrow Arena, fieldhouse, fitness centre, Cenovus Flexhall, and Brooks Public Library under one roof.
East-side park used for Canada Day, with the Everyone Plays Playground, spray park, outdoor fitness gear, and baseball diamonds beside the campground and Brooks Museum area.
Two-mile historic irrigation aqueduct completed in 1915, still the landmark locals point to when explaining how water shaped the city.
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