Ontario · Civic arena
Stratford drinking water hardness is 235 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.
Civic arena · hometown HUD
#28 of 343
62% City Score XP
7/8 pillars on the board
Decade trail
Stratford 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 Stratford water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Woodstock · vs OttawaHardness guide
Watershed to tap · system map
Source, treatment, and distribution for Stratford from municipal and provincial water records. Hardness and grade are published readings.
Drinking water first, then permits, tax, internet, radon, and hazards for Stratford.
Stratford sits at City Score rank #28 with a standing of 62%, 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 14 places versus 2022 (#42 → #28).
Latest owned placements: building permit value rank #146 of 343 (2025); indoor radon rank #277 of 343 at 85 Bq/m³ survey mean; residential mill rate rank #115 of 343 (11.23 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 #28 of 343
7/8 pillars · main XP bar
Rank #69
Rank #146
Rank #14
Rank #277
No placement
Rank #115
Achievements
Published residential mill-rate context for Stratford.
The seasonal heart of town, from classic Festival stages to the Tom Patterson Theatre. April-to-November programming still sets the visitor
Civic focus behind City Hall where Ontario Street and Wellington meet. The Avon River parks sit just north, keeping theatre nights
Stratford Festival performances are framed as running April through November, with the Tom Patterson Theatre among the venues.
Where Stratford sits in published building-permit figures for July 2026.
Stratford is a Perth County theatre town that still introduces itself by the Stratford Festival. Destination Stratford's line is blunt: The Arts Are What We Are. Festival stages run from April through November, and the Tom Patterson Theatre joined the older Festival houses as a newer room for the same seasonal rush. Downtown's Ontario Street and Wellington network gathers around City Hall and Market Square, with the Avon River and park system just north of the core.
The other big civic story is industrial ground turning into neighbourhood. The Grand Trunk site, still called the Cooper Site by people who grew up with the locomotive shops, is an 18-acre city-owned parcel beside downtown. Council's Grand Trunk Renewal work pairs housing talk with a shared community facility involving the YMCA of Three Rivers and Stratford Public Library, while University of Waterloo's Stratford Campus already sits on the lands. Lights On Stratford even loaned its LED heart sculpture to the GTR facade to keep the empty shops looking alive after dark.
The calendar is not only Shakespeare. Stratford Summer Music, culinary trails, and Stratford Perth Museum exhibits share space with Beacon Herald coverage of municipal politics and Festival-adjacent culture. Treasure Hunt Weekends and Engage Stratford keep public process in view while Huron Street lane closures remind everyone the core still moves trucks and theatre traffic together. On OpenStats City Score for 2026, Stratford sits at rank 23 of 125. Locals still say Festival first, then Avon River, then whatever is happening at the Cooper Site this month.
Drawn from Destination Stratford - Stratford Festival, Destination Stratford, City of Stratford - Cooper Block, Engage Stratford - Grand Trunk Renewal, The Stratford Beacon Herald.
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
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.
Destination Stratford brands the city with the line The Arts Are What We Are.
Stratford Festival performances are framed as running April through November, with the Tom Patterson Theatre among the venues.
The Grand Trunk site is an 18-acre municipal property with a historic locomotive-repair superstructure beside downtown.
Council directed up to $15 million toward a shared community facility with the YMCA of Three Rivers and Stratford Public Library.
The seasonal heart of town, from classic Festival stages to the Tom Patterson Theatre. April-to-November programming still sets the visitor rhythm.
City-owned former locomotive shops next to downtown, now the Grand Trunk Renewal project for housing, public space, and a shared community facility. Locals still say Cooper Site in conversation.
Civic focus behind City Hall where Ontario Street and Wellington meet. The Avon River parks sit just north, keeping theatre nights and river walks on one loop.
When Stratford moves in a ranking, posts new permit figures, or lands in a study, get a short note. A few sends a year, only when something changes.
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