Ontario · Civic arena
Toronto drinking water hardness is 157 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.
Civic arena · hometown HUD
#213 of 343
47% City Score XP
7/8 pillars on the board
Decade trail
Toronto 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 Toronto water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Kapuskasing · vs CollingwoodHardness guide
Watershed to tap · system map
Source, treatment, and distribution for Toronto from municipal and provincial water records. Hardness and grade are published readings.
Drinking water first, then permits, tax, internet, radon, and hazards for Toronto.
Toronto sits at City Score rank #213 with a standing of 47%, 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. Dropping 96 places versus 2022 (#117 → #213).
Latest owned placements: building permit value rank #213 of 343 (2025); indoor radon rank #169 of 343 at 157 Bq/m³ survey mean; residential mill rate rank #48 of 343 (12.55 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 #213 of 343
7/8 pillars · main XP bar
Rank #205
Rank #213
Rank #113
Rank #169
No placement
Rank #48
Achievements
Published residential mill-rate context for Toronto.
Newer waterfront park at the Don River mouth on Ookwemin Minising. City copy frames it around waterway restoration and reconciliation.
Large west-end destination park with Grenadier Café and Colborne Lodge on the City roster. TTC access from Bloor Street West keeps it
City ferry pages treat Toronto Island as a long-standing public park day trip from the harbour, with advance tickets encouraged in peak
Where Toronto sits in published building-permit figures for July 2026.
Toronto is the GTA's core city, and the first orientation tricks are still the simplest. Toronto Island & Ferries pull you off the harbour for a day of shoreline and skyline; City pages call the Island one of the most beloved parks, with Centre Island dock logistics and summer ticket rules that regulars already know. Back on the mainland, High Park holds the west-end green lung with Grenadier Café and Colborne Lodge on the municipal map. East along the waterfront restoration story, Biidaasige Park sits at the mouth of the Don River on Ookwemin Minising near Cherry Street. Ravines and ten designated swimming beaches fill out the parks grammar between those anchors.
Commute talk is TTC talk. Line 1 Yonge-University is the north-south spine named on service boards; streetcars and the Blue Night Network cover the hours when the subway sleeps. When something civic breaks, 311 is the number on toronto.ca. Nathan Phillips Square is the downtown lawn for Cavalcade of Lights, Taste of India, and the festival stack the City produces with local artists: Nuit Blanche, Summerlicious, Doors Open, Pride Month. Neighbourhood names from daily news (St. James Town, Scarborough, Downsview) remind you the core city is a federation of districts, not a single postcard.
CBC Toronto fronts swing from housing density fights to Blue Jays and Maple Leafs business, which is also a kind of local weather. CampTO and Emancipation Month show up on the City home carousel because summer programming is civic work here. On the OpenStats City Score for 2026, Toronto sits at rank 5 of 125, with building-permit value at rank 1 of 42. Rankings aside, the hometown read is ferry queues, Line 1 delays, and Nathan Phillips Square when the city wants to see itself outdoors.
Drawn from City of Toronto, Toronto Island & Ferries, City of Toronto festivals, TTC, CBC Toronto.
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
Housing
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Average rent for purpose-built 2-bedroom apartments (all tenants) from CMHC Rental Market Survey. Rank 1 = lowest average rent among covered CMAs.
Single edition · 2025
Only one published edition places Toronto in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Housing
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Purpose-built rental apartment vacancy rate from CMHC Rental Market Survey (October). Rank 1 = highest vacancy (most available rental stock among covered CMAs).
Single edition · 2025
Only one published edition places Toronto in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Housing
Demographia / Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Canadian subset of Demographia median multiple (median house price / median household income). Rank 1 = most affordable (lowest median multiple) among Canadian major markets in the international survey.
3 editions · 2024–2026
Livability
Economist Intelligence Unit
Ranks ~173 cities on stability, healthcare, culture & environment, education, and infrastructure. Full dataset is paid; OpenStats stores only ranks and scores published in free press releases and news coverage.
3 editions · 2023–2025
Livability
The Globe and Mail
2023 data partnership with Environics Analytics ranking 439 Canadian communities on ten livability categories.
Single edition · 2023
Only one published edition places Toronto in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Livability
Maclean's
Successor-style municipal livability ranking published by Maclean's for 2019 and 2021 (no 2020 edition).
2 editions · 2019–2021
Quality of life
Mercer
Expat-oriented quality of living ranking across 39 factors in 10 categories. OpenStats stores Canadian cities named in free Mercer press releases (typically top-25 highlights), not the full paid ranking.
2 editions · 2023–2024
Livability
MoneySense
Annual composite ranking of Canadian municipalities on economy, housing, crime, health, and weather.
4 editions · 2014–2018
Housing
National Bank of Canada Economics and Strategy
Ranked by Mortgage Payment as a Percentage of Income (MPPI) on a representative home. Rank 1 = highest MPPI (least affordable). Free quarterly Housing Affordability Monitor tables.
2 editions · 2025–2026
Quality of life
Numbeo
Crowd-sourced composite Quality of Life Index. Historical snapshots are free on Numbeo ranking pages; OpenStats cites Canadian cities from those public pages (cite_only). Higher index scores are better; ranks are global position on the snapshot page.
3 editions · 2024–2026
Housing
RBC Economics
Ranked by RBC aggregate Housing Affordability Measure (% of median pre-tax household income for mortgage, property taxes, and utilities on a benchmark home). Rank 1 = highest ownership-cost burden (least affordable). CMA markets mapped to primary city slugs.
2 editions · 2024–2025
Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.
City ferry pages treat Toronto Island as a long-standing public park day trip from the harbour, with advance tickets encouraged in peak season.
TTC service boards name Line 1 Yonge-University as the primary north-south subway, with Blue Night Network covering overnight routes.
Nathan Phillips Square hosts City festival fixtures such as Cavalcade of Lights and events like Taste of India on the civic square.
Biidaasige Park is described on City pages as sitting near Cherry Street on Ookwemin Minising at the mouth of the Don River.
Ferry-accessed park with Lake Ontario on one side and the downtown skyline on the other. Centre Island dock culture is summer Toronto in miniature.
Large west-end destination park with Grenadier Café and Colborne Lodge on the City roster. TTC access from Bloor Street West keeps it in weekday reach.
Newer waterfront park at the Don River mouth on Ookwemin Minising. City copy frames it around waterway restoration and reconciliation.
Downtown civic square for lights, festivals, and lunch-hour crossings. When Toronto puts on a public face, it often starts here.
When Toronto 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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