· City Score
City Score 2025: Barrie leads 343 Canadian cities at 77%
Barrie sits #1 on the City Score board at 77% standing, followed by Fredericton and Bradford West Gwillimbury. Eight open-data pillars — tax, construction, connectivity, indoor air, water, seismic hazard, population growth, and crime severity — are averaged with equal weight.
By OpenStats data desk · Editorial standards
OpenStats City Score averages a city’s standing across eight equal-weight open-data pillars: tax (mill rates), construction (permit value), connectivity (broadband download), indoor air (radon), drinking water (hardness and lead), seismic hazard (peak ground acceleration), population growth, and crime severity. Missing pillars score at median standing so thin coverage cannot inflate the rank. External livability lists (EIU, Mercer, Numbeo, MoneySense, and others) still appear on hometown pages as separate published placements. They do not enter the score.
Who is leading
On the 2025 board, Barrie leads at 77% standing (#1 of 343) with seven observed pillars. Fredericton and Bradford West Gwillimbury follow near 73% and 72%. St. Thomas and Tillsonburg round out the top five. Large metros sit lower on the composite: Edmonton ranks #54 at 59%, Vancouver #204 at 48%, and Toronto #213 at 47%.
| Rank | City | Standing | Pillars |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Barrie | 77% | 7 |
| 2 | Fredericton | 73% | 7 |
| 3 | Bradford West Gwillimbury | 72% | 7 |
| 4 | St. Thomas | 72% | 7 |
| 5 | Tillsonburg | 71% | 7 |
| 6 | Innisfil | 70% | 7 |
| 7 | Brockville | 69% | 7 |
Standing near 70% means a city ranks high on average across the pillars it observes, not that it leads every individual atlas table. Toronto still leads the 2026 YTD permit-value table at about $11.7B, but its composite standing reflects weaker positions on radon, mill rates, and other pillars. Barrie’s lead reflects strong average standing across tax, construction, connectivity, indoor air, water, seismic hazard, and growth inputs — not a claim it wins every topic ranking.
How to read a hometown score
A high City Score means strong average standing on the open-data pillars that cover that place. It is a composite of public-data rankings, not a claim that the city is best on housing, health, or livability overall. Readers should open the hometown chart and note how many pillars are observed; missing pillars are scored at median standing (50%).
Radon inputs come from the Health Canada survey geography match. Regina sits at 301.7 Bq/m³ on the survey mean; Calgary sits mid-pack at 135.1 Bq/m³. Permit inputs use direct-tier StatCan sums. Mill-rate inputs depend on direct municipal publication. Broadband uses ISED max download; water uses hardness and lead on the water atlas; seismic hazard uses NRCan peak ground acceleration; crime severity uses Statistics Canada CSI where a CMA match exists.
Open any hometown chart under cities or the full City Score 2025 table. Rankings hubs at rankings link to the underlying permit, radon, property-tax, broadband, water, and hazards editions. Face two cities in the compare arena for a pillar-by-pillar scoreboard.