· City Score
City Score leaders: Vancouver and Toronto share the top band
OpenStats City Score averages standing on owned radon, permit-value, and mill-rate lists. Vancouver and Toronto both sit near 97% standing among cities with multi-list coverage.
By OpenStats data desk · Editorial standards
OpenStats City Score averages a city’s standing across owned rankings built from public data. The owned lists currently include indoor radon, building permit value, and residential mill rates where coverage allows. External livability lists (EIU, Mercer, Numbeo, and others) still appear on hometown pages as separate published placements. They do not enter the score. The summer 2026 refresh keeps Vancouver and Toronto at the top among cities with broad multi-list coverage.
Who is leading
Among cities with at least two owned lists in the score, Vancouver and Toronto sit at the top of the board near 97% standing. Markham, Vaughan, Mississauga, and Brampton fill out the next GTA tier. Montreal and Edmonton land in the upper band with multi-list coverage. Edmonton’s five owned lists match Vancouver’s count on the current board; Toronto carries six.
| City | Approx. standing | Owned lists in score |
|---|---|---|
| Vancouver | 97% | 5 |
| Toronto | 97% | 6 |
| Markham | 92% | 2+ |
| Vaughan | 90% | 2+ |
| Mississauga | 83% | 2+ |
| Edmonton | 82% | 5 |
Standing near 97% means a city ranks high on average across the owned lists that cover it, not that it leads every individual list. Toronto’s six-list coverage pulls in permit value (where it leads the 2026 YTD table at about $11.7B), radon, and mill-rate inputs where published. Vancouver’s five-list set includes a strong permit-value position (about $9.5B YTD) and radon context appropriate to its geography. Markham and Vaughan show high standing on fewer lists (2+), which is why the homepage leaderboard prefers multi-list cities when highlighting leaders.
How to read a hometown score
A high City Score means strong average standing on the owned lists 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. Thin coverage (one owned list) can produce a misleading spike, which is why the homepage leaderboard prefers multi-list cities. Readers should open the hometown chart and note which lists contribute; a city can score well on permits while radon or mill-rate rows are absent or proxy-tier.
Radon inputs come from the Health Canada survey geography match described in the radon coverage story on this desk. 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; Toronto’s YTD about $11.7B and Edmonton’s about $2.86B illustrate how dollar scale differs from standing percentage. Mill-rate inputs depend on direct municipal publication; Atlantic coverage is deep in Nova Scotia (Sydney at 19.36 mills leads the current residential table).
What the score does not include
City Score does not fold in broadband quality, wildfire smoke days, water hardness, or crime indices unless they appear on a future owned list with the same tier discipline. External livability placements on hometown pages are labeled separately. Readers comparing Vancouver and Toronto should use the full City Score table for list-by-list breakdown rather than the headline percentage alone.
Open any hometown chart under cities or the full City Score table. Rankings hubs at rankings link to the underlying permit, radon, and property-tax editions. Methodology for tier gates matches the permit and radon desk stories on this news index. Brampton and Mississauga readers can compare GTA suburban standing (Mississauga about 83%, Vaughan about 90%) against Toronto’s six-list coverage. Montreal appears in the upper band with multi-list inputs even though its permit-value YTD (about $5.3B) sits below Vancouver (about $9.5B) and Toronto (about $11.7B). Edmonton at about 82% standing with five owned lists shows strong composite performance even when Calgary wins individual permit months. Sydney at 19.36 mills on the residential ranking and Regina at 301.7 Bq/m³ on the radon ranking illustrate how owned lists can pull standing in opposite directions for different cities; City Score averages only the lists that cover each slug. External EIU or Mercer placements on hometown pages stay outside the composite so readers can compare third-party livability marketing to OpenStats owned-list standing side by side without blending incompatible methodologies. Vancouver and Toronto both near 97% standing remain the reference points when you explain how owned-list averages differ from single-list spikes in smaller GTA suburbs such as Markham at about 92%.