[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto, Montreal best places to live, Economist says"

[rfmcdonald]

CBC's coverage of the results of the Economist survey is restrained, compared to some here in Toronto. I wonder what's going on in Montréal.

Toronto and Montreal are the world's two best places in the world to live, the Economist says, citing a range of measures including safety, livability and cost.

The ratings are included in the Economist Intelligence Unit's latest safest cities index, in which Toronto and Montreal rank first and fourth, respectively, for safety among North American safest cities.

For its overall best-places-to-live rating, the Economist used an "index of indexes," pulling together its city rankings for safety, livability, cost of living, environment, democracy and food security.

On that basis, Toronto and Montreal topped all 50 cities that were measured, ahead of Stockholm, Amsterdam, San Francisco and Melbourne, Australia.

In the safest cities index, the two Canadian centres shared North American rankings with New York (No. 2), San Francisco (No. 3), and Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington (No. 5 through 7).

Worldwide, Toronto ranked eighth and Montreal 14th in safety.