Canada's Challenger Cities Poised to Knock Off Mega Cities for Youth Says Second Annual YouthfulCities Index

Affordability concerns mean next wave of cities could be better places for youth to live, work and play than Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver

TORONTO, June 18, 2019 /CNW/ - While Canada's big three continue to barely lead the pack, the second annual YouthfulCities Canadian Index shows cities like Calgary, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Victoria, Kitchener/Waterloo and Kelowna closing the gap as places attractive for Canada's youth.

"Yes, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver top the 2019 Index, but the research shows other cities are catching up fast," says YouthfulCities Co-Founder Robert Barnard. "Given some of the affordability challenges of living in Canada's major urban centres, we think more and more youth will be looking to Canada's next or 'challenger' cities as places to live, work and play."

The 2019 YouthfulCities Canadian Index is connected to a global database that measured, compared and ranked 22 Canadian cities (last year 13 cities participated) on 124 different indicators to get a picture of how cities are built to attract and meet the needs of youth aged 15-29. The indicators consist of primary and secondary data collected by young urban researchers in each community. Data is collected locally, submitted using collaborative, cloud-based research workbooks, checked centrally, normalized and then scored out of a possible 1713 points.

Toronto repeated as Canada's most youthful city at 895 points, Montreal had 883 and Vancouver 812 (Montreal finished third to Vancouver in 2018). The race tightened significantly from the 2018 Index. The gap between tenth place Hamilton with 747 points and first place is now less than 150 points, down from almost 400 points last year. Challenger cities comprise spots four through 10 in the Index, while the two suburbs in the ranking, Mississauga and Oshawa, fall near the bottom (to view the 2019 results in full, visit youthfulcities.com).

Of the 21 overall categories that YouthfulCities measures, there were 13 different winning cities.  "Using this index, youth can find a home that truly meets what they want in a city. If they want affordability, move to Alberta where all three cities top the list. For environmental sustainability – the number one issue for youth – Charlottetown is first. Sports goes to Kelowna, Creative Arts to Victoria, and if you want great public space head for Halifax," Barnard says.

Barnard added that youth value variety, and it is clear that Canada has a lot more urban options than the cities people commonly consider.

"As they have done for generations, youth will undoubtedly seek out the new spaces, regenerate them and take those cities to the world," Barnard said.

Rank	City	#1 in the following categories
1	Toronto	Civic Engagement, Safety, Financial Services
2	Montreal	Diversity, Transportation, Gender Equity
3	Vancouver	Music and Nightlife
4	Calgary
5	Saskatoon	Fashion
6	Edmonton	Affordability, Digital Access
7	Victoria	Education, Creative Arts and Culture
8	Kitchener/Waterloo
9	Ottawa
10	Hamilton
11	Kelowna	Sports
12	Charlottetown	Environment, Entrepreneurship
13	Halifax	Public Space
14	Quebec City
15	Mississauga	Travel
16	St. John's	Health, Film
17	Winnipeg
18	Sudbury
19	Lethbridge
20	Moncton
21	Oshawa
22	Yellowknife	Economic Profile

ABOUT YOUTHFULCITIES

YouthfulCities has a vision to help cities around the world become more youthful. To accomplish that, it works with youth and other leaders to create a vibrant youthful attitude and build a strong infrastructure in cities. Since 2012, YouthfulCities has used a combination of indexes and surveys to build knowledge in cities and host youth-driven labs and summits to push urban innovation and policy programming. Co-founder Robert Barnard has been working with youth and youth-oriented projects around the world for 25+ years. YouthfulCities has worked internationally collecting data in 35+ countries and 70+ cities. It is based in Toronto, Canada.

Visit youthfulcities.com or follow on Twitter @youthfulcities and Instagram @youthfulcities.

SOURCE YouthfulCities

Tiffani Lee (NATIONAL): 604-754-1346; Paul Welsh (NATIONAL): 604-761-5349; Robert Barnard (YouthfulCities): 416-953-9956