Say what you want about the value of magazine surveys or their methodology, but in one short bulleted list MoneySense magazine said a mouthful about St. Albert to a national audience. This city’s No. 5 ranking on the financial mag’s Best Places to Live in Canada list won’t kick start a mass cross-country migration to St. Albert, but it does get us noticed in a way that can only be positive for business and tourism. And ultimately, isn’t it nice to have affirmation about a fact so many of us already know about the great place we call home?
St. Albert’s high ranking on the MoneySense list of 180 cities with populations exceeding 10,000 can’t be attributed to one specific set of criteria where the city scored well, but a series of categories where the scores were in our favour. Not surprisingly, given recent census data, St. Albert was near the top in household discretionary income, at number two. The city also fared well on taxation, both provincial income tax and sales tax, at Numbers four and one, respectively (several Alberta cities were tied for number one due to the absence of sales tax). St. Albert ranked well in household income (seventh), unemployment (24th), crime severity (25th), precipitation days (31st) and violent crime (46th).
An area in which St. Albert ranks well, 44th for doctors per 1,000 population, is a bit surprising given recent concerns generated due to the lack of family doctors. According to the magazine’s methodology, cities score points from the number of general practice and specialist physicians. It’s unclear whether St. Albert fared well due to the location of the Sturgeon Community Hospital, but clearly the methodology did not factor whether a doctor actually takes new patients, which remains a legitimate worry for many families new to St. Albert and long-time residents whose doctors are retiring, so much so city council is looking for remedies.
Of course it’s not all rosy. Rankings where St. Albert falls within the top 50 or 100 suggest we’re doing a decent job but there’s room for improvement. St. Albert ranked 43rd for public transit for a service we all know is effective at moving commuters from St. Albert to Edmonton but is lacking at non-peak periods in town. Culture, an aspect of St. Albert life many take pride in, ranked 70th, reflecting that the percentage of people employed in the arts, culture and recreation isn’t as high as other places. The ranking for total crime, 101st, puts St. Albert in the middle of the pack using statistics from 2009, reinforcing that even if the population is relatively safe from severe and violent crime, we are by no means free of a criminal element, though it’s more likely to be on the order of vandalism, theft from vehicles and break and enters.
St. Albert ranks poorly for average house prices (154th) — good news for long-term investments but poses challenges on the affordability front and the hope of building an inclusive city. We rank 163rd for percentage of residents who walk or bike to work, no doubt a reflection of ongoing challenges to attract businesses to a city with a bedroom community rap. Curiously, the survey does not include any data on property taxation, utility charges or variety of programs and services, which also are important measures to quality of life. Thanks to the City of Edmonton’s annual survey we have a good idea where St. Albert would rank for property taxes (let’s just say triple digits), but it’s disappointing quality of services were left off, though perhaps understandable given the challenges in selecting and evaluating data.
In the end, what does a survey like this mean for St. Albert? After all, MoneySense is only taking a page from Maclean’s, whose popular safest city survey boosts readership every year. If you’re city hall, the ranking becomes part of efforts to market St. Albert as a great place to live, work and play. Expect to see references in brochures, year-end reports and email signatures, similar to when a few years ago St. Albert scored well on the aforementioned Maclean’s ranking despite obvious flaws in methodology that were even recognized by local police. Expect those references to melt away if the city’s rank ever slips, as happened in the most recent Maclean’s survey. To the rest of us, the ranking is innocuous — a wink of acknowledgement on a large stage that we do live in an excellent city. We don’t need a ranking to tell us that, but it never hurts.
