The end of one year and the beginning of another is the time for making lists.
This includes both personal lists, such as for Christmas gifts or New Year’s resolutions, and the endless media lists, such as the top news stories or best athletes of the past 12 months.
People seem to love making lists and reading lists.
Unless they’re bad news.
And a recent list of Canada’s most livable cities in The Globe and Mail newspaper was certainly disappointing for anyone living in Barrie or Simcoe County.
The list, published at the end of November, compared 439 Canadian municipalities with at least 10,000 people, ranking them using 43 variables over 10 categories such as economy, housing education, safety, health care and weather.
Victoria, B.C. was first, followed by North Vancouver. Communities in B.C. took six of the top 10 spots.
Barrie was Simcoe County’s most livable city, although you had to go all the way down to the 166th spot to find it. The rest of Simcoe County was worse, much worse. Bradford West Gwillimbury was 228th New Tecumseth was 245th and Orillia was 248th.
Three Simcoe County municipalities ranked near the bottom: Tiny at 404th, Tay at 424th and Severn at 430th.
In Barrie’s case, respectable scores in health care (62nd in Canada), transportation (77th , which I’m sure will come as a bit of a shock to many people) and amenities (87th) were negated by housing (384th, no surprise), demographics, where it is seen as beneficial to have a diverse population and one growing as
the same rate as the Canadian population (300th) and climate (208th — no surprise there although it is a bit of a puzzle how Oro-Medonte ranked 37 spots higher).
Perhaps Barrie’s most surprising ranking was in safety where the city ranked 255th, below average. That comes despite the city consistently having the lowest or near-lowest score on the national Crime Severity Index, meaning we have the lowest crime rate in Canada. Our local police also score high on solving crimes.
The Globe and Mail ranking also looked at how safe people felt, according to an Environics poll, so I can only assume Barrie residents feel less safe for some reason, despite it being one of the safest places in Canada.
That would certainly be in keeping with a list from Point2Homes, an online real estate portal, which ranked Barrie as the 10th unhappiest city in Canada based on analyzing 30 metrics.
I find this very strange. Most of the people I know in Barrie and the surrounding area love living here and appreciate all the good things about the area. They’re happy.
At least Barrie fared better in other recent lists. For example, Barrie ranked 19th in Canada on GoFundMe’s list of the most generous communities in Canada, based on donations over the past year.
That’s pretty good and something of which to be proud.
And a December survey by BestCasinoSites.net, of all people, found Barrie residents had the second-most Christmas spirit in the country, behind only Halifax.
Barrie was tops in terms of people participating in seasonal activity, such as putting up lights, but fell behind on holiday spending.
Little wonder since Savvy Canada, which calls itself Canada’s “leading personal finance education platform,” said Barrie residents had the seventh highest personal debt of any city in the country.
That likely has something to do with those high housing costs.
Finally, the Great Runs website, geared toward travellers who like to exercise when they are on the road, recently ranked Barrie sixth in terms of “Best Winter Running Cities” in Canada.
We’ll take our victories where we can find them.
Barry Ward is a veteran editor and journalist who also served on Barrie city council for 22 years. His column appears regularly on BarrieToday.
