How scores work
AreaScore turns public data into scores from 0 to 100 so you can compare places fairly. Every figure behind a score is shown on the place's page with its source and year.
Methodology v1.3, updated 2026-10-16.
What a score means
Each score is a percentile: it says how a place compares with others. A score of 70 means the place does better than 70% of the places it is compared with. 100 is always best, so for things where lower is better, like crime or rent, the scale is flipped.
Example: if a town's rents are lower than in 80% of Canadian places, its rent score is 80.
Broadband coverage, where nearly every place is close to 100%, is scored on a fixed scale instead: 0 when half of homes are covered, 100 when all are.
Two comparisons
- Compared with Canada: every scored place in Canada. This is the main score.
- Compared with similar-sized places: only places in the same population band, so a small town is measured against other small towns.
- Neighbourhoods in the six launch cities (Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa) are compared with each other, and ranked within their own city. Their figures are built from the census dissemination areas inside each neighbourhood; figures that exist only for the whole city, such as crime, are shown as city-wide.
| Band | Population |
|---|---|
| Small town | 1,000–9,999 |
| Town | 10,000–49,999 |
| Small city | 50,000–249,999 |
| City | 250,000–999,999 |
| Major city | 1,000,000+ |
There are only a few cities and major cities, so their similar-size scores move in large steps.
Categories and weights
Each category score is the average of the scores for the figures in it. The overall AreaScore weighs the categories as below and is then ranked against other places, like the category scores.
| Category | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Affordability | 20% | Rent, home values and households spending 30% or more of income on housing |
| Safety | 20% | Crime Severity Index, total and violent |
| Healthcare | 15% | Distance to a hospital; clinics and pharmacies near home; residents with a regular healthcare provider |
| Getting around | 10% | Commute times; walking, cycling and transit use; transit stops near home |
| Amenities | 10% | Grocery stores, restaurants and cafés; libraries and recreation centres; park space |
| Schools | 10% | Elementary and secondary schools near home |
| Economy | 10% | Unemployment and population growth |
| Connectivity | 5% | Homes where 50/10 Mbps home internet is available, and on a wired line (cable, fibre or DSL) |
Score labels
| Score | Label |
|---|---|
| 80–100 | Excellent |
| 60–79 | Good |
| 40–59 | Average |
| 20–39 | Below average |
| 0–19 | Poor |
When data is missing
- A category is scored if at least half of its figures are available; otherwise it shows "Not enough data".
- The overall AreaScore needs categories that make up at least 75% of the weight; otherwise no overall score is shown.
- Missing figures are never filled in or guessed.
How figures are measured
- Each place uses the most recent year of every figure.
- "Near home" figures are measured from where people live: from each small Census neighbourhood (a dissemination area), averaged by population. A large rural municipality's figure reflects its homes, not a point in its fields.
- Some figures cover a wider area than the place, such as a regional police service or a metro-area rent average. The page says so next to the figure.
- Where no police service publishes figures for a place, Safety uses the nearest RCMP or OPP detachment and is marked Estimated.
- Nearby counts stop at enough: 3 schools within 1.6 km, 5 clinics or pharmacies within 1 km, 20 grocery stores, restaurants and cafés within 1 km, 5 libraries or recreation centres within 2 km and 10 transit stops within 500 m. More scores the same.
Limits to keep in mind
- Places with fewer than 1,000 residents show facts only, without scores.
- The highest AreaScores on the home page list only places with a score in every category. A place missing some figures still has an overall score on its page, with a note.
- Shops, parks and transit stops come partly from OpenStreetMap, which can miss places in smaller communities. Pages say when map data looks incomplete.
- Statistics Canada publishes fewer figures for First Nations reserves, so their scores rest on limited data and their pages say so.
- Scores describe places, not individual streets or homes, and are not advice. Visit, and check what matters most to you.
Sources
Statistics Canada (Census 2021, Crime Severity Index, facility databases), CMHC (rents and vacancy) and OpenStreetMap contributors. Every page lists the sources of its figures.
Changes
- v1.3
- Broadband coverage is scored on a fixed scale (0 when half of homes are covered, 100 when all are) instead of being ranked: nearly every place is at 98–100%, and ranking turned fractions of a percent into large gaps. Suburbs now show their metro area's rents.
- v1.2
- Counts of nearby facilities stop at enough (for example 3 schools within 1.6 km), so dense downtowns no longer win on sheer numbers. Within a city, a neighbourhood's Safety uses its own police-reported incidents per resident where the city publishes them. Connectivity also counts homes with 50/10 on a wired line (cable, fibre or DSL).
- v1.1
- The overall AreaScore is ranked against other places, so it spreads across 0–100 like the category scores.
- v1.0
- First version.