Alberta
OpenStats City Score, ranking history, and local readings for Edmonton.
Edmonton sits at City Score rank #1 with a standing of 72%, from 8 of 8 open-data pillars (tax, construction, connectivity, indoor air, water, seismic hazard, growth, safety). Missing pillars score at median standing so thin coverage cannot inflate the rank. The chart below shows how that standing moves year to year.
Latest owned placements: building permit value rank #5 of 172 (2025); indoor radon rank #52 of 117 at 114 Bq/m³ survey mean; residential mill rate rank #147 of 172 (7.86 mill rate). Full tables and method notes live on each study edition; atlas readings for the same slug open from the topic buttons.
Open each topic for Edmonton.
Documented pro, junior, university, and high-school teams tied to Edmonton.
Published residential mill-rate context for Edmonton.
Living-history park on the City attractions roster, set for families who want period streets without leaving town. It sits in the same
Pyramid conservatory listed under City attractions, a glass landmark on the River Valley edge. It is the indoor plant stop when winter or a
Municipal shorthand calls the connected parks-and-trails system the River Valley, not a single landmark name.
Where Edmonton sits in published building-permit figures for July 2026.
Edmontonians talk about the River Valley the way other cities talk about a downtown skyline. Trails and parks stitch the system together: William Hawrelak Park with its lake and Heritage Amphitheatre, Louise McKinney Riverfront Park on the downtown bank, Mill Creek Ravine Park cutting a green seam, then Whitemud Park and Terwillegar Park farther southwest. Groat Road is the corridor that drops you toward Hawrelak gates and bus stops. In August, the Edmonton Heritage Festival turns Hawrelak into the multicultural fairground that leads Journal fronts when weather cooperates or does not.
Everyday movement runs on ETS, the brand that covers buses, LRT, and DATS for door-to-door trips. Social tags lean #yegtransit and #takeETS, folding the YEG shorthand into the commute. Downtown entertainment clusters around the Ice District and Rogers Place, where Edmonton Oilers coverage never really clocks out; Journal readers know the Cult of Hockey columns by name. Commonwealth Stadium still carries the big outdoor sports file, and Edmonton Elks results show up on CBC Edmonton sports when the season is on.
City pages push infill and backyard housing as the growth language for existing neighbourhoods, while attractions list Fort Edmonton Park, Muttart Conservatory, and Edmonton Valley Zoo beside Churchill Square for civic gatherings. North of the city, a proposed Meta data centre in the Sturgeon and Morinville orbit keeps protest stories in the Journal mix. On the OpenStats City Score for 2026, Edmonton sits at rank 19 of 125. The hometown frame stays River Valley paths, ETS rides, and a hockey town that also fills Hawrelak when Heritage Festival weekend arrives.
Drawn from City of Edmonton, City of Edmonton ETS, William Hawrelak Park, City of Edmonton attractions and events, City of Edmonton parks and recreation, City of Edmonton residential neighbourhoods, Edmonton Journal, CBC Edmonton.
City Score from 2016–2025 across eight open-data pillars. Individual study placements are listed in the panels below.
Each study below is its own ranking. Where a study has more than one edition for this city, the chart shows standing across those years only.
sports · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities with an Alberta Junior Hockey League club in the OpenStats seed list ranked by regular-season points percentage. Rank 1 = highest points %. Source: Wikipedia AJHL season standings. Clubs in towns outside the seed list are omitted.
2 editions · 2024–2025
Connectivity · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by estimated best advertised download (Mbps). Anchored to the current ISED National Broadband Data vintage, then backcast along a national speed curve with city-specific fiber-arrival and 50/10 availability paths so relative ranks can change over the decade. Not a claim of audited historical hex maps for every year.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Construction · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by calendar-year building permit value. Direct rows sum Statistics Canada Table 34-10-0292-01. Cities without a direct reading use population × provincial per-capita permit intensity (estimated), so every seed city has a year-varying construction signal.
10 editions · 2016–2025
sports · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities with a Canadian Hockey League club ranked by regular-season points percentage (best club wins if several). Rank 1 = highest points %. Built from CHL standings and Wikipedia season pages. Cities without a CHL club are omitted.
8 editions · 2017–2025
Composite · OpenStats
OpenStats
Dimensional average of OpenStats open-data pillars for each panel year 2016–2025: tax, construction, connectivity, indoor air, water, seismic hazard, population growth, and crime severity. Each series is scored 0–1 within its edition; series in the same pillar are averaged, then all eight pillars are averaged with equal weight. Missing pillars score at median standing (0.5). Growth and CSI use StatCan annual tables; permits, mill rates, and broadband use live rows plus documented year-varying estimates where needed. Radon, water, and PGA may be survey/model vintages carried forward and are flagged when static for more than two years. External commercial livability lists are never inputs.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Safety · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by Statistics Canada Crime Severity Index (Table 35-10-0026-01). Rank 1 is highest CSI (worse). Values are CMA where a metro match exists, otherwise provincial CSI. Hometown pages label the grain.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Water · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by municipal drinking-water hardness (mg/L as CaCO₃). Hardness changes slowly; the atlas vintage is carried across panel years and flagged when static for more than two years.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Water · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by reported lead (µg/L) on the OpenStats water atlas. Carried across panel years until annual municipal report panels are ingested.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Health · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by Health Canada survey mean indoor radon (Bq/m³). Rank 1 is the highest mean. Decade panel years without a new survey carry the CMA survey vintage forward; they are not annual retests.
10 editions · 2016–2025
sports · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by weighted count of documented local teams (pro, junior, university, high-school hubs). Rank 1 = deepest documented sports footprint among covered seed cities. Not a claim about on-field success. See sports methodology for weights and gaps.
Single edition · 2025
Only one published edition places Edmonton in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Growth · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by year-over-year population growth from Statistics Canada annual CSD estimates (Table 17-10-0155-01). Rank 1 is fastest growth. A few places without a clean CSD match use a provincial-path estimate anchored to seed population.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Property tax · OpenStats
OpenStats
Municipalities ranked by residential mill rate. Rank 1 is the highest rate. Published municipal years are used when available; gaps are interpolated or follow the provincial median path so the tax pillar moves year to year for every city.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Hazards · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by NRCan peak ground acceleration (higher = stronger shaking hazard). Rank 1 is highest PGA. The seismic model is multi-year; values are carried across the City Score panel and flagged as static until NRCan publishes a new generation.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Housing
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Average rent for purpose-built 2-bedroom apartments (all tenants) from CMHC Rental Market Survey. Rank 1 = lowest average rent among covered CMAs.
Single edition · 2025
Only one published edition places Edmonton in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Housing
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Purpose-built rental apartment vacancy rate from CMHC Rental Market Survey (October). Rank 1 = highest vacancy (most available rental stock among covered CMAs).
2 editions · 2024–2025
Housing
Demographia / Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Canadian subset of Demographia median multiple (median house price / median household income). Rank 1 = most affordable (lowest median multiple) among Canadian major markets in the international survey.
3 editions · 2024–2026
Livability
The Globe and Mail
2023 data partnership with Environics Analytics ranking 439 Canadian communities on ten livability categories.
Single edition · 2023
Only one published edition places Edmonton in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Livability
Maclean's
Successor-style municipal livability ranking published by Maclean's for 2019 and 2021 (no 2020 edition).
2 editions · 2019–2021
Livability
MoneySense
Annual composite ranking of Canadian municipalities on economy, housing, crime, health, and weather.
4 editions · 2014–2018
Housing
National Bank of Canada Economics and Strategy
Ranked by Mortgage Payment as a Percentage of Income (MPPI) on a representative home. Rank 1 = highest MPPI (least affordable). Free quarterly Housing Affordability Monitor tables.
2 editions · 2025–2026
Quality of life
Numbeo
Crowd-sourced composite Quality of Life Index. Historical snapshots are free on Numbeo ranking pages; OpenStats cites Canadian cities from those public pages (cite_only). Higher index scores are better; ranks are global position on the snapshot page.
3 editions · 2024–2026
Housing
RBC Economics
Ranked by RBC aggregate Housing Affordability Measure (% of median pre-tax household income for mortgage, property taxes, and utilities on a benchmark home). Rank 1 = highest ownership-cost burden (least affordable). CMA markets mapped to primary city slugs.
2 editions · 2024–2025
Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.
Municipal shorthand calls the connected parks-and-trails system the River Valley, not a single landmark name.
ETS social tags mix #yegtransit and #takeETS, tying the YEG airport-code habit to buses, LRT, and DATS.
Infill and backyard housing are the growth phrases City neighbourhood pages use when density arrives on existing lots.
Edmonton Heritage Festival stages at William Hawrelak Park and regularly leads August coverage when crowds or weather shift the day.
River Valley festival park with a lake and Heritage Amphitheatre, reached via Groat Road gates and ETS stops. In August it hosts the Edmonton Heritage Festival that Edmontonians plan around.
Pyramid conservatory listed under City attractions, a glass landmark on the River Valley edge. It is the indoor plant stop when winter or a festival crowd has you hunting calm.
Living-history park on the City attractions roster, set for families who want period streets without leaving town. It sits in the same attractions conversation as the Valley Zoo and downtown plazas.
Downtown riverfront park on the City River Valley list, close to Churchill Square and the core. It gives Edmontonians a bank-side pause between ETS rides and Ice District nights.
When Edmonton moves in a ranking, posts new permit figures, or lands in a study, get a short note. A few sends a year, only when something changes.
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