Alberta
OpenStats City Score, ranking history, and local readings for High River.
City Score #104 (2022) → #127 (2025)
High River sits at City Score rank #127 with a standing of 44%, 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. Dropping 23 places versus 2022 (#104 → #127).
Latest owned placements: building permit value rank #132 of 172 (2025); indoor radon rank #30 of 117 at 135 Bq/m³ survey mean; residential mill rate rank #105 of 172 (9.80 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 High River.
Documented pro, junior, university, and high-school teams tied to High River.
Published residential mill-rate context for High River.
Main indoor recreation hub with large and practice arenas, Cargill Field House, Highwood Curling Club ice, and an aquatics expansion
Heavily treed park beside downtown with playground, stage, picnic areas, and a seasonal Lions campground. Christmas light displays draw
George Lane Memorial Park is named for a Calgary Stampede founder and High River resident; the Lions Club runs the campground.
Where High River sits in published building-permit figures for July 2026.
High River sits in the southern Alberta foothills, where municipal copy still says prairies meet the mountains and the Highwood River runs through town. Happy Trails stitch more than 19 kilometres of paved walking and cycling paths along the river and through greenspace, the route people use to get to parks without driving. George Lane Memorial Park sits next to downtown with a stage, playground, picnic tables, and a Lions-run campground that fills in summer. Frank Lake, about 12 kilometres east, is the birding stop on the visitor list.
Indoor life centres on the Bob Snodgrass Recreational Complex. Two ice surfaces, the Cargill Field House with its walking track, and the Highwood Curling Club share the building. The pool is closed while the facility expansion finishes, so summer cool-downs lean on the High River Spray Park and the outdoor calendar. Little Bow Park sits behind the complex for group bookings and play space. The High River Times keeps a Foothills desk on community news while Town Hall pushes parks stewardship and land-use talk.
Living on the Highwood also means flood readiness. Since 2013 the town has built kilometres of dikes and installed the Centre Street Bridge Flood Gate to protect downtown. That work is part of how locals talk about the river, alongside Happy Trails, spray-park afternoons, and mountain day trips via the Cowboy Trail toward Kananaskis. Skatepark redesign talk and parks stewardship show up on the same civic calendar. On OpenStats City Score for 2026, High River sits at rank 98 of 125. The hometown framing stays foothills, river, and Happy Trails first.
Drawn from Town of High River - About, Town of High River - Happy Trails, Town of High River - George Lane Memorial Park, Town of High River - Flood Preparedness, High River Times.
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.
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
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 High River 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
Livability
MoneySense
Annual composite ranking of Canadian municipalities on economy, housing, crime, health, and weather.
4 editions · 2014–2018
Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.
Happy Trails offer over 19 km of paved pathways connecting parks and recreation sites along the Highwood River.
George Lane Memorial Park is named for a Calgary Stampede founder and High River resident; the Lions Club runs the campground.
The Centre Street Bridge Flood Gate is part of a post-2013 system that includes more than seven kilometres of engineered dikes.
The Cargill Field House inside Bob Snodgrass Recreational Complex covers more than 33,000 square feet with a two-lane walking track.
Town-wide paved pathway system along the Highwood River and through parks. Built for walkers, strollers, cyclists, and other non-motorized users as a daily transport and recreation spine.
Heavily treed park beside downtown with playground, stage, picnic areas, and a seasonal Lions campground. Christmas light displays draw winter visitors.
Main indoor recreation hub with large and practice arenas, Cargill Field House, Highwood Curling Club ice, and an aquatics expansion underway.
Birding and photography stop about 12 km east of High River on the municipal visitor list, paired with Happy Trails for a nature day out of town.
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