Airdrie has been ranked as one of the best small cities in Canada, according to data and a report compiled by Resonance Consultancy.
The city ranked 22nd of the top 25 listed, after the Consultancy group investigated over 50 small Canadian cities with populations between 50,000 and 200,000, according to Chris Fair, the president and CEO of Resonance Consultancy.
Mayor Peter Brown said he was not surprised to see Airdrie on the list, but he was surprised to not see the city higher up in the ranking.
“I thought for sure we’d break the top 10, but I’m sure that’s coming down the pipe,” he said.
To determine the ranking, the consultancy uses six factors to rank cities – place, products, programming, prosperity, people, and promotion. The factors are based on qualities that draw visitors, residents, and businesses to a city, according to Fair.
The place factor encompasses weather, crime rate, natural environment, parks, and recreation, while the product factor includes proximity to airports, universities, schools, and health care.
According to Brown, Airdrie’s low crime rate helped the city rank on the top 25 list.
“If you look at our comparables, some of the other mid-sized cities, they deal with a lot of stuff that we don’t deal with in a very significant way and that’s a testament to the people that live here,” he said. “It’s an unwritten rule, we look out for each other.”
Social aspects, such as nightlife and restaurants, are calculated under the programming factor and the prosperity factor investigates the local economy of a city.
“We have a very diverse business community which is only expanding and getting bigger,” Brown added.
The people factor focuses on diversity within a city, as well as population growth and levels of education.
Brown said Airdrie’s diversity is one reason why the city is such a unique place to live, with cultures represented from all over the world as more and more people choose to move to the community.
The final factor, promotion, studies how a city circulates on social media. For instance, the data will include how many times a city is mentioned on Facebook and how many times that city is Googled.
Pulling data using Statistics Canada, the organization also uses experimental quality data, meaning they use social media channels and travel websites to gather a first-person perspective on the city they are elevating.
“How we use the data that’s behind the overall rankings is to really generate some insight to help advise cities on what they should be prioritizing in terms of their focus on when it comes to economic development and investing in the city,” Fair explained.
To rank the cities and determine the order of the top 25 list, the Consultancy studied over 50 small cities in Canada. Using the scores from the aforementioned factors, the organization calculated the average across all six factors and ranked the top 25 cities based on the highest scores.
Airdrie’s average from the six factors landed the expanding city in the 22 spot.
Of the 50 cities, Airdrie ranked third in the prosperity category, which researches a city's household income rate, homeownership rate, employment rate, and income inequality.
Airdrie’s lowest ranking category was the product factor, meaning Airdrie is lacking close access to facilities such as hospitals, airports, and universities. Fair speculated Airdrie’s proximity to a larger urban centre could be a reason for that low ranking, as many Airdronians access those services in Calgary.
Meanwhile, Airdrie ranked 11th in the people category, which is due to the rapid population growth the city has noticed in the last decade, as well as the diversity, high levels of education attained by Airdronians, and a large amount of the community investing and working in the arts and entertainment industry.
“It’s a very welcoming and inviting city and we continue to go that way,” Brown said. “Even though we are still growing, we still haven’t lost who we are and our roots.”
Although the mayor knows the community environment of Airdrie is not a determinant of the people factor, he said the unquantifiable connection felt throughout Airdrie is one of the most important factors to him.
“We could talk about all the different amenities in our parks and pathways and all that but I think at the core, you feel connected to your neighbours,” he said. “That doesn’t happen everywhere you live and that's the really neat part about Airdrie.”
Brown said he is proud to be the mayor of a top 25 city, but he believes the real credit goes to all of those working for the City.
“The credit doesn’t go to the decision-makers, it goes to the people who do their job every day to create the beautiful parks and the pathways and make sure our water is clean when we drink it and looks after our roads when the weather turns and keep us safe when there’s issues or when you need a firefighter,” he said.
“Those are the people that deserve all the credit. They’re the ones that make our community. They’re the bread and butter and I’m always appreciative to work with them every day.”
