The City of Salmon Arm came top of the list of best communities to live in 2019.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK/City of Salmon Arm
August 09, 2019 - 12:30 PM
Salmon Arm has been ranked as the best place to live in B.C. and the sixth-best place to live in the entire country by Maclean's magazine.
Salmon Arm took the top spot out of 60 B.C. communities that made the Maclean's list.
West Kelowna took the second-place spot in the B.C. list of best communities, with Kelowna coming in 11th place.
Salmon Arm Mayor Alan Harrison told iNFOnews.ca said he felt "fantastic" about the rank.
"When I talked to the people from Maclean's they were surprised, they'd never heard of Salmon Arm," Harrison said. "But when they put the data in, Salmon Arm popped up very highly ranked."
The mayor said the City had done a significant about of research and knew the city was a very favourable place to live.
"Did we know we were number one in B.C. and number six in Canada? No, we did not know that," he said.
According to the publication, the rank is based on wealth and the community's economy, affordability, population growth, taxes, commuting, crime, weather, access to health care, amenities and culture.
Other communities in the Interior also featured on the list with Summerland in 14th place, Kamloops 17th, Vernon 19th, Coldstream 20th, Lake Country 21st and Penticton in 29th place.
The ranks show while the median household income in Salmon Arm is $76,048, compared to $96,933 in West Kelowna, housing is significantly cheaper with the average value of real estate in Salmon Arm at $428,517 compared $735,983 in West Kelowna.
Salmon Arm also boasts twice as many doctors' offices as West Kelowna, although there are 19,153 people living in Salmon Arm compared to 34,392 in West Kelowna.
Nationally, Salmon Arm also places in the top 10, coming in sixth out of 415 communities.
West Kelowna also does very well nationally coming in 12th place, while the City of Kelowna slips to 39th position, behind Toronto at 19th and Calgary at 33rd place.
Nationally, Summerland comes in 49th place, followed by Kamloops at 57th, Vernon at 62nd, Coldstream at 63rd and Penticton 134th place.
Salmon Arm may take the top spot on the list, but residents actually pay the highest property tax as a percentage of average income, at 1.7 per cent, compared to other communities in the region. Lake Country pays the lowest as a percentage of average income, at 1.3 per cent.
When it comes to Canada's big cities, Ottawa comes in third place, Vancouver comes in 112th place, Edmonton 79th, Calgary 33rd, Toronto 19th, with Montreal coming in at 296th place.
Maclean's ranks Burlington, Ontario as the best community to live in 2019.
For the full list go here.
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