1
Number 94. The good news: we're not New Glasgow
04 April 2011
Five years ago, Collingwood was listed as the 11th best place in Canada to live. The ten top spots were all taken by cities, making Collingwood the number one town in Canada to live.
Today, in 2011, Moneysense magazine ranks us 94th out of 180 towns and cities, not even in the top half. And some of our ratings are even lower than that: affordable housing: 141; discretionary income: 130; job prospects: 135; new cars on the road: 100.
What brings us up are our walkability score (21) and growth (8) rankings. But other scores are merely average: access to health care is fair but far from great (61), household income is equally modest (61), low crime rate is still too high for a community this size (73). Weather - at 147 - is the only thing we really can't do much about and overall I'd argue we're unfairly ranked in that category (snow days should boost our rank, not lower it).
Despite the large number of people retiring here, we're not even close to the magazine's top-ten places to retire. For the full list of all 180 cities see here.
The good news is that we're not among the ten worst places to live in Canada. These include, in order:
What happened that we fell so far and so fast from 11th place in 2006 and 2007?
The long slide began in 2008, when Collingwood plummeted to 61st place.. We rose a little to 53rd place in the 2009 listing but fell again a whopping 30 points in 2010 to 83rd place.
Now we're below the halfway mark at 94th. We dropped 11 points alone between the 2010 and 2011 lists. Is it because our economy and prospects have really fallen so much over the last four years? Or did some change in methodology reorder the ranks?
While it might be easy to shrug and point the finger at the administration last term, there is obviously a lot more to the issue than just politics. Yes, they play a part - mostly in creating attitudes and policies regarding growth and development - but there's more at work here (and even I can't blame Mayor Carrier for our low weather rating...).
What's more important is to figure out how we rise again, how we improve our community both for ourselves and for the face we put on for the rest of Canada. We're a good place to live, we're a proud, active and engaged community. What do we need to do to become the number one town again?
Weather, notwithstanding, we certainly need to improve in some areas within our control: affordable housing, disposable income (i.e. lower taxes) and crime are three areas we can focus on this term to improve our ratings. Job prospects, too, although our record in creating mid-to-high paying jobs over the past couple of decades is less than stellar. That has been true across the province as jobs are outsourced and industries move away, so we're not alone in that struggle. Perhaps we need to look at changing our focus from industrial growth to more achievable goals - creating a thriving cultural tourism industry might be the way to go, or at least a point of discussion.
Again I suggest we need to have a collective, public and open strategy session, with staff and council, to set priorities and goals. We need to revise and refine our strategic plan with some clearly defined and measurable targets for the future. And we can't put that exercise off much longer if we want to put the brakes on our slide into the bottom half of the ratings.
Today, in 2011, Moneysense magazine ranks us 94th out of 180 towns and cities, not even in the top half. And some of our ratings are even lower than that: affordable housing: 141; discretionary income: 130; job prospects: 135; new cars on the road: 100.
What brings us up are our walkability score (21) and growth (8) rankings. But other scores are merely average: access to health care is fair but far from great (61), household income is equally modest (61), low crime rate is still too high for a community this size (73). Weather - at 147 - is the only thing we really can't do much about and overall I'd argue we're unfairly ranked in that category (snow days should boost our rank, not lower it).
Despite the large number of people retiring here, we're not even close to the magazine's top-ten places to retire. For the full list of all 180 cities see here.
The good news is that we're not among the ten worst places to live in Canada. These include, in order:
- New Glasgow, NS
- Bay Roberts, NL
- Val-d’Or, PQ
- Williams Lake, B.C.
- Quesnel, B.C.
- Campbell River, B.C.
- Norfolk, ON
- Summerside, P.E.I.
- Port Alberni, B.C.
- La Tuque, PQ
What happened that we fell so far and so fast from 11th place in 2006 and 2007?
The long slide began in 2008, when Collingwood plummeted to 61st place.. We rose a little to 53rd place in the 2009 listing but fell again a whopping 30 points in 2010 to 83rd place.
Now we're below the halfway mark at 94th. We dropped 11 points alone between the 2010 and 2011 lists. Is it because our economy and prospects have really fallen so much over the last four years? Or did some change in methodology reorder the ranks?
While it might be easy to shrug and point the finger at the administration last term, there is obviously a lot more to the issue than just politics. Yes, they play a part - mostly in creating attitudes and policies regarding growth and development - but there's more at work here (and even I can't blame Mayor Carrier for our low weather rating...).
What's more important is to figure out how we rise again, how we improve our community both for ourselves and for the face we put on for the rest of Canada. We're a good place to live, we're a proud, active and engaged community. What do we need to do to become the number one town again?
Weather, notwithstanding, we certainly need to improve in some areas within our control: affordable housing, disposable income (i.e. lower taxes) and crime are three areas we can focus on this term to improve our ratings. Job prospects, too, although our record in creating mid-to-high paying jobs over the past couple of decades is less than stellar. That has been true across the province as jobs are outsourced and industries move away, so we're not alone in that struggle. Perhaps we need to look at changing our focus from industrial growth to more achievable goals - creating a thriving cultural tourism industry might be the way to go, or at least a point of discussion.
Again I suggest we need to have a collective, public and open strategy session, with staff and council, to set priorities and goals. We need to revise and refine our strategic plan with some clearly defined and measurable targets for the future. And we can't put that exercise off much longer if we want to put the brakes on our slide into the bottom half of the ratings.
