Well this latest bit of publicity won’t do much to turn the tide of negativity around the Northwest these days. For those looking to move to our neck of the woods, the impressions generated by a recent magazine article will surely have folks turning their GPS in a more southerly direction.
Moneysense magazine has just completed its second annual survey of the most livable cities in Canada and for boosters of the Northwest, the findings won’t be kind, or welcome but they will be found in the May edition of the magazine.
Of 154 cities surveyed by the magazine, Prince Rupert was listed in 149th place, 148 away from being considered the most livable, and but five away from being the least.
Only Terrace at 150, Williams Lake at 152, Campbell River at 153 and Port Alberni as number 154 rated worse results from British Columbia.
( from the blog a town called podunk, click on the link below to see the entire article atowncalledpodunk.blogspot.com/2 … 6080 )-
Just another attempt at quantifying something that shouldn’t be measured with numbers.
I live near Fredericton ( #3 on the list which is flooded right now) and I used to live in Prince Rupert and before that I lived in Moncton (#7). I can tell you that if someone uses this to list to decide where they are going to live, they are making assumptions without knowing what the places have to offer. Fredericton is a great place to live but Prince Rupert has things that it doesn’t have and I believe that a survey of Rupertites would yield similar result in terms of liking their own city as a survey of Frederictonians.
This study was probably done by someone in an office in Toronto who’s sole interest in life is accumulation of money and wealth.
Just as an example of a flaw in the study, the number of doctors per 1000 is listed at 2.2865 in Fredericton while it is at 1.9147 in PR. Yet, any newcomer to this area will have to live here for at least a year before being able to get a family doctor. It took us a year an a half! Imagine if a family has young children. And, from my own experience and observation, the wait at the hospital emergency is at least twice as long as the one in Prince Rupert.
Well, looking over the list left me very unimpressed to say the least. Many of the places that I know well and you could not pay me enough to live in ranked reasonably high on the list (Mississauga, Saskatoon, Swift Current, Estavan and Lethbridge(!!)) while places that are good places to be ranked pretty low on the list…perhaps this list might be useful if you just wanted a home based on dollars and cents but I KNOW that to be happy in a place, there is a lot more that matters, like what certain neighbourhoods are like, what type of sports you like to do (vs professional sports-??),etc. You can manipulate the listings via the various cateory headers and of course when you factor in the weather stats,negative growth over the past few years,etc Rupert does come up short I have to admit but when you see some of the crappy cities that rank so surprisingly high on the list, I would be extremely reluctant to point this out to anyone trying to make a move since I don’t think it’s a true representation of how “great” some of those places would be to live in. I’m not saying that the numbers are lying but you really would have to see some of these cities to realise that you are getting just a teensie picture of the reality of those places. 
What’s wrong with Lethbridge? Other than the blowing grit, it was fun back in the mid 70s…
That’s not really a fair thing to assume, especially when you try to make an argument that numbers don’t mean everything.
But I agree, we have here something that can’t really be measured with stats alone being measured none-the-less. However, I think anyone who actually takes the time to look at the list will also realize that it’s not the best tool to use when deciding to move–and because of that, I’m not too worried. I mean, it’s not like as a result of this list half of the current Rupertites are going to move to Ottawa.
Other than it’s rather barren looking and hip-deep in senior citizens?? That it’s in the middle of nowhere and aside from the downtown core and the box stores on M. Macgrath Dr., it really has nothing much to offer the casual visitor?
Oh, nothing… 
An eye for an eye: unfair study = unfair assumptions about the authors of the study.