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Vancouver ranks fifth globally, first in North America, in the Mercer survey.

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Vancouver Most Livable City in North America: Mercer

By Matt O'Grady / February 19, 2014

Vancouver skyline | BCBusiness
Vancouver ranks fifth globally, first in North America, in the Mercer survey.

Vancouver takes top honours in annual Mercer Quality of Living survey for North America, ranking fifth worldwide

Vancouver has topped the list of North American cities with the highest quality of living in an annual survey done by Mercer LLC and ranks fifth globally after Vienna, Zurich, Auckland and Munich.

The 2014 Quality of Living survey by the international consultancy measures living conditions in more than 460 cities and is used by companies to determine pay and other incentives to locate workers around the world.

Living conditions are analyzed according to 39 factors, grouped into categories such as political and social environment; economic environment; schools and education; housing; and the natural environment. Each factor is weighted to reflect its importance to expatriates, with the scores combining to determine the final rankings.

In a release, Slagin Parakatil, senior researcher at Mercer, said: “In a world economy that is becoming more globalized, cities beyond the traditional financial and business centres are working to improve their quality of living so they can attract more foreign companies.”