Vancouver ranked one of the world's best cities in 2021

Vancouver has been ranked as one of the best cities in the world, according to Resonance Consultancy’s World Best Cities 2021 report.

The tourism, real estate, and economic development advisor, based out of Vancouver and New York, releases the ranking annually. This year, Vancouver ranked 34th, just after Dublin, Ireland, but ahead of Boston, US, and Zurich, Switzerland. Notably, Vancouver’s ranking jumped seven spots this year from its previous place of 41st.

The report ranks the relative quality of the world’s “principal cities” — the largest city in each metropolitan statistical area — with populations of one million or more, based on categories ranging from the physical place to prosperity to people.

“The World’s Best Cities rankings are composed of experiential factors that people consider most important in choosing a city to live and visit, as well as empirical factors that business decision-makers consider important for business or investment,” says Resonance Consultancy President and CEO Chris Fair in a release.

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Vancouver’s key areas of impression included its educational attainment by residents and foreign-born citizenry.

Those alone make up the study’s “People” section, for which the city ranks fifth. In addition to “People,” the report analyzes cities based on the following categories:

Place – Focuses on the layers of a location’s physical experience. Think weather, safety, neighbourhoods and landmarks, and the great outdoors.
Product – Described as the ranking of a city’s “hardware,” looks at airport connectivity, attractions, museums, university rankings, and the like.
Prosperity – Focuses on number of Global 500 corporate headquarters and GDP — Gross Domestic Product — per capita.
Programming – Measuring “the experiential pillars of a great visit: food, shows, shopping and nightlife,” this category encompasses culture, nightlife, dining, and shopping.
Promotion – Covering a city’s “ability to tell its story,” this section looks at Facebook check-ins, TripAdvisor reviews, Google searches, Instagram hashtags, and more.

“Increasingly, the term ‘visible minority’ doesn’t mean anything here. Despite the success of this Eden of coexistence, not all is calm,” reads the report.

“Always on the lookout for foreign investment, various incarnations of provincial and federal governments made citizenship available to foreigners with sufficient capital, with little oversight on taxing outside funds.”

Resonance Consultancy notes that Vancouver’s housing prices are “now mostly hitched to a global context, largely decoupled from local wages.”

The University of British Columbia also gets recognition as “a draw for the next generation of Vancouver’s increasingly global citizenry.”

“The most Asian city outside of Asia is as smart as it is gorgeous. Too bad about the price of entry,” states the report.

The following are the World Best Cities 2021 Top 20:

1. London, England
2. New York, United States
3. Paris, France
4. Moscow, Russia
5. Tokyo, Japan
6. Dubai, United Arab Emirates
7. Singapore, Singapore
8. Barcelona, Spain
9. Los Angeles, United States
10. Madrid, Spain
11. Rome, Italy
12. Chicago, United States
13. Toronto, Canada
14. San Francisco, United States
15. Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
16. St. Petersburg, Russia
17. Amsterdam, Netherlands
18. Berlin, Germany
19. Prague, Czech Republic
20. San Diego, United States