Vancouver ranked one of the world's best cities in 2020: report

Vancouver has been ranked as one of the best cities in the world, according to Resonance Consultancy’s World Best Cities 2020 report.

The tourism, real estate, and economic development advisor, based out of Vancouver and New York, releases the ranking annually. This year, Vancouver ranked 41st, just after Austin, Texas and ahead of Dublin, Orlando, and Osaka. Notably, Vancouver’s ranking fell four spots from its previous spot of 37.

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

But there is hope thanks to the Silicon Valley and Seattle tech giants coming into the city with “plenty of jobs, coaxed by Canada’s openness to global tech talent immigration largely spurned by the current U.S. administration.”

The following are the World Best Cities 2020 Top 20:

1. London, England
2. New York, United States
3. Paris, France
4. Tokyo, Japan
5. Moscow, Russia
6. Dubai, United Arab Emirates
7. Singapore, Singapore
8. Barcelona, Spain
9. Los Angeles, United States
10. Rome, Italy
11. San Francisco, United States
12. Madrid, Spain
13. Chicago, United States
14. Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
15. Amsterdam, Netherlands
16. Beijing, China
17. Toronto, Canada
18. Doha, Qatar
19. Hong Kong, China
20. San Diego, United States
21. Boston, United States
22. Sydney, Australia
23. Las Vegas, United States
24. Miami, United States
25. San Jose, United States
26. Washington, United States
27. Zurich, Switzerland
28. Berlin, Germany
29. Prague, Czech Republic
30. Seoul, South Korea
31. Milan, Italy
32. Houston, United States
33. Melbourne, Australia
34. Seattle, United States
35. St. Petersburg, Russia
36. Vienna, Austria
37. Munich, Germany
38. Dallas, United States
39. Istanbul, Turkey
40. Austin, United States
41. Vancouver, Canada
42. Dublin, Ireland
43. Orlando, United States
44. Osaka, Japan
45. Montreal, Canada
46. Stuttgart, Germany
47. Frankfurt, Germany
48. Calgary, Canada
49. Pheonix, United States
50. Lisbon. Portugal