Fitbit ranks unhappy Vancouver as 25th most livable of 77 cities surveyed

by Charlie Smith on October 17th, 2019 at 1:10 PM

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Some of the city's richest residents like to think of Vancouver as the best city in the world. And many surveys trotted out by international consulting firms also rank Vancouver very high in terms of livability.

But this week, the Best Cities Wellbeing Index, based on research by Fitbit, came to a radically different conclusion.

It pegged Vancouver as 25th on its list of 77 cities, slightly behind Barcelona and only a little bit ahead of Belfast.

It came after assessing 15 different factors that contribute to a livable city.

Vancouver's highest mark came in the "green spaces" category, ranking third behind Hamburg and Stockholm. And it tied for fourth with Montreal in "LGBT acceptance", trailing only Reykjavik, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam.

But Vancouver only ranked 47th in "living costs", 48th in "mental health", 52nd in "carbon dioxide emissions", and 57th in "happiness".

The most unhappy city was Luxembourg, followed by Cape Town, Hong Kong, Moscow, San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles.

Vancouver registered slightly higher marks in the "city innovation" (19th), "gender equity" (23rd), "monthly salary" (26th), "safety" (27th), "healthcare quality" (41st), and "vegan-friendly" (44th) categories.

Montreal scored higher overall and Toronto scored significantly lower overall than Vancouver.

Here are the 25 most livable cities, according to Fitbit:

1. Reykjavik

2. Helsinki

3. Oslo

4. Copenhagen

5. Munich

6. Vienna

7. Berlin

8. Stockholm

9. Amsterdam

10. Edinburgh