Where is the best city to live in the Okanagan?

Are you considering a move to the Okanagan and wondering where is the best city to live?  I’m going to tell you which city it is according to an independent survey.  

In April of 2021, Vernon was high on Maclean's list of best cities to live in all of Canada!  In fact, it places #30 in Macleans.ca’s poll of the 415 best communities to live in Canada.

No. 30 is the fifth-highest in BC and best ranking outside Vancouver Island.  Don’t act like you’re not impressed!!

The North Okanagan’s biggest city’s top three features, according to the list, are internet access, health and amenities.

In 2020, Vernon moves as No. 62, so it has literally skyrocketed up the charts!  So why the change?  Well, when the pandemic hit – people’s priorities changed.  

What Maclean’s did in 2020 was gather data on 415 communities across the country and compared them based on categories it thought would be most important to the average person.  In 2020, the top features for Vernon were listed as taxes, weather and wealth, and economy.

Now in 2021, Maclean’s is now assuming remote work is here to stay, I would agree.  Now people are able to move from wherever that they initially were only living for work – and now if they’re not tied to an office and a lengthy commute, they are moving to where they want to live as opposed to where they had to live.  

So for 2021, Maclean’s criteria eliminated categories assessing the local economy, which is good for Vernon because it’s not like there’s a ton of employment, and instead added assessing internet quality.  So way to go Vernon, for having great internet, people can easily work remotely because our internet rocks it.  

Points were given to communities based on housing affordability, taxes, crime, weather, health, specialists, doctors’ offices, hospital nearby, amenities, airport nearby, restaurant and bars nearby, population growth, community involvement and, as mentioned above, internet quality.

Coming ahead of Vernon in the top 30 are communities all found on Vancouver Island: Langford (No. 18), Central Saanich (No. 22), Sidney (No. 23) and Saanich (No. 29).

Vernon finished ahead of Calgary (No. 31), Ottawa (No. 36) and London, Ont. (No. 40).

Other B.C. centers cracking the top-50 were Kamloops (No. 37), Comox (No. 38), Penticton (No. 41), Delta (No. 48) and Courtenay (No. 49).

Salmon Arm was in at No. 56, Victoria, the provincial capital, was No. 59, Kelowna came in at No. 65 and Vancouver is ranked No. 174.

The link to this report from MacLean’s is below, so feel free to check it out, verify, I swear Vernon is #30, #5 in BC and #1 in the Okanagan, suck it Kelowna and Penticton!!  I didn’t say it, MacLean’s did.  So it must be true. Intrigued? Check out these Vernon Houses For Sale.

https://www.macleans.ca/canadas-best-communities-in-2021-full-ranking/