Last week, the Free Press reported that Winnipeg placed 11th among Canadian cities on the “Next Cities” rankings released by Next Generation Consulting. A Wisconsin-based market research firm, NGC has been studying the city and workplace preferences of 20-40 year olds since 1998.
“The next generation is very savvy about choosing where they’ll live,” says NGC’s founder, Rebecca Ryan. “They look carefully at quality of life factors like how much time they’re going to spend in traffic commuting, if they can live near a park or hike-and-bike trail, and whether a city’s downtown stays awake after five.”
The Next Cities list ranks cities that are – or have the capacity to be – great places to live and work for the next generation, because they have the best overall score in the seven indexes the next gen values.
What are those seven indexes? Here’s a rundown:
- Vitality – how healthy is your city? Air and water quality, green space, and overall health contribute to this measure.
- Earning – this index includes things like future job growth and diversity of employment opportunities.
- Learning – measures a city’s commitment to education by tallying educational opportunities, library use and spending on education, among other things.
- Social Capital – includes measures of diversity, crime rates, voter participation rates, and the percentage of women- and minority-owned businesses.
- Cost of Lifestyle – measures what you’d think it does. Winnipeg ranked well on this index.
- After Hours – what’s going on after work? This index looks at things to do and places to go at night and on weekends.
- Around Town – measures airport activity, commute times, “walkability” and more.
Check out the Free Press article and add your comments to those of 52 (and counting) others who had something to say about Winnipeg ranking 11th in Canada.
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August 22nd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
i live in Winnipeg, and i must say, it sucks, not as much at the manitoban country people, but Winnipeg is just baaad.