Interior cities plunge in Maclean’s best Canadian cities ranking

The Southern Interior’s major cities have all plunged in Maclean's annual ranking of the best places to live in Canada, by MoneySense writer Claire Brownell.

West Kelowna dropped 155 places but still came in 220th out of 413 cities measured while Kelowna is down 150 spots, from 100th to 250th place.

Vernon is down 149 place to 370th overall while Penticton is down 48 to 383rd on the full rankings. Kamloops dropped 112 places to 237th overall.

Macleans acknowledges right off the top that a number of “tweaks and adjustments" to the methodology for this year’s rankings, including data on median wait times for medical procedures plus penalties for cities that grow faster than the norm means this year’s list can’t be directly compared to 2017.

Southern Interior cities aren’t alone in dropping down the annual popularity list as most B.C. cities have also slid down the rankings.

Fort Saint John was the top ranked B.C. city coming in 15th overall, just ahead of Toronto and edging out Whistler (20th) and easily besting others local contenders, mostly clustered in the Lower Mainland.


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John McDonald

John began life as a journalist through the Other Press, the independent student newspaper for Douglas College in New Westminster. The fluid nature of student journalism meant he was soon running the place, learning on the fly how to publish a newspaper.

It wasn’t until he moved to Kelowna he broke into the mainstream media, working for Okanagan Sunday, then the Kelowna Daily Courier and Okanagan Saturday doing news graphics and page layout. He carried on with the Kelowna Capital News, covering health and education while also working on special projects, including the design and launch of a mass market daily newspaper. After 12 years there, John rejoined the Kelowna Daily Courier as editor of the Westside Weekly, directing news coverage as the Westside became West Kelowna.

But digital media beckoned and John joined Kelowna.com as assistant editor and reporter, riding the start-up as it at first soared then went down in flames. Now John is turning dirt as city hall reporter for iNFOnews.ca where he brings his long experience to bear on the civic issues of the day.

If you have a story you think people should know about, email John at jmcdonald@infonews.ca

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