This year's Best Places to Live measures 154 cities. To come up with the ranking, we started by gathering information on Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomeration areas that had a population of 10,000 or greater (and for which the required data was available). We then broke up the CMAs of Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Quebec City, Hamilton, Oshawa and Kitchener into their component cities of 100,000 or more in population.

Next we ranked each community by the following categories. The categories were scored out of a given number of points (in brackets next to each category name). The higher the potential points, the more weight that category had in our final ranking.

Climate

Weather (18 points)
This category included three sub-categories. The total amount of precipitation in a year (out of 6 points; the closer it was to the ideal amount of 700 mL/year, the better), the number of wet days (6 points; the fewer the better), the number of days where the temperature drops below 0°C (6 points; the fewer the better). Source: Environment Canada.

Air quality (2 points)
This category included two sub-categories: the parts per million of ozone (1 point; the lower the better) and particulate matter in micrograms per cubic metre (1 point; the lower the better). Ozone and particulate matter are major components of smog. Source: monitoring stations in or nearest to each city and reported by the National Air Pollution Surveillance Network.

Housing

Affordable housing (15 points)
This category included two sub-categories: average house prices (7.5 points; the higher the average house price, the lower the score), and time to buy a house (7.5 points; this was calculated by dividing the average house price by the average pre-tax household income for the community. The higher the number of years to buy a house, the lower the score). Sources: Reports and listings by MLS, Toronto, Fraser Valley and Montreal Real Estate Boards. Time to buy was derived from average price divided by average 2009 estimated household income sourced from Canadian Demographics.

Prosperity

Household income (4 points)
The higher the average household income, the higher the score. Source: 2009 estimates as per Canadian Demographics.

Discretionary income (4 points)
We calculated the average discretionary income as a percentage of total household income. The higher the percentage, the higher the score. Source: 2009 estimates as per Canadian Demographics.

Job prospects (10 points)
The lower the unemployment rate, the higher the score. Source: 2008 data from Statistics Canada when provided and 2009 estimates as per Canadian Demographics.

New cars (4 points)
We looked at the number of 2005 to 2007 model year vehicles as a percentage of total cars on the road. The higher the percentage, the higher the score. Source: Canadian Demographics.