There are a lot of ways to rank schools–none of them perfect, of course.
Percent of students going on to college.
Percent of students receiving academic scholarships.
Rated literacy of the community. (Not attributable directly to schools, but the single variable that appears to account for the success of kids in school is the literacy and involvement of parents, so a highly literate population will tend to have decent schools.)
Percent of non-sport extracurricular activities. (Nothing wrong with sports or band, but if those are the only things that the district and parents are supporting outside the classroom, it implies a lack of interest in academics while drama, music beyond the marching band, debate, chess clubs, community service groups, a good school newspaper, and other activities demonstrate a more well-rounded approach to education.)
Your criteria are exceedingly vast, since you’ve included pretty much every city between 50,000 and 1 million in the whole damn country.
Given that, here’s what I look for.
Employability: you’re an MD, so demand is fairly constant everywhere, although it grows in larger centres.
Commuting: do you want to drive for kilometers, or walk to work? Do you want to walk to your groceries/pub/bakery/movies/bookstore?
What hobbies do you have? Like going to the cottage? Surfing? X-country Skiing? Snowboarding?
Do you want to live in an ethnic enclave, like Richmond B.C. (the world’s largest Chinatown) or Surrey BC (biggest population of Indians outside of India)?
Do you want to be able to drive to a metropolis to see the theatre/big concert/nightlife/hot restaurants?
The cynical answer: Live wherever the ratio of pay to cost of living is greatest. Then you can quit your job earlier and spend the rest of your life where you want.
The libertarian answer: This month’s Reason magazine rank 35 US cities in terms of civil liberties. Unfortunately, since you live in Canada, this is useless.
The realistic answer: Throw a dart at a map, you can’t plan for the crazy nonesense that will actuallyn happen to you, so don’t bother trying.
[QUOTE=Barbarian]
Your criteria are exceedingly vast, since you’ve included pretty much every city between 50,000 and 1 million in the whole damn country.
That’s why I’m looking for more, better criteria. Mine OP criteria are too broad.
Commuting: do you want to drive for kilometers, or walk to work? Do you want to walk to your groceries/pub/bakery/movies/bookstore?
Excellent point. Walk. Luddite spouse likes walking. Personally, I’d take the hoverboard, but having a walkable city is huge. That’s why Nanaimo is not looking good. However, that would be good for the rest of BC
What hobbies do you have? Like going to the cottage? Surfing? X-country Skiing? Snowboarding?
Surfing. That narrows Canada rather fast, down to BC (Tofino, Vancouver Island), Nova Scotia and Newfoundland
Do you want to live in an ethnic enclave, like Richmond B.C. (the world’s largest Chinatown) or Surrey BC (biggest population of Indians outside of India)?
Don’t care.
Do you want to be able to drive to a metropolis to see the theatre/big concert/nightlife/hot restaurants?
Yup
Do you speak French? Want your kids to speak it?
Nope. French is a hideously complex issue here. Let’s pretend I dont care about the kids’ french.
Cutting every city in Canada without a decent college or university would knock out quite a few, and leave a remainder rife with coffee shops and bookstores. Excellent thought for a first cut. If I then add in Tomanddeb’s school tests, that might be a good model to run.
I know you said you’re looking for criteria to use, and not city suggestions, but if you’re into surfing, and would like a place with culture, higher education, and the like, might I suggest Halifax?
Population: 360,000
Local university: Dalhousie University
Health care centres: QEII hospital, IWK hospital, others, I think…
Random criteria: Do you have family or friends that you’d like to be near? Is there a type of volunteer opportunity that you’d like to pursue in your spare time? If you like to cook, are there grocery stores that carry any specialized ingredients you like to use? If you eat out a lot, do they have the types of restaurants you’re interested in?
I agree with sugar and spice that you want to look for a place with a diverse and growing economy so that you can ensure that existing businesses will survive and new businesses will crop up.
Move to where there are a lot of employers and job options in your field. If there are only one or two places who would employ you, and there’s an industry downturn, you’re gonna get laid off and have to move all over again.
We lived in Ventura County where we moved when my husband was offered a job at the world’s biggest biotech. Everything was fine for several years, then the economy tanked and the biotech laid off a bunch of people, including my husband. We were screwed, because there were no other employers in the area who needed anyone with my husband’s biotech skills. We moved to the bay area specifically because it was biotech central. Even when he has been let go locally because his company was bought out or folded, it has been relatively easy for him to move to another company.
Care must be taken here if you include among ‘academic pursuits’ access to the research library. I believe most university libraries do make some kind of accommodation for non-affiliates, on the payment of a reasonable fee, but some don’t. It’s always struck me as painfully ironic that if for whatever reason I had to move to Cambridge, MA, I would be living next door to one of the largest research libraries in the world, but would be barred from using it–unless I had a job at Harvard.