Toronto is Canada’s most Youth Friendly City

According to the first-ever YouthfulCities Canadian Index 2018 Report, Toronto is the most connected, dynamic, curious, open, inventive and playful city in Canada. Compiled by YouthfulCities Canada, the Index ranks cities’ infrastructure based on data collected by youth through secondary sources and proprietary scales based on 20 urban attributes deemed important to youth across three categories: Live, Work and Play.

Live measures the livability of a given city through its tolerance, safety and openness to cultural difference, the breadth of its public transportation network, as well as its political culture, high-tech network and environmental standing. Work measures the extent to which cities provide youth with employment prospects, entrepreneurial support and job training, sound educational opportunities and opportunities for financial growth. Play measures the leisure and recreation opportunities as well as the cultural attractions that youth have access to in a given city.

Toronto’s strengths are spread out broadly across all three categories, finishing in the top three of four out of seven live attributes, coming in first in civic engagement and diversity, second in health, and third in transit. In the work theme, Toronto finishes first in financial services and second in entrepreneurship. And in the play theme, Toronto finishes in the top three in six out of eight attributes, with a first-place win in creative arts, second place in public space, fashion, film, and sports, and third place in travel.

Toronto’s performance on both the Canadian and Global Indexes (ranked 6^th worldwide in 2015) highlights the region’s appeal to a young labour force and youthful innovators.

Read the full YouthfulCities Canadian Index 2018 Report here.