While Toronto’s real estate costs may be sky-high, the city shines in the safety department.
Toronto was named the second safest city out of 60 cities worldwide in The Economist’s 2021 Safe Cities Index – the only Canadian city to make the ranking.
The city has climbed up the ranking from sixth place 2019.
The Safe Cities Index was first launched in 2015 with 44 indicators and 50 cities. It’s been updated every two years since, increasing city coverage as well as strengthening the framework to include emerging challenges to urban safety.
The 2021 report is based on 76 sub indicators that fall under five pillars: digital security, health security, infrastructure security, environmental security, and personal security.
“Within each pillar, the relevant indicators are grouped into inputs of safety — such as policies or personnel dedicated to some aspect of security — and outputs — anything from air pollution levels to crime rates,” reads the report.
Toronto cranes/Shutterstock
Toronto scored 82.2 points out of a potential 100, following closely behind Copenhagen, which took the first place spot with a score of 82.4.
This year, the framework has been further updated to reflect the impact of the pandemic on the dynamic nature of the urban safety landscape. It also added the ever-important pillar of environmental security in 2021, which takes into account policy inputs aimed at improving the health of the natural and physical environment in urban areas. It measures output indicators like urban tree cover and the rate of water stress in cities.
According to the ranking, Toronto is among world leaders in environmental and infrastructure security, taking the second and fourth place, respectively.
Here is the list of the world’s 10 safest cities:
- Copenhagen, Denmark
- Toronto, Canada
- Singapore
- Sydney, Australia
- Tokyo, Japan
- Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Wellington, New Zealand
- Hong Kong (8/9)
- Melbourne, Australia (8/9)
- Stockholm, Sweden
In addition to its safety appeal, Toronto is also a leader on the education front, with the University of Toronto ranking first in Canada and second among public North American universities.
