MoneySense Magazine has ranked Kamloops as Canada's 44th best place to live.
That's better than Vancouver (56th), Kelowna (144th) and Prince George (156th), but not as good as Victoria (35th) or Saanich (15th). A total of 190 cities were included in the listing.
The magazine rating looked at such factors as ability to walk/bike to work, affordable housing, household income, discretionary income, new cars, population growth, crime rate, number of doctors per 1,000 people, weather, the jobless rate and culture.
Kamloops' best scores were for weather (24th), population growth (31st) and discretionary income (42nd). The city's worst rankings were for new cars (165th), low crime (156th) and affordable housing (139th).
Vancouver was at both extremes of the scale: it was number one for culture and dead last for affordable housing.
MoneySense also ranked cities in terms of being best for retirement, raising kids and finding jobs. Kamloops rated 14th for retirement, 80th for raising kids and 52nd for finding jobs.
Mayor Peter Milobar said Wednesday Kamloops has moved up from its 106th spot last year. But the crime rating was still high (Kamloops came 156th out of 190), which he said is probably due to some of the data being old by the time the entire report is compiled.
"With all of these, it's about a snapshot in time. Certainly we seem to do very well in some of them, some we've had issues with in the past. But if your community is up there, generally speaking, top quarter, that tends to show a trend overall," he said.
The rating isn't used much by the City, but it is good for marketing for businesses, he said.
Dan Sulz at Venture Kamloops agreed. He described the rating as spectacular and will put the figures to use in his marketing packages.
"We get contacted not only with businesses wanting to locate in Kamloops, but also residents and employees. So we use this information as a resource for them," he said.
"Anything that puts us in the top third, it's a good news story for Kamloops."
All those reports are helpful, but Sulz said he likes the personal touch when it comes to promoting Kamloops, especially familiarization tours.
Still, those magazine statistics can help entice people to take a tour.
"We use it as a tool to promote Kamloops, but also to see what we can do better," he said.
"One of the questions we get is do you have a job I can raise a family on? Or the infrastructure so I can start my own business? Quality of life is an important factor in that decision, as is can I get work?"
Tourism Kamloops executive director Lee Morris said the good rating is good for her business, too.
"It fits with our overall theme that this is a great place, not just to visit, but to live," she said.
"We can use that as an email blast to our database, or for promotions."
