Congratulations to Mayor Dan,

He is having an effect on our community.

I know a few people who retired elsewhere because Prince George is dumping poisonous fluoride into the tap water. And proudly persists in doing so.

BTW, Prince George can be improved once a person with determination and a realistic plan gets elected into the mayor's office.

That may take a while yet.

LOL. stompin tom whining? He's doing the job he was ELECTED to do. LOL.

If he was elected to grow veggie gardens I suspect Jos Van Hage would have been a better choice.

i wont be satisfied until we are number 179

Good Work Mr.Rogers....look what you did to our neighbourhood!!!

Rodgers hasnt been in office long enough to have any imppact on the City.

This City is ranked where it is because of the Industry in the area, the bad air, the lack of anything interesting for tourists, the terrible downtown, crime, poverty, terrible roads, high taxes, spin doctors, and of course no real vision for the future.

If you want to blame a Mayor, dont look any further than the illustrious Mr Kinsley. Most of this came about during his watch.

Maybe by next year we can blame Rodgers, and who knows by then we might very well be at 179.

If nothing else this should stop the BS from some people on this site who consistantly claim Prince George is the best place in the world to live.

And we wonder why we can't get Doctors to reside here.

Been to most of the places in the top ten and would take PG over all of them. Critics of PG just don't know what you have.

Ranked at #115 Kelowna is not doing so well either! Fort St. John and Dawson Creek are rated much higher than P.G.? The whole list is suspect.

I wouldn't give it too much credibility. Prince Rupert, Terrace and Quesnel are rated much lower than P.G.

Pal, much of what you say in your second paragraph is true, unfortunately.

Thanks for mentioning Mr. Kinsley!

I have said this before, its not the council or the mayor that runs our city. Its Mr Bates and his band of dummys that do. Council who are green as grass rely on there information and then councils approval.

What Prince george needs is to Do an entire sweep of the manderins at city hall.
Cheers

Palopu, I'm sorry you have so much hate for PG. But I have to ask why you still live here if it is so bad?

PG is a GREAT place to live. As people have mentioned above, Fort St John and Dawson Creek are above us in the list and Kelowna is at 115. Seriously?

There are a number of people who get involved and make a difference to our fine city. What we need is for more people to get off their fat behinds and improve what we already have. Quit complaining and start doing.

Woooohooo we beat like 15 cities. What a bunch of crap holes!!!

I agree with the skeptics of this ranking. Any study that ends up with Ottawa being number one has a suspect methodology.

Perhaps Ottawa is Canada's most mediocre city?

I dont understand how FSJohn beats PG, but Dawson Creek is a much nicer town. I assume the reason Vancouver isnt #1 is crime and cost of living.

Any way you slice it these rankings are suspect. If you like the lifestyle and cost of living in PG then who cares what some ranking says? And if your here because its hard to find a decent job anywhere else than burry this reality deep down inside you and forge on!!

I guess its about perspective.

If you like snow, the rankings are suspect, we get allot of snow which is a negative.

If you like cold and winter climates, the rankings are suspect again, Prince George ranks low.

I guess what I am trying to say is there are things on that survey which nobody can control and its the perspective of the person making the list as to which is better.

If you like a lack and rain and lots of heat, dont bother with PG, if you prefer winter climate, come on over.

BATMAN, Palopu didn't say that he hates Prince George, he simply pointed out what he perceives as negative aspects.

Shouldn't he be allowed to do that without being asked to leave town?

Identifying problems is the first step. Correcting them would be the second step.

Perhaps we all don't make enough noise and we don't get involved sufficiently enough to let them know that things can't go on as usual.

Let's remember this very low ranking when the next municipal election comes around and vote accordingly.

I can't believe there are 15 places that are worse. I left town 16 hours after I retired 3 years ago. I don't miss the town at all.

Having lived in Both Ottawa and Victoria, I like them very much. While both are very beautiful and livable cities, PG is equally beautiful, but obviously in different ways. PG is affordable by comparison, with housing far less expensive, which is the largest expense most of us have. Having a lot more cash after paying the morgage is definately attractive. Life is always better when you can afford to participate.
There are a wealth of things to do here, winter and summer, nice people, beautiful land. I love it here. That being said, PG has an odd way of handling civic politics. Vastly different than any other city where I've lived.

I never herd of Repentigny, number 6 on the list. Discover it is a bedroom community of Montreal.

Here is what Wikipedia says about it:

".... It was created at about the same year as Quebec City. Before, people who lived there were farmers. Now, there are a lot of people who live there. Most of the people work in Montreal so they have to use Highway 40, which cuts the town in half.

Although it is a very pleasant and calm town, there is nothing much to do. All year long, a bunch of festivals are organised, but they are mostly for children. The most popular festival is the Festival Feu Et Glace which happens during the winter.

Since the early 2000's, the only thing that changed in the town is that they built a lot of new houses."

So this is put together by a bunch of researchers. From the information they gathered and the conclusion they reached I assume they must all have PhDs.

:-)

I'll bet no one watched the glowball news from Vancouver yesterday morning about 7:45 am. Weatherperson Kristi Gordon featured Prince George on her weekly "small town" segment. Problem solved. Prince George is only considered a city by the locals. Fort St. john gets my vote for "B.C.'s northern capital" LMFAO.

"Smalltown?" Now you got my attention: I'll get my 20x60 binoculars to see if that UNBC University is still up there on Cranbrook Hill...

...the kind of university that most towns on the LIST would get an arm and a leg to have in their community!

She did mention that UNBC was in the Prince George area. Maybe it moved to Fort St. John or somewhere??

"If you like snow, the rankings are suspect, we get allot of snow which is a negative"

Ottawa is number one. More snow and colder thant PG. I lived there for 20 years.

Ottawa has potholes and rough roads, not much different from PG.

The only city in the top ten that is not a typical Canadian city as far as weather goes is Victoria. The other cities ALL have cold or relatively cold winters and hot, humid (by Canadian standards) summers.

Ottawa, due to its civil service as well as high tech research oriented industry, is a very economically stable community. House prices are not much more than here. Prices are half of those in Toronto and a third and less than those in the GVRD. The average income is higher than here. It benefits in its cultural offerings by having the federal tax payers pay for national theatres, art galleries, museums and festivals. In addtion, it benefits from national captial commission owned and maintained parkways along the river, as well as canal system.

It is a very "nice" town that has turned into a city over the last 20+ years. The By-ward market has to be the most active in the country that changes from day time market to night time bars, restaurants, bistros and lounges that rival those in larger cities.

Suburbia in Ottawa is not much different than suburbia in PG other than the commute to work which is considerable.

BUT commuting time is not considered in the study, so we get no points for that.

Negative stuff for sure

Ever notice that when PG is at the bottom of one of these lists, everyone disputes it.. but when PG is at the top we want to shout it from the top of every mountain? Why is that?

"...the kind of university that most towns on the LIST would get an arm and a leg to have in their community!"

I do not wish to take anything away from UNBC. It is a great "little" university and has developed a solid reputation in a very short time.

However, if one removes the "bedroom" towns on the list which are really part of an urban agglomeration, we are one of the last cities in the country of the size we are to have received a university. It came 30 years after the drive in Ontario to build universities in mid sized cities that were relatively remote from the southern part of the province.

The Maritimes have had them for some time. Ontario followed in the 1960' with Universities being built in

North Bay - Nipissing

Peterborough - Trent

Sudbury - Laurentian

Thunder Bay - Lakehead (UNBC founding president, Weller, from there)

Sault Ste. Marie - Algoma

Then there is Kingston with Queens University, in a category all by itself with size and quality.

When in doubt, go to the source.

http://list.moneysense.ca/rankings/best-places-to-live/2010/prosperity/Default.aspx?sc1=0&d1=a&sp2=1&eh=ch

The list is rankable. Just click on the column.

In addition to the information in the 250 story, here are some other things I think are important to note:

The ranking are for characteristics of

prosperity
- discretionary income #36
- average household income #60
- new cars #155
- unemployment #169
- prov. income tax #1 of total of 10
- prov. sales tax #3 of 10

housing
- time to buy a house #82
- average house price #102

lifestyle
- public transit #95
- walk or bike to work #119
- population growth #144
- culture #154

crime
- violent crime rate #152
- crime rate #155
- crime severity rate #162

health
- doctors per 1,000 #62
- % health professionals #117

weather
- total annual precipitation #8
- number of wet days #123
- days below 0c #133
- air quality #139
- ozone 20ppb - maximum city was 32ppb
- particulate matter 2.5 11ug annual average - highest was 12 for Sarnia (7 shared the 11) So we are right up there. The highest in BC.

I think that gives us a better idea of why, with the criteria used, we are ranked as we are

The key question is, do we continue to play a game of denial or do we pull up our sleeves and do something about it?

employment
crime
air quality
culture
public transit

To me those are the key issues. They do not stand by themselves in my opinion. They are very much integrated. Impact one and the others will follow. It is also not enough to just impact one. They have to be tackled together.

I am tackling a couple. Who else is devoting effective volunteer time to tackle one or more?

Who thinks it is futile to do so?

There are many of us who spend a lot of time trying to make Prince George a better place. I wasn't born here, I chose it. And I often think of leaving, mainly for the air quality. However, there are many wonderful things about PG.

The volunteer opportunities are diverse, the cost of living is low, there are great things for families and outdoor enthusiasts to do.

The economy badly needs to continue diversifying but it has improved since I moved here.

Our access to healthcare isn't spectacular, and woe is you if you don't like your doctor -- but at least you have one. Still not great, but that, too, has improved in the past 15 years.

The educational opportunities are improving, and UNBC can compete with other universities of that size quite nicely.

Our downtown could fail this city alone, and it needs action -- not more studies and roundtable discussions.

And hey, we elected the group at city hall. Live and learn, and next time hopefully we'll know better. And yeah, hopefully we'll see some more new faces, and more people actually willing to stick their necks out and try. Nothing gets better any other way.

Who gives a crap where we are on some stupid list?
If you like where you live thats great for you. If you don't like where you live then move if you can.

The only reason I can see for having this list at all is, it gives the mayors and councils an excuse to tax us to death and spend it on their legacies. Everything revolves around the corporations and the taxpayers dollars funding everything.

It's time for change!

Doctors /1,000 population for BC cities in the study.

1 Salmon Arm 3.09
2 Victoria 3.09
3 Nanaimo 2.85
4 Cranbrook 2.81
5 Vernon 2.55
6 Penticton 2.51
7 Vancouver 2.33
8 New Westminster 2.33
9 Richmond 2.33
10 Langley 2.33
11 Maple Ridge 2.33
12 North Vancouver 2.33
13 Delta 2.33
14 Port Coquitlam 2.33
15 Coquitlam 2.33
16 Burnaby 2.33
17 Surrey 2.33
18 Duncan 2.31
19 Powell River 2.31
20 Prince George 2.28
21 Kamloops 2.26
22 Campbell River 2.26
23 Kelowna 2.02
24 Terrace 1.83
25 Prince Rupert 1.81
26 Dawson Creek 1.78
27 Parksville 1.71
28 Squamish 1.7
29 Port Alberni 1.49
30 Chilliwack 1.49
31 Williams Lake 1.48
32 Quesnel 1.36
33 Abbotsford-Mission 1.34
34 Fort St. John 1.29

Note that PG has more doctors/1,000 than Kamloops and Kelowna and just a smidgen fewer than the GVRD ..... 2.33 to our 2.28

Number one overall city in Canada, Ottawa, has 2.65. Kingston, with a medical school, has 4.09/1,000, second highest in the country.

Complain, but numbers-wise not much to complain about. I suspect it will get better with the medical school here, a cancer clinic coming, and possbily a larger part for the hospital as a regional hospital.

The University is a **Small town University** I beleive it has something like 2500 Full Time Equivelent Students. That was approx the number of students at the University in Nelson BC when they shut it down. The 2500 students are spread out over the Interior. Not all in Pr George.

Public Transit is a laugh. This City was not designed and built for public transit. We have busses putting on thousands and thousands of miles with very few passengers.

Air Quality and Crime have been beaten to death. We have bad air and lots of crime.

This City has had no NO NO diversification of any degree in the last 45 years. We were then and we are now a town that relies for the most part on the forest industrie. Some things that have changed that make a difference in employment etc; are,

The University.
Expansion of CNC
Northern Health (Cancer Clinic)
Government workers.
Pensioners
Welfare Receipients
School Board
City Workers, Police, Fireman.

All the above are paid for by taxpayers dollars, with the exception of some pensions. This is what keeps this town going. The latest growth industry is the elderly and funerals. We are morphing into a retirement community.

So we have a huge number of Government workers, or pensioners, and very little actual growth in industry or population. The forecast for the next 15 years is a continuing decrease in school enrolments, and population.

So it would be fair to say at this point that the City of Prince George has peaked. Acutally it peaked about 10 years ago, and is now in a decline. If you care to look at all the projects in this City in the past 10 years you would see than they were all Government funded. Ie; Bridges, Roads, Buildings, Airports, etc; etc; etc. No investment to any degree by private money.

I dont hate Prince George. I have lived here most of my life. What I hate is the constant BS being spewed about how great it is. Good Christ look around you. it is no better or worse than a thousand town and cities.

A City and area is what you make it. I hunt, fish, golf, garden, work, play, etc;etc;etc;. No big deal. Im sure if I was in Kelowna I would do the same. However I do not, and I will not go around spouting off about how great this little town in the middle of nowhere is.

Fly in here in the middle of Winter at minus 30 and see the City sitting in the middle of a frozen wasteland with smoke spiralling into the sky, and the only thing moving is people scurrying between buildings and cars.trying to stay warm.

This City (Town) is 500 miles from any City of any consequence. We are no better or worse than Sarnia Ont., so get used to the idea.

Prince George has a huge problem with honesty. We seem unable to tell the truth about anything.

1. The Cougers suck and they average 2500 fans last year. That means we averaged 3500 empty seats per game last year.

2. The Civic Centre is totally under utilized and costs a fortune to maintain.

3. The University has not had a significant increase in enrolments for the past 5 years, and probably will never get any larger than it is.

4. The Airport Runway was a bust, and unless something magical happens there will be no growth out there.

5. The Library, Art Centre, Transit etc; have a specific number of users every year. The problem is they count the same people all year to get there numbers up. In other words if I ride the bus 50 times a year I am counted as 50 passengers, rather that one. What this means is that you have very few people actually using the facilities, however because they are counted over and over it gives the impression that there is significant use. I suspect that in actual fact the Art Centre, and Library operate at approx 15% capacity, and the transit system even less.

6. We have more police and firemen per capita than other City of similiar size in Canada.

7. The Cameron St., Bridge was built with the City stating that it handles 8000 vehicles per day, and this number would rise to 14000 in 15 years. These are bogus numbers. I defy anyone to show me where 8000 vehicles per day use this bridge. I suspect the number wuld be close to 5000. Some days you could walk across the middle of this bridge and not see a car.

8. The CN Intermodal Terminal has not added any jobs to Prince George. In fact it has been operating on a shoe string since it was built, and if it doesnt get some business in the next few years it will close down. (Go Broke)

9. The Container Terminal in Prince Rupert has had absolutely no effect on Prince George, and never will.

10. Mt Milligan Mine will go forward and create about 300 jobs, however Kemess South will close next year and we will lose 300 jobs. No net gain.

I could go on but you get my point.

Have a nice day.

Its a quality of life survey... not a surprise that crime and air quality have a big impact.

It would be hard to argue that PG shouldn't be in the top ten for natural advantages from my perspective. Therefor, PG's return on our natural advantage is bleak.

Quality of life wise we should have some of the best parks, and trail systems, and campgrounds on the river, and things of that nature (competitive with anywhere) that could play on our significant strengths... instead we focus exclusively on the black hole of downtown revitalization trying to make something out of a reality that has almost nothing going for it.

Our priorities are completely screwed up, because in my view if you build a city people want to live in... a city that is known for utilizing its strengths into a place where people want to be... and you enable and encourage that kind of growth until it builds a critical mass that starts to carry all ships with the rising tide... then that is how we revitalize areas that are stagnant and otherwise carrying the rest of the city down through their negative and self destructive contributions to our cities image as a whole.

It would be interesting to see how it would rank if the Hart (20,000 people), or College Heights (15,000'is people) were ranked on their own right... I suspect not as well for a different reason, being that most of the municipal services are located downtown... but otherwise I bet far different results (ie crime and air pollution).

In the end its a gauge of perception more than anything. Myself I don't like black forest cake, unlike most others....

Palopu:"Prince George has a huge problem with honesty. We seem unable to tell the truth about anything."

I don't think that the above is a fair statement. You say that there has been "No investment to any degree by private money."

Well, not quite.

Ramada, Spruceland Mall, Pine Centre renovations, expansion at Princess Auto, expansion of WalMart, expansion of Treasure Cove Casino, several new restaurants, new stores, new subdivisons, new car dealership buildings, etc.

All of the above are business/private money investments and there are more going on and in the planning stage, as for instance the conversion of Chances into private businesses, renovation of the Keg, etc.

There is plenty of private money being invested into the community every year.

It's not nearly as gloomy as you described it.

Have a nice summer!

Can't wait to read the IPG spin on the city's ranking of best places to live.

Good informative posts by Gus and others.

Palapou, just wants too pooh pooh anything and everything, so no need to pay much heed to his comments.

I like living in PG, hack hack cough.

Its been good to me.

"Fly in here in the middle of Winter at minus 30 and see the City sitting in the middle of a frozen wasteland with smoke spiralling into the sky, and the only thing moving is people scurrying between buildings and cars.trying to stay warm."

Ottawa is number one city on the list. You may never have flown into that city in the winter. I have. It looks EXACTLY like that description in January ... and worse by the end of February and the beginning of March.

In July and August, when you exit the plane and walk into the un-airconditioned jetways, the wall of 35+C humid air hits me like a wall. Nothing like the nice dry desert air of the Thompson Valley and Osoyoos region.

I am sure Winnipeg is even worse.

The weather is not the problem except for the Lotusland inhabitants of the lower mainland who know little about the rest of Canada.

"Our priorities are completely screwed up, because in my view if you build a city people want to live in... a city that is known for utilizing its strengths into a place where people want to be... and you enable and encourage that kind of growth until it builds a critical mass that starts to carry all ships with the rising tide... then that is how we revitalize areas that are stagnant and otherwise carrying the rest of the city down through their negative and self destructive contributions to our cities image as a whole."

Well put!!!!!

And that is why the SGOG (you know, that smart growth thing) was actually flawed from the start. It was based on stupidity. The stupidity of looking at the downtown in isolation. It was everything but "smart growth". Any planner worth anything should have told us that. It was based totally on preconceived ideas.

UNBC has just under 3,500 FTE students, most of whom are enrolled at the PG campus. Actual individuals enrolled is likely over 5,000.

The number cited for Notre Dame University (1950 to 1977) at its height during the Vietnam era (for obvious reasons) was 2,000 individuals, NOT full time equivalents.

It was re-opened as David Thompson University Centre with about 600 individuals enrolled (not FTE) and closed again in 1984. This is the picture of the last group http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3815014&op=1&o=global&view=global&subj=4898174657&id=678993870

To compare those two in the same breath is doing a major injustice to UNBC that is much more than a small liberal arts college such as David Thompson was.

Reports of interest from UNBC
http://www.unbc.ca/assets/finance_dept/budgets/20102011/2010_11_budget_planning_framework_package.pdf

2008 master plan update:
http://www.unbc.ca/assets/reports/4a._unbc_masterplan_report_phase_i2.pdf

Palopu...

You clearly hate it here, why do you stay?

I find it interesting that we put so much emphasis on per capita MD levels when they haven't been shown to increase health outcomes for the community in question.

Healthc Q. 2009;12(4):101-4.
More doctors or better care?
Watson DE, McGrail KM.

"Using OECD data for 19 countries to assess the relationship between physician supply and healthcare outcomes, we have determined that there is no association between avoidable mortality and overall physician supply."Similarly, there is no relationship between avoidable mortality and general practitioners and family physicians per capita, specialists per capita, nurses per capita, doctors and nurses per capita or health expenditures per capita."

We don't get sick and die from infection any more, hygiene, refrigeration and sanitation have fixed that. We die from Chronic Illness. Chronic illness (for the most part) come from lifestyle factors that CANNOT be fixed with better chemistry.

2.28 docs. per 1000, not correct. Don't forget not every doctor is a GP. My doctor had over 3000 patients when he retired.

The stats for the number of doctors is not correct for ANY community. Each one is skewed for a number of different reasons.

Kingston is number two. Likely reason, small town, large medical school.

Top 16, other than Kingston are all from Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Burnswick and Newfoundland. The Atlantic provinces and Quebec are in a class all by themselves.

Some other reasons, many small communities with some regional centres servicing 100 to 200 km radius higher density rural areas than we are used to in the west. Result, smal by other standards communities that are the service centres and thus have a larger proportion of service providers of any sort per population of the service centre community.

One really needs to create several sub categories, one which measures regional population ands factors in a travel area and then gives a ratio of service providers per served population.

As I said in another post, too many PhDs putting this stuff together. No practical sense. Just number crunchers with almost meaningless outputs.

3,000 patients per doctor. No big deal. The question is, how many of those are active. Sort of like the number of members at the PG Library. They never purge their records.

The real question is how GOOD are the doctors.

Prince George http://www.ratemds.com/social/?q=node%2F28883&country=1&ddocname=&dcity=prince+george&dgender=&zip=&radius=10

Kamloops http://www.ratemds.com/social/?q=node%2F28883&country=1&ddocname=&dcity=kamloops&dgender=&zip=&radius=10

Count the number of smileys that are gold, green and blue.

Maybe the Prince George patients are just hard to please, like the PG posters on 250 are ...... :-)