Calgary ranks third on global prosperity score card
Calgary ranks third on global prosperity score card: Toronto Board of Trade
BY KIM GUTTORMSON, CALGARY HERALD
Calgary is back near the top of a score card that ranks prosperity in a number of cities around the world, besting all other Canadian metros on the list.
Strong population growth, a young workforce, disposable income, affordable housing and clean air helped boost the city to the number three spot on the list behind Paris and San Francisco.
That’s up from last year’s fifth place ranking, but below its first place finish in 2009, the first time the Toronto Board of Trade compiled results, using information from the Conference Board of Canada — including commute time, income equality, gross domestic product and productivity — to compare 24 major cities.
However, Calgary did score low in some key areas, including transportation.
“I think it speaks to Calgary’s more dynamic economy, more dynamic than we had in the ‘80s when it took us years to crawl out of the recession,” Todd Hirsch, senior economist at ATB Financial, said of the city’s post-recession recovery. “What you’d really hate is to be extremely high in some (indicators) and at the bottom on others.
“You’d rather be really good on a number of indicators and get an overall ranking quite high, like Calgary got.”
The Toronto board of Trade said “Calgary’s success comes from a combination of solid fundamentals in both (economy and labour attractiveness), not just from a robust economy. With the fastest population growth of all metros, Calgary proved that it was an attractive place for people seeking work.
“Calgary’s housing affordability and clean air provide further evidence of its livability.”
Elsbeth Mehrer, director of research, workforce and strategy for Calgary Economic Development, says the city’s ranking shows it should be a choice destination for both companies and people.
“To be able to put the city in the context of major global cities like Paris and San Francisco, that’s an important frame around our positioning,” she said. “I think that helps to elevate the conversation to a different level.
“If you’re comparing yourselves with communities of this stature, now it’s a very different conversation in terms of the types of target companies you’re trying to attract, the types of investment.”
On the score card Calgary ranked third overall, and third for being attractive to workers (behind Paris and London).
The ability to attract labour is important, said Chamber of Commerce chief economist Ben Brunnen, because “the labour shortage, labour retention issue is starting to emerge again. Positioning Calgary as a destination for young talent is a fundamental first step for long-term prosperity.”
Calgary placed sixth if only the economy was looked at (behind San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Dallas and New York).
The Toronto Board of Trade wrote that Calgary overcame “near-bottom rankings on venture capital investment, market size, and IPOs, with first or second-place results on income growth, unemployment rate, residential building permit growth and GDP growth” to get to that sixth spot.
Calgary’s average office rents also put them in the top half of the rankings, in that they’re cheaper than more than 50 per cent of the list.
In the first three months of 2011, according to CB Richard Ellis, Calgary’s office vacancy fell to 12 per cent from 15 per cent compared to the same period a year before. Regional managing director for Alberta Greg Kwong said in a release that given the amount of office space coming onto the Calgary market, the drop is “amazing. This is a testament to how resilient Calgary’s office market has become.”
However, for all the good news, the city rated an overall 13th place in the transportation category.
That factored in an average commute time of 67 minutes, longer than Los Angeles, Chicago and Berlin, but better than Toronto’s 80 minutes, and a score in the bottom half when public transit ridership was evaluated.
“It points out some of the warts, too,” Hirsch said of the score card. “It’s good to be made aware of this is where we rank in global cities when it comes to commute times. A 60-minute commute time is not normal, this not just being part of a big city.
“This is a problem. Who knows where we would be if we could solve some of those transportation problems.”
Calgary also ranked lower in areas that included productivity and venture capital, which Mehrer said are on-going issues the city’s business community knows need work.
“It reaffirms what we know needs to be a focus,” she said.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
ALBERTA HOUSING MARKET MOST AFFORDABLE IN CANADA: RBC ECONOMICS
TORONTO, Feb. 24 /CNW/ – Alberta’s housing market officially became the most affordable in Canada in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to the latest Housing Trends and Affordability report released today by RBC.
Thanks to lower mortgage rates and further softening in home prices, RBC’s Affordability Measures for Alberta fell yet again in the fourth quarter, by 1.0 to 2.4 percentage points, extending their long strings of declines since late 2007.
“Alberta saw a notable downswing in demand for housing last spring and early summer, giving buyers the upper hand and pushing prices down,” said Robert Hogue, senior economist, RBC. “Alberta’s reign as the most affordable housing market may be short lived, however. Demand has shown more vigour in recent months, alongside a provincial economy that is gaining more traction, and Alberta’s market has become better balanced. We expect that this will stem price declines this year and erase a potential offset to the negative effect of a projected rise in interest rates on affordability.”
The RBC Housing Affordability Measures for Alberta, which capture the province’s proportion of pre-tax household income needed to service the costs of owning a home, eased across all housing categories in the fourth quarter. The measure for the benchmark detached bungalow moved down to 30.9 per cent (a drop of 2.4 percentage points from the previous quarter), the standard condominium to 20.3 per cent (down 1.0 percentage points) and the standard two-storey home to 34.4 per cent (down 2.2 percentage points).
The RBC report notes that gradual and steady improvements in Calgary’s housing demand have recently started to bolster market conditions as home resales increased appreciably since June which helped trim down the slack that kept buyers in the driver’s seat.
A return to more balanced market conditions in Calgary, however, did not succeed in reversing the tide in the fourth quarter of 2010 as home prices continued to weaken for the most part in the fourth quarter. Nonetheless, this contributed to further material improvement in affordability. The RBC Measures for Calgary again fell the most among Canada’s largest urban markets, declining by 0.9 to 3.1 percentage points.
“Affordability in the Calgary area is now the best in almost six years and this attractive level of affordability will support further increases in demand as the local economy picks up steam in the year ahead,” added Hogue.
Elsewhere in the country, a majority of provinces saw improvements in affordability in the fourth quarter. Only the standard two-storey benchmark became less affordable in Ontario and Quebec, as did the standard condominium apartment in Quebec and the Atlantic region.
The RBC Housing Affordability Measure, which has been compiled since 1985, is based on the costs of owning a detached bungalow, a reasonable property benchmark for the housing market in Canada. Alternative housing types are also presented including a standard two-storey home and a standard condominium. The higher the reading, the more costly it is to afford a home. For example, an affordability reading of 50 per cent means that homeownership costs, including mortgage payments, utilities and property taxes, take up 50 per cent of a typical household’s monthly pre-tax income.