Prince Rupert has been ranked as one of the Top 10 worst places to live in Canada by Moneysense Magazine in 2012.
Prince Rupert was ranked as the seventh worst place to live in the country, compared to the eleventh worst in 2011 and the seventeenth worst in 2010.
Since 2010 there have been ten cities added to the survey each year.
Moneysense determined rankings by looking at the percentage of people who biked to work, the weather, population growth, people without jobs, the average household income, prices of homes, crime severity index, the amount of property taxes, doctors per 1,000, number of people employed in arts and recreation and how many new cars were purchased.
Unsurprisingly, Prince Rupert had the most rainy days out of cities ranked with 228.2 days of rain in 2012, approximately 11 more days of rain than 2011. Although that didn’t stop just over one per cent of people from biking to work last year, which is in the top half of cities listed.
Squamish had the second most rainy days, with 182.2.
Prince Rupert’s Crime Severity Index rating was 181.85 last year, tied with Quesnel as the eighth lowest score out of 200. Prince Rupert was also given the eighth lowest rating last year. The Crime Severity Index assigns crimes a rating based on sentences handed down by the courts and divides that number by the population.
According to the survey, 13.23 per cent of Rupertites are jobless which is ranked as the eighth highest percentage of cities ranked, and the highest in the province.
The average price of a house in Prince Rupert last year was $211,438, with the average household income being $67,500. This means households are making less money, while homes are more expensive as in 2011 the average household income was $71,225 and the average price of a home in Prince Rupert was $196,700.
Prince Rupert has the seventh lowest property taxes, tied with Montreal, at 1.84 per cent.
Prince Rupert Mayor Jack Mussallem refused to comment on the ranking, stating he was unfamiliar with the criteria used by Moneysense.
Calgary, Alberta was ranked as the best city in Canada to live by Moneysense, and Lachute, Quebec was listed as the worst out of 200 Canadian cities.