Vancouver ranks 3rd for quality of living; Vienna holds 1st place

Photo by CTV Vancouver's Pete Cline in Chopper 9 on Monday, June 4, 2018.

Despite the cost of housing and other gripes from those who call Vancouver home, the city is the highest ranking in North America on a quality of living scale.

The annual rankings were released last week by Mercer.

Its 21st annual survey put Vancouver in third, tied with Auckland and Munich. The city has been the highest ranking in the continent for a decade, Mercer said in a statement.

Vienna came out on top for the 10th year straight, and Zurich came in second.

The list of 231 cities looks at information including recreation, housing, economics, availability of goods, environment, politics, education and health care.

When looking just at North America, Mercer said Canadian cities tend to score higher than U.S. cities.

Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Calgary all scored high when it came to personal safety and quality of living.

Toronto was in 16th overall, followed by Ottawa at 19th, Montreal at 21st and Calgary in 32nd.

South of the border, the top U.S. city was San Francisco, in 24th place. Boston was next in 36th.

Washington, D.C. fell to the 53rd, while New York climbed one spot to 44th as crime rates decrease.