According to the 2021 Safe Cities Index, Toronto ranked at the top of many of their security indicators.
The Economist Intelligence Unit published the fourth iteration of their Safe Cities Index, sponsored by NEC Corporation. This report ranked 60 cities based on 76 indicators of digital, health, infrastructure, personal and environmental security. It scores each country out of 100 and ranks them by category according to their score.
Here is how Toronto ranked across each of those categories:
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- Health security: #1
- Digital Security: #14
- Infrastructure security: #4
- Personal security: #8
- Environmental security: #2
- Overall rank: #2
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Toronto ranked #2 overall with a score of 82.2. Copenhagen, which ranked first overall, had a score of 82.4.
This year was particular in that the global pandemic affected every category and indicator. For that reason, it’s very important to note Toronto’s ranking as second in health security.
This report also ranked cities according to their Covid-19 response and understanding of health security. In this category titled “the need to focus on what works”, Toronto ranked 7th with a score of 80. The top city, Tokyo, scored an 87.7 in this ranking. The average score was 66.7.
This ranking, and the health category more broadly, was difficult to measure in light of the pandemic. Every country faced its own challenges during the pandemic and the data changed drastically as time went on. Countries that seemed to manage well in the beginning had significant challenges with surges later on. And each country defined a Covid-19 death differently, making it harder to compare all the data.
Mayor John Tory said “mutual respect and a shared fundamental set of values around that” are what make it so Toronto ranks among the top 7 in the past three versions of this report. He also credits their “whole-of-city approach”, which makes all the difference in a report like this. Every category of security can be inclusive, effective and connected to each other because it is built around this holistic concept of safety.
You can read the report in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s white paper and explore the full data workbook of their content here.
[Featured Image Source: Gab Gould via Unsplash]