Alberta · Civic arena
Brooks drinking water hardness is 234 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.
Civic arena · hometown HUD
#114 of 343
53% City Score XP
5/8 pillars on the board
Decade trail
Brooks packs 5 of eight open-data pillars into its composite standing. Tap a rival below to see how the hometown stacks up head-to-head.
Rivalries on deck
Hardness, pH, and lead from municipal reports on the OpenStats water atlas. This page uses a regional estimate — open the water atlas for method notes.
Full Brooks water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Taber · vs Fort McMurrayHardness guide
Watershed to tap · system map
Source, treatment, and distribution for Brooks from municipal and provincial water records. Open the animated map for the full watershed-to-tap diagram — no nested topic navigation here.
Permits, tax, internet, radon, hazards, drinking water, and sports rankings where a CHL hometown applies.
Brooks sits at City Score rank #114 with a standing of 53%, from 5 of 8 open-data pillars (tax, construction, connectivity, indoor air, water, seismic hazard, growth, safety). Missing pillars score at median standing so thin coverage cannot inflate the rank. Rising 155 places versus 2022 (#269 → #114).
Latest owned placements: indoor radon rank #205 of 327 at 93 Bq/m³ survey mean. Full tables and method notes live on each study edition; atlas readings for the same slug open from the topic buttons.
Among Canadian cities on the hub, Brooks carries a City Score standing of 53% (rank #114 of 343) with 5 of 8 pillars observed. That sits 4 points above the Alberta peer average across 51 ranked cities. Within Alberta, Brooks ranks #14 of 51 on City Score.
The strongest signal in the current chart is population growth (standing 94%, rank #20 of 343, +3.4% annual growth). The weakest observed pillar is broadband download (ISED seed tier) (standing 5%, rank #326 of 343).
Drinking-water hardness on the water atlas reads 234 mg/L as CaCO₃ for Brooks. Compare that figure to the hardness pillar on the chart and to the national hardness guide on the hub.
Arena loadout
Arena rank #114 of 343
5/8 pillars · main XP bar
Pillar avg · hardness #64
No placement
Rank #326
Rank #205
Rank #255
No placement
Brooks pillar standing
Eight equal-weight City Score pillars, 2025 panel year.
Source: OpenStats composite / study editions
City Score standing trend
Standing percentage by panel year (higher is better).
Years: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
Source: OpenStats composite timeseries
Achievements
Published residential mill-rate context for Brooks.
East-side park used for Canada Day, with the Everyone Plays Playground, spray park, outdoor fitness gear, and baseball diamonds beside
Main recreation campus with the EID Aquatic Centre, Sparrow Arena, fieldhouse, fitness centre, Cenovus Flexhall, and Brooks Public Library
The EID Aquatic Centre inside the JBS Canada Centre includes a 200-foot waterslide and lazy river.
Where Brooks sits in published building-permit figures for July 2026.
Older hometown notes stay on the desk archive (noindex) — this section shows recent highlights only.
Brooks sits in County of Newell country, where the Brooks Bulletin still covers town and rural beat as one community. Municipal history puts irrigation at the centre of the story: the Brooks Aqueduct finished in 1915, then local farmers took the works over as the Eastern Irrigation District in 1935. That water system turned dry land into a service centre for livestock, grain, and vegetables. Oil and gas joined the mix in the late 1970s, and the city still wears the Alberta's Centennial City trademark from its 2005 incorporation.
Weeknights run through the JBS Canada Centre. The EID Aquatic Centre handles lane swims and the leisure pool, Sparrow Arena keeps shinny on the calendar, and the Cenovus Flexhall fills with programs. Bigger ice nights and concerts land at the Centennial Regional Arena, the bowl-seat barn with an indoor track. Brooks Public Library sits inside the same rec complex, so a swim and a stack of holds can happen in one stop.
Outside, Lake Stafford is the big water in town, with a paved path locals treat as the default loop for bikes, strollers, and birdwatching near the little lighthouse point. Duke of Sutherland Park hosts Canada Day, the spray park, and ball diamonds. Evergreen Park links pathway loops toward West End and Pleasant parks past the old CPR Engineer's House. The Brooks Dog Park on Sutherland Drive East is fundraising custom fence signs, and Veterans Park sits downtown beside City Hall for Remembrance. Curbside recycling is arriving in 2026, another practical city-desk story after years of irrigation and energy headlines.
Drawn from City of Brooks - History, City of Brooks - JBS Canada Centre, City of Brooks - Parks & Playgrounds, Brooks Bulletin.
City Score from 2016–2025 across eight open-data pillars. Individual study placements are listed in the panels below.
Each study below is its own ranking. Where a study has more than one edition for this city, the chart shows standing across those years only.
Safety · OpenStats
Statistics Canada does not publish a police-service Crime Severity Index that OpenStats can match to Brooks without copying a province, CMA, or another city. The safety pillar scores at median standing (50%) on City Score, the same rule used for other missing pillars.
Connectivity · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by household-weighted maximum advertised download (Mbps) from ISED National Broadband Data hex ISP rows, with hex-to-city assignment by population-weighted gravity. The headline 2025 score is the dwelling-weighted mean of per-hex technology ceilings (fibre and cable at 1 Gbps, DSL lower). Household-weighted 50/10 availability (%) is stored on atlas rows as avail_5010_pct. Earlier panel years backcast along a national speed curve with city-specific fiber and availability paths.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Composite · OpenStats
OpenStats
Dimensional average of OpenStats open-data pillars for each panel year 2016-2025: tax, construction, connectivity, indoor air, water, seismic hazard, population growth, and crime severity. Each series is scored 0-1 within its edition; series in the same pillar are averaged, then all eight pillars are averaged with equal weight. Missing pillars score at median standing (0.5). Crime severity uses StatCan police-service CSI only (Tables 35-10-0026-01 and 35-10-0063-01); cities without a police-service match take median standing on the safety pillar. Growth uses StatCan CSD estimates; construction uses verified municipal building-permit value per resident (population field on each city record, 2021 Census vintage); mill rates and broadband use live rows plus documented year-varying estimates where needed. Radon, water, and PGA may be survey/model vintages carried forward and are flagged when static for more than two years. External commercial livability lists are never inputs.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Water · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by municipal drinking-water hardness (mg/L as CaCO₃). Hardness changes slowly; the atlas vintage is carried across panel years and flagged when static for more than two years.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Water · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by reported lead (µg/L) on the OpenStats water atlas. Carried across panel years until annual municipal report panels are ingested.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Health · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by Health Canada survey mean indoor radon (Bq/m³). Rank 1 is the highest mean. Decade panel years without a new survey carry the CMA survey vintage forward; they are not annual retests.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Growth · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by year-over-year population growth from Statistics Canada annual CSD estimates (Table 17-10-0155-01). Rank 1 is fastest growth. A few places without a clean CSD match use a provincial-path estimate anchored to seed population.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Hazards · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by NRCan peak ground acceleration (higher = stronger shaking hazard). Rank 1 is highest PGA. The seismic model is multi-year; values are carried across the City Score panel and flagged as static until NRCan publishes a new generation.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Livability
Maclean's
Successor-style municipal livability ranking published by Maclean's for 2019 and 2021 (no 2020 edition).
Single edition · 2021
Only one published edition places Brooks in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Livability
MoneySense
Annual composite ranking of Canadian municipalities on economy, housing, crime, health, and weather.
4 editions · 2014–2018
Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.
The Eastern Irrigation District took over CPR irrigation works in 1935, anchoring Brooks as a farm service centre.
The EID Aquatic Centre inside the JBS Canada Centre includes a 200-foot waterslide and lazy river.
Centennial Regional Arena seats about 1,700 with standing room and floor seating for concerts and special events.
Brooks Dog Park covers 9.4 acres of fenced space for small and large dogs on Sutherland Drive East.
Largest lake in Brooks, with a popular paved shoreline path, picnic tables, a non-motorized boat launch, and a lighthouse structure on a point. Easy loop for a morning walk or bike.
Main recreation campus with the EID Aquatic Centre, Sparrow Arena, fieldhouse, fitness centre, Cenovus Flexhall, and Brooks Public Library under one roof.
East-side park used for Canada Day, with the Everyone Plays Playground, spray park, outdoor fitness gear, and baseball diamonds beside the campground and Brooks Museum area.
Two-mile historic irrigation aqueduct completed in 1915, still the landmark locals point to when explaining how water shaped the city.
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