British Columbia
OpenStats City Score, ranking history, and local readings for Nelson.
City Score #131 (2022) → #142 (2025)
Nelson sits at City Score rank #142 with a standing of 42%, from 7 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. Dropping 11 places versus 2022 (#131 → #142).
Latest owned placements: building permit value rank #117 of 172 (2025); residential mill rate rank #55 of 172 (12.36 mill rate). Full tables and method notes live on each study edition; atlas readings for the same slug open from the topic buttons.
Open each topic for Nelson.
Documented pro, junior, university, and high-school teams tied to Nelson.
Published residential mill-rate context for Nelson.
Vernon Street culture stop with exhibitions, Shawn Lamb Archives, and a Cold War bunker open to the public. Worth the indoor hour when
Lakeside gathering ground for Canada Day and summer community events. Locals treat it as the easy outdoor meet-up.
Lakeside Park is the regular Canada Day gathering place promoted by the chamber.
Where Nelson sits in published building-permit figures for July 2026.
Nelson is a West Kootenay mountain city where Baker Street still does the talking. Chamber pages call the mix uncommon ground: small-town pace with a busy downtown of shops, markets, and side-street studios on the traditional territories of the Sinixt, Syilx, and Ktunaxa peoples. Lakeside Park handles Canada Day crowds and summer lake edge hangouts, while the Nelson Museum, Archives & Gallery on Vernon Street keeps Cold War bunker tours and local archives in the same building as contemporary shows.
Power talk here means Nelson Hydro, the city-owned utility with its own rates workshops and meter projects, not only a distant provincial brand. Fairview paving notices, Anderson Creek diversion updates, and Stage 1 water restrictions show how quickly infrastructure files become kitchen-table news. Railtown Flats at the foot of Baker Street puts workforce housing on the same street that hosts farmers markets and the city's free Bike Valet on market days.
Nelson Star covers the Nelson International Mural Festival in August, night-market Fridays, and the wider West Kootenay wildfire-and-smoke season that shapes summer plans. Capitol Theatre nights and the City Campground keep visitors and locals sharing the same facilities map, while Lakeside Recycling Depot organics drop-offs remind everyone that climate talk here is practical. Ask someone where to meet and you will likely hear Baker Street or Lakeside before you hear a highway exit. The desk voice stays mountain-town practical: arts calendar full, Hydro bills watched, and the lake edge never far from the story.
Drawn from Nelson & District Chamber of Commerce, City of Nelson, City of Nelson - Nelson Hydro, Nelson Star, City of Nelson - Community Facilities.
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.
Connectivity · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by estimated best advertised download (Mbps). Anchored to the current ISED National Broadband Data vintage, then backcast along a national speed curve with city-specific fiber-arrival and 50/10 availability paths so relative ranks can change over the decade. Not a claim of audited historical hex maps for every year.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Construction · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by calendar-year building permit value. Direct rows sum Statistics Canada Table 34-10-0292-01. Cities without a direct reading use population × provincial per-capita permit intensity (estimated), so every seed city has a year-varying construction signal.
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). Growth and CSI use StatCan annual tables; permits, 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
Safety · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by Statistics Canada Crime Severity Index (Table 35-10-0026-01). Rank 1 is highest CSI (worse). Values are CMA where a metro match exists, otherwise provincial CSI. Hometown pages label the grain.
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
sports · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by weighted count of documented local teams (pro, junior, university, high-school hubs). Rank 1 = deepest documented sports footprint among covered seed cities. Not a claim about on-field success. See sports methodology for weights and gaps.
Single edition · 2025
Only one published edition places Nelson in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
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
Property tax · OpenStats
OpenStats
Municipalities ranked by residential mill rate. Rank 1 is the highest rate. Published municipal years are used when available; gaps are interpolated or follow the provincial median path so the tax pillar moves year to year for every city.
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 Nelson 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.
3 editions · 2015–2018
Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.
Nelson Hydro is the city-owned electric utility, with its own rates and metering project files.
Lakeside Park is the regular Canada Day gathering place promoted by the chamber.
The city launches free Bike Valet service for market events downtown.
Nelson Museum, Archives & Gallery houses local archives and a public Cold War bunker installation.
Historic downtown spine for shopping, murals, and market days. Railtown Flats sits at the foot of the street, so housing talk and retail share one block.
Lakeside gathering ground for Canada Day and summer community events. Locals treat it as the easy outdoor meet-up.
Vernon Street culture stop with exhibitions, Shawn Lamb Archives, and a Cold War bunker open to the public. Worth the indoor hour when smoke or rain settles in.
Listed municipal community facility for live performance nights. Part of the same arts circuit as mural weekend and market Fridays.
When Nelson moves in a ranking, posts new permit figures, or lands in a study, get a short note. A few sends a year, only when something changes.
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