Alberta
OpenStats City Score, ranking history, and local readings for Red Deer.
City Score #123 (2022) → #45 (2025)
Red Deer sits at City Score rank #45 with a standing of 56%, 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. Rising 78 places versus 2022 (#123 → #45).
Latest owned placements: building permit value rank #31 of 172 (2025); residential mill rate rank #79 of 172 (11.25 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 Red Deer.
Documented pro, junior, university, and high-school teams tied to Red Deer.
Published residential mill-rate context for Red Deer.
Community museum and gallery that hosts festival programming, including Heritage Day gatherings paired with Rotary Recreation Park.
Emerging mixed-use neighbourhood beside Greater Downtown and the Red Deer River. It is the riverside piece of the city's downtown rebuild
Locals call themselves Red Deerians, a demonym that still shows up in hometown headlines.
Where Red Deer sits in published building-permit figures for July 2026.
Red Deer is the city Red Deerians mean when they say Central Alberta has a centre. It is big enough to host a fair week and a baseball club, small enough that the river valley still feels like the town's shared backyard. The Red Deer River threads green space through the middle of everything, and most locals can point you toward Bower Ponds, Waskasoo Park, or the Capstone riverside blocks without checking a map.
Greater Downtown is the city's own language for that middle: Historic Downtown for the commercial and civic heart, Capstone for new mixed-use living beside the water, Railyards for the transition zone, and Parkvale for mature streets within walking distance. Summer programming leans into that geography. Westerner Days brings the downtown parade that opens fair season. Ross Street Patio fills with music. The Afro-Caribbean Festival takes over 50 Street by City Hall Park. Heritage Day still draws crowds to Rotary Recreation Park and the Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery.
Beyond the festival calendar, Red Deerians live with parkland that would surprise visitors expecting only highway frontage. Gaetz Lake Sanctuary keeps a large refuge for native plants and animals inside city limits. McKenzie Trails and Maskepetoon Park offer quieter forest and marsh loops. Heritage Ranch anchors equestrian trails and a trout pond on the west side. Winter drivers watch for Snow Zone alerts; kids chase summer through Rip 'n Rec. Highway 2 improvements stay on the council agenda because the corridor is how Central Alberta arrives and leaves. The Red Deer Riggers keep baseball in the local sports conversation. Put together, it is a river city that still gathers outdoors and still names its neighbourhoods with care.
Drawn from City of Red Deer - Greater Downtown, City of Red Deer - Downtown, City of Red Deer - Bower Ponds, City of Red Deer - Trails and parks, Red Deer Advocate.
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
sports · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities with a Canadian Hockey League club ranked by regular-season points percentage (best club wins if several). Rank 1 = highest points %. Built from CHL standings and Wikipedia season pages. Cities without a CHL club are omitted.
8 editions · 2017–2025
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 Red Deer 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
The Globe and Mail
2023 data partnership with Environics Analytics ranking 439 Canadian communities on ten livability categories.
Single edition · 2023
Only one published edition places Red Deer 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.
Locals call themselves Red Deerians, a demonym that still shows up in hometown headlines.
Bower Ponds sits on the Red Deer River with an amphitheatre, winter skating, and trail links into the wider park system.
Westerner Days opens with a downtown parade that the city treats as the civic kickoff to fair season.
Gaetz Lake Sanctuary is a large protected refuge for native plants and animals inside city limits.
River-overlook park where Red Deerians skate in winter and catch amphitheatre shows in warmer months. Trails link it into the broader Waskasoo Park system along the Red Deer River.
Emerging mixed-use neighbourhood beside Greater Downtown and the Red Deer River. It is the riverside piece of the city's downtown rebuild story.
Community museum and gallery that hosts festival programming, including Heritage Day gatherings paired with Rotary Recreation Park.
Equestrian-centred park node with trails, a trout pond, and seasonal rides. A west-side outdoor stop that feels more ranch than boulevard.
When Red Deer 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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