Calgary, where I now live, is the cleaneset city in the world.

Well, at least out of the 215 surveyed. I know firsthand that there’s more smog in Calgary in the summer than there is in say Saskatoon (the city where I grew up). Obviously not ever city in the world could be included. Still, that’s pretty impressive.

Vancouver is the best overall city in Canada and tied for third in the world (with Vienna, behind Zurich and Geneva). Calgary came in at 24 worldwide behind the Canadian cities Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. I haven’t seen the actual report yet to analyze further; all the third-party reports I’ve seen quoted the winters as being negative factors in the Canadian cities’ ratings (and thus Vancouver’s high score).

The differences aren’t severe. With New York serving as the base of 100 points, Calgary scored 103.6, Toronto 105.4, and Zurich 108.1. Baghdad, the worst city, got 14.5… so what’s 8 points among friends?

Lastly, the linked article took an obligatory pot-shot at the USA:

Every Canadian city scored better than all the U.S. cities surveyed.

I generally don’t like America-bashing (especially by Canadians, for whom it’s more “me too!” than expressing valid grudges), but I figure that since I put up with years of “USA is the greatest country in the world rah rah!” I can relax that a little.