In your face Luxembourg! Toronto has been ranked 15th among international cities in quality of life according to Mercer Human Resource Consulting. That puts us in second place for Canada (after Vancouver which ranked 3rd and ahead of Montreal in 22nd place).

The study compared 215 cities and was based on 39 factors including economy, safety and environment.

While Toronto did well (low crime, low cost-of-living), we were penalized by our harsh winters, poor air quality (remember last summer), and traffic. Our environmental problems put us in 21st place in the category of health and sanitation, below Ottawa, Montreal and Calgary which placed first internationally in this category.

Other studies have said similar things to this one - we're good, but we could get better (we ranked 15th last year in the same survey). In the end, the most fun part of these surveys is saying we're better than someone else (I'm looking at you 16th place Berlin).

See Highlights from the 2007 Quality of Living Survey here.
Photo courtesy of e.dward's photos from the blogTO flickr pool