London ON - (May 2009) Today, fDi magazine announces London, Ontario ranks in the Top Five in the Best Quality of Life Category for their North American Small Cities of the Future 2009/10 ranking. London took a fourth place finish.
fDi researchers took more than six months to select the "top ten" shortlists of cities of all sizes with the best strategies and resources for economic development. Courtney Fingar, editor of fDi magazine, said: "fDi magazine's City of the Future ranks reflects an independent panel of judges' views on each city according to seven selection factors.
As part of the selection process, nine judges reviewed nominations from nearly 400 North American cities on more than 60 criteria designed to assess cities' potential to attract business investment projects.
"This is terrific recognition for London by a magazine held in high regard by the international economic development community," said Peter White, London Economic Development Corporation's President and CEO. "This independent assessment of London's quality of life including cost of living, safety, education and tourism is another tool for LEDC to raise London's profile internationally."
fDi Cities of the Future shortlists are created by the independent collection of data by fDi Benchmark, across nearly 400 North American cities. This information was set under six categories: economic potential, human resources, cost effectiveness, quality of life, infrastructure and business friendliness. A seventh category was added to the scoring - FDI promotion strategy. In this category, 128 North American cities submitted details about their promotion strategy and this was judged and scored by the independent judging panel as well as fDi's research team.
This year, cities were categorised by their city population only - not the metro area - in order to make the data collected more comparative across city levels. The categories were as follows:
- Major cities have a population of more than 1,000,000.
- Large cities have a population greater than 500,000 and smaller than 1,000,000.
- Small cities have a population greater than 100,000 and smaller than 500,000.
- Micro cities have a population of less than 100,000.
- Cities could score up to a maximum of 10 points for each individual criteria, which were weighted by importance to give the overall scores.
"As Londoners, we have always viewed The Forest City as a well-rounded community, ideal for raising families and investing in enterprise," says Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best. "Now, through the fDi rankings, we have objective results to confirm we're definitely taking the right steps to ensure our city's future prosperity."
London was ranked as a Small City with a population between 100,000 and 500,000.
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For more information, please contact:
Lesley Cornelius
Director, Marketing & Communications
London Economic Development Corporation
519-661-5009
