How quickly things can change. In 2024, the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area was the fastest-growing region in Canada and the US. Then, last year, it lost around 1,000 people and dropped to 443rd place. See above chart. The obvious explanation is Canada's concerted effort to reduce temporary workers and international students. But actually, Toronto is still one of the top regions when it comes to net international migration, adding 53,000 people in 2025. The real story, according to recent analysis from the Centre for Urban Research and Land Development at TMU, is that Toronto has simply gotten too expensive, driving massive domestic out-migration. Last year, Toronto lost 77,500 people this way, wiping out its natural growth and its net international migration gains. This is our regular reminder that we need to be far better at delivering attainable housing at scale.
Cover photo by Frank Huang
Chart from The Globe and Mail
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is being hosted across 16 different cities in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The city hosting the most games is Dallas, with 9 matches. Supposedly, this is because the city has a nice stadium with a retractable roof and capacity for 70,649 people, and Dallas is a fairly central location for a tournament being hosted across North America.
But here's another way of looking at the stadiums. The School of Cities at the University of Toronto recently published a study called "Transit-Oriented Stadiums." What they did was look at how well connected each stadium is to its host city by public transit. More specifically, they looked at how many people live within a 60-minute public transit isochrone polygon.
Dallas Stadium (AT&T Stadium) is in Arlington, Texas, and it has about 100,000 residents within a 60-minute transit trip:
Now, here's Toronto. BMO Field has a much smaller capacity (43,036 people), but over 2 million residents live within a 60-minute transit trip:
Mexico City's transit catchment reaches over 2.1 million people, despite its stadium being out of the core of the city:
And Vancouver takes the top spot with over 2.3 million people:
These diagrams highlight a striking divide in land-use patterns. The two key factors are stadium placement and transit investment. Obviously, if you flipped the script and mapped the number of residents within a 60-minute drive, then Dallas Stadium would perform quite differently. But bringing 70,000 people to one location via cars will never match the spatial efficiency of public transit.
Cover photo by Ronin
Diagrams from the School of Cities at the University of Toronto
The Economist just released its list of the world's most — and least — liveable cities in 2026. It has a somewhat similar complexion to Monocle's quality of life survey in that you'll find cities like Copenhagen, Vienna, Sydney, Zurich, and Vancouver on both. But at the same time, there is a core difference.
Basically the way it works is that The Economist's ranking is designed to help HR departments calculate "hardship allowances" when staff are relocating overseas, whereas the Monocle survey places a much greater emphasis on questions like: Can I grab a drink at a cool bar at 2 AM on a Tuesday? It's for this reason that you won't find cities like Lisbon, Paris, and Madrid on The Economist's top 10 list.
The other not-very-surprising fact of this year's ranking is that cities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) broadly saw the largest declines in liveability. This is due to the Iran war and deteriorating "stability" points.
Perhaps the most interesting takeaway is the rise of Asia, and in particular China. There are now 9 Asian cities in the top 20, compared to 7 cities in Europe. According to The Economist, improvements in healthcare are why Chinese cities are posting the biggest gains. Also on the movers-up list is New York, due to falling crime rates and a reduced perceived terrorism risk.
While this is certainly positive, if you'd like to dive deeper, you can download a full copy of the EIU Global Liveability Index 2026.
Cover photo by Julius Carmine