Chatham-Kent's ranking in a survey looking at Canada's best places to live has jumped significantly this year.
The municipality ranked 164th in MoneySense's Canada's Best Places To Live 2018 survey, compared to 324th in the same survey last year.
The company gathered data on 415 cities across Canada and ranked how they measure in the following categories: wealth and economy, affordability, population growth, taxes, commute, crime, weather, access to health care, amenities, and culture.
Chatham-Kent's Coordinator of Resident Attraction and Retention Victoria Bodnar says the municipality ranked highly in several of MoneySense's categories.
"Chatham-Kent consistently ranks well at being a very healthy community, a safe community, and our taxes are lower then other places," she says. "Our climate is great year round. We have beautiful scenery and gorgeous landscapes here, but there's also a very active community and a wonderful community to be a part of."
Bodnar says people are getting more excited to talk about the municipality and what a great place it is to live in.
"It's an affordable place to live and our economy is looking really great," she says. "There are lots of jobs here and people are starting to take notice and of course our housing market, though tighter than we're used to, is still very competitive compared to surrounding areas."
Bodnar says in the Chatham-Kent to the Power of Young People survey last year, the numbers of young people who wish to stay, remain connected, or come back to the municipality have increased significantly from the previous five-year period.
"That cohort is starting to stay a bit more, so that's certainly making an impact. Also, we have more newcomers coming to Chatham-Kent. The number of recent immigrants in Chatham-Kent increased by 28% over the previous census," explains Bodnar. "Then our active retiree population has continued to increase."