Oakville, Ont. is home to tony boarding school Appleby College, the famous Glen Abbey Golf Club and lakefront mega-mansions, including one listed for $65 million in 2016. Its average household income of $162,000 is the 10th highest in the country and the value of the average primary residence is $1.2 million, the 13th most expensive in Canada.

Many would look at those facts and conclude Oakville sounds like a great place to live—for rich people. But mayor Rob Burton says those numbers don’t tell the whole story.

“There’s no denying it’s an affluent community, but it’s a generous community,” Burton says. “We’ve become a very attractive place for people of diverse backgrounds.”

The results of the 2018 Canada’s Best Places to Live ranking confirm Burton’s hypothesis. Our data-driven analysis pegs Oakville as not only the best place to live overall, but the best place for New Canadians, the third best place to retire and the fifth best place to raise a family. It’s certainly not the cheapest city in the country, but it has attracted a growing and increasingly diverse population because of its many strong points.

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Oakville scored high in a broad range of the areas examined by the Best Places to Live ranking, placing in the top 25 per cent of all cities in six out of 10 categories. Oakville residents enjoy access to Toronto’s strong job market while maintaining the benefits of a smaller suburb.

People from all walks of life have taken notice. Over the past 10 years, the percentage of visible minorities in Oakville has increased from 18 per cent to 31 per cent, according to the census. Burton says about 45 per cent of the Halton region’s low income population lives in Oakville. And not every house is a $65 million lakefront mega-mansion, with families priced out of Toronto flocking to new, relatively affordable townhouses and other high-density developments.