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They are the cities that almost never sleep, or get only about six hours of shut-eye.

In the report published Thursday, PricewaterhouseCoopers, now known as PwC, says Toronto is the only Canadian city that can count itself among global players such as London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Tokyo and New York as so-called cities that never sleep.

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But some of Canada’s major centres are almost 24-hour cities and make it into the category of 18-hour cities, says the report. Vancouver and Montreal are already in that category, known as the long-day/seven-day city, while Calgary is ready to make a claim on the same status.

“Many more, ranging from Quebec City to Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo to Edmonton could evolve into 18-hour cities,” said the consulting firm in its report, Emerging Trends in Canadian Real Estate, which is in its 39th year.

A clear advantage these cities have is better housing affordability and a lower cost of doing business, according to the report. As part of the report, 800 individuals were interviewed while survey responses were also received from more than 1,600 individuals.