Toronto ranked best place to live in the world by The Economist

WATCH: Mark McAllister reports on the factors that make Toronto one of the best places to live in the world.

Toronto and Montreal are the top two best places to live in the world according to an index of city rankings compiled by The Economist.

The report ranked cities based on their levels of digital security, health security, infrastructure safety and personal safety. The shortlist of 50 cities were selected by the magazine based on factors such as regional representation and availability of data.

When Toronto was weighed by factors such as livability, cost of living, business environment, democracy, safety and food security, it came out on top.

“As a Torontonian, I’m thrilled and I’m not surprised because I think it is a great place to live,” Toronto Mayor John Tory said in an interview Friday.

“We’re really lucky, but I guess when you’re number one, you’ve got to work hard to stay there, so we’ve got to address some of those things that make us less than perfect.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We're really lucky, but I guess when you're number one, you've got to work hard to stay there, so we've got to address some of those things that make us less than perfect."

But he did say Toronto has to build more affordable housing and better public transit to keep the city affordable.

The only other Canadian city examined in the report was Montreal, which finished in second place overall.

In the Safe Cities index Toronto finished eighth while Montreal finished 14th. The title of safest city went to Tokyo.

“The Japanese capital performs most strongly in the digital security category, three points ahead of Singapore in second place,” read the report.

While Toronto did not top any single index, it mostly finished in the top 10 in all categories.

The one category where Toronto slipped was cost of living, falling behind other cities like Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Abu Dhabi and San Francisco.

Cities ranked in the bottom five included Mexico City, Riyadh, Johannesburg, Ho Chi Minh City, Tehran and Jakarta.

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