Markham Real Estate Today with Asif Khan

Toronto ranks 15th on global list of millionaires per city

About 2.29 per cent of Toronto’s 2.8 million people, roughly 60,000 people, have net assets of at least $1 million — something experts say is a sign of the city’s prosperity.

Toronto placed 15th on a list of worldwide cities with the highest concentration of millionaires, with more than two per cent of its population having net assets of $1-million or more.

The review, conducted by British think-tank WealthInsight, found that 1 in 44 people in Toronto fall under the millionaire classification.

“This is just another indication that Toronto is in the ranks of the most affluent global cities in the world,” said Richard Florida, director of the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute.

Florida said it came as no surprise that Toronto placed among the likes of cities like New York and London.

“If I look at Toronto, even though it’s smaller than London or New York, it looks a lot like the economic makeup of those cities. It has a lot of finance, it has a lot of media, it has a lot of entertainment, its economic makeup is like a first-class global city,” said Florida.

Les Jacobs, director of the Institute for Social Research at York University and co-author of a 2014 survey on the national income gap, said that the figure shows the strength of Toronto’s financial sector, but that it highlights the need for the redistribution of wealth.

“I think that having that wealth is important in terms of competing in the global economy. The real question I guess . . . is the reason that you, the provocative policy issue is really about redistribution and the sharing of that wealth. That’s a trickier question,” said Jacobs.

The survey takes into account net assets, excluding the value of one’s primary residence.

Toronto, where 2.29 per cent of the population have net assets of $1-million or more, placed ahead of cities like Venice (16th) and Brussels (17th) in the survey which was conducted in partnership with Spear’s, a British wealth management magazine. The city-state of Monaco placed first, followed closely by tax havens Zurich and Geneva, which are second and third respectively.

“It’s good that Toronto’s developing, it’s good that there’s more millionaires, but we have to take care of the bottom not just the top. That’s where we’re not putting enough effort,”