How we grade neighbourhoods
Every number on this site comes from public data, worked out the same way for every neighbourhood. We grade categories, never whole neighbourhoods. A place can be great for transit and weaker on flood risk, and that's useful to know.
Neighbourhoods and homes
We use the City of Abbotsford's 22 community boundaries exactly as the City draws them. Together they cover the whole city, from City Centre and Clearbrook to the farmland of Sumas Prairie, Matsqui Prairie and Bradner-Mt. Lehman, so every home is graded.
"Homes" are the City's civic address points. Aliases, vacant lots and cell towers are left out, and units at the same location count once, so a 40-unit building counts the same as one house when we measure distances.
Zooming in: census areas
Neighbourhoods are big, and one end can be quite different from the other. Zoom in on the map and each neighbourhood breaks into Statistics Canada dissemination areas, the smallest areas the census publishes (usually 400 to 700 residents). Each one is graded with the same home-by-home measures as the neighbourhoods, and tapping one shows its own 2021 Census figures: household income, renters, age, families and housing. Statistics Canada withholds some figures, such as income, for very small areas, so those show as "Not published".
First Nation reserve lands
Stó:lō First Nation reserves in and around the city, such as those of the Matsqui and Sumas First Nations (boundaries from Statistics Canada's 2021 census subdivisions, plus OpenStreetMap for reserves with no residents), are governed by their Nations, not the City. The map names them but doesn't grade them or profile who lives there. Shops, clinics and bus stops on those lands still count for the homes around them.
Flood risk in Abbotsford
The City's floodplain map divides the floodplain into areas A to H without saying which are diked. Areas E (Matsqui Prairie) and F (Bradner's Glen Valley lowland) sit behind the Matsqui and Glen Valley dikes, so we count them as diked floodplain. Areas A, B and G are Sumas Prairie: it's diked too, but those dikes didn't hold in November 2021 and most of the prairie flooded, so we count it the same as unprotected floodplain rather than giving it credit for its dikes. C, D and H are small creek floodplains with no dike, so we count them as unprotected.
Not covered yet
The City doesn't publish weekly building permit reports the way Chilliwack does, so Abbotsford has no "being built" map yet. Highway access is measured to the Highway 1 exits mapped in OpenStreetMap.
Category scores (0–100) and grades
Most scores are the share of homes within a set walking distance of something, so 80 means 80% of homes. Distances are straight-line, not walking routes. Grades: A is 80+, B 65–79, C 45–64, D 25–44, E under 25.
| Category | How it's scored |
|---|---|
| Schools | Homes within 1 km of a public elementary school and 2 km of a public middle/secondary school |
| Kids at home | Share of households that are families with children at home (2021 Census). Used in the Families score only |
| Road safety | ICBC-reported crashes per km² per year, 2021–2025 |
| Parks | Homes within 400 m of a park, plus 500 m of a playground |
| Childcare | Homes within 800 m of a licensed group centre or preschool, and 1 km of care for under-3s (home daycares alone don’t count) |
| Quiet streets | How close homes are to traffic: right beside a highway counts most, fading out by 300 m; arterial roads fade out by 150 m and collector roads by 100 m (OpenStreetMap road types) |
| Shops & food | Homes within 1 km of a grocery store or pharmacy, and 800 m of a café or restaurant |
| Transit | Homes within 400 m of a bus stop, and of a stop with 40+ weekday departures |
| Health care | Homes within 1.5 km of a walk-in clinic or hospital, and 1 km of a pharmacy |
| Commute time | Workers with a commute under 15 minutes, less a penalty for commutes of an hour or more (2021 Census) |
| Highway access | Average straight-line distance from homes to the nearest Highway 1 interchange |
| Flood risk | Share of homes outside the City floodplain (unprotected floodplain and Sumas Prairie, which flooded in 2021, count most; diked floodplain least) |
The "best for" lists
Each list is a weighted average of category scores; a category with no data for an area is left out of that area's average. Areas with fewer than 100 homes (mostly industrial land) are left out. You can set your own weights on the Best areas page.
| List | Weights |
|---|---|
| Families with young kids | Schools 20%, Quiet streets 20%, Parks 15%, Road safety 15%, Childcare 15%, Kids at home 15% |
| Seniors & retirees | Health care 30%, Shops & food 30%, Transit 25%, Road safety 10%, Flood risk 5% |
| Commuters | Highway access 35%, Commute time 25%, Transit 15%, Shops & food 10%, Road safety 10%, Flood risk 5% |
Census figures ("Who lives here")
Population, age, owners and renters, household types, home types, income, housing costs and commuting come from Statistics Canada's 2021 Census Profile for dissemination areas (small areas of a few hundred people). Those areas don't follow neighbourhood lines, so we split each one between neighbourhoods by where its homes are, and add up the counts. Medians (age, household income) are averages of the areas' medians, weighted by the people or households they describe, so treat them as close estimates. The "City" comparison figures cover City of Abbotsford homes only.
Coming soon: New 2026 Census figures are coming in stages: population counts on February 10, 2027, income and families on July 14, home values and rents on September 8, and commuting on December 1, 2027. We’ll update the map as each one comes out.
One census figure is graded for everyone because it describes what living somewhere is like: commute time. One more, kids at home (the share of households that are families with children at home), counts only in the Families score, because parents tell us kids nearby matter to them; it's left out of the Overall score. Age, income and renting are shown, and you can shade the map by them, but they never count towards a grade. Ranking places by those would steer people by who their neighbours are, which isn't what a neighbourhood guide should do.
Home values and rents
The Home values and Rents maps use the census's median home value (what owners estimated their home would sell for, in May 2021) and median monthly rent including utilities. They aren't graded, because a higher price isn't better or worse. Prices have moved since 2021, so use them to compare areas, not as today's prices. We used to grade "housing costs" as the share of households spending 30% or more of their income on housing, but that mostly tracks income rather than price, so it's now shown as a figure instead of a grade.
Quiet streets and road safety
Quiet streets measures how close homes are to traffic, using OpenStreetMap road types. A home right beside Highway 1 counts as fully exposed, fading to nothing 300 m away; arterial and secondary roads (like South Fraser Way, Sumas Way or Clearbrook Road) fade out by 150 m, and collector roads by 100 m, at about half the weight. The neighbourhood's score is the average over its homes, scaled so the busiest areas grade E. Road safety counts ICBC-reported crashes per km² per year. For the smaller census areas we also count crashes within 60 m of the area's edge, because those edges are often the busy roads themselves.
Crime
No score includes crime yet. Police data by neighbourhood isn't published. When it arrives it becomes its own category, weighted heavily for Families and Seniors. We won't estimate crime from anything else, like income or renters, because that would mark areas down for who lives there.
Crime
No public crime data exists at the neighbourhood level in Abbotsford, so we don't estimate or model it. Until real local data is released, we only point to city-wide figures from official sources.
Sources
- City of Abbotsford Open Data Hub: community boundaries, address points, parks, schools, floodplains, dikes and the city boundary (City of Abbotsford Open Data Hub (downloaded 2 Nov 2026)). Contains information licenced under the Open Government Licence – City of Abbotsford.
- ICBC reported crashes, 2021–2025: 23,669 crashes in Abbotsford. ICBC data is self-reported, excludes parking lots, and places mid-block crashes between the nearest intersections.
- BC Transit GTFS (Central Fraser Valley): stops and weekday departures for 2026-11-04.
- Province of BC: licensed childcare locations, plus HealthLink BC pharmacy, walk-in clinic and hospital lists (Open Government Licence – BC).
- Statistics Canada, 2021 Census of Population: Census Profile and boundaries for dissemination areas (Open Government Licence – Canada).
- Statistics Canada 2021 boundaries: census subdivisions (First Nation reserves).
- OpenStreetMap: grocery stores, cafés, restaurants, playgrounds, road types and Highway 1 exits (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL).
Data built 2026-11-02.