*it’s the shear number of high earning households who enjoy an urban lifestyle. Toronto, Vancouver, lesser extent Calgary all enjoy lots of high paying white collar jobs. Lots of corporate headquarters and attractors of higher end talent in tech, finance, etc in each. But also lots of folks earning little who have either been there forever before things went crazy, or who really to be part of the urban experience regardless of whether they’re making minimum wage while sharing a 2 br apartment with six people.
Edmonton has a lot of government workers doing OK, a lot of blue collar folks doing pretty damn good, and a surprising amount of random owners of businesses that are some sort of vendor for construction/oilfield/plant maintenance in either service/supply. That guy who runs his own small trucking outfit, or runs a hose supply complain, or a <10 employee mechanical service gig in Fort Mac can all be potentially clearing upwards of half a mill plus easily… ya see it time and time again. Especially in the oilfield.