According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Global Liveability Ranking, which scores 140 cities on five lifestyle categories, six of the top 10 livable cities in the world are in Australia and Canada.
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Across the world, Melbourne remained the most liveable city, followed by Vienna, with the worst place being Syria’s war-torn capital, Damascus.
Melbourne lord mayor, Robert Doyle, celebrated the ranking on Thursday: “I can’t wait to make my annual phone call to Gregor Robertson, mayor of Vancouver”, he said.
It’s easy to forget that we do live in one of the world’s best cities, so here’s a quick reminder of the reasons why Melbourne really is the most liveable city in the world.
Residents of any of the top cities could probably roll their eyes at this analysis; I can only talk about the Canadian cities, but Vancouver is in a housing affordability crisis, Calgary is in economic recession, and Toronto is an infrastructure and leadership mess. He says Melbourne officials are constantly planning and implementing policies that would continue to improve quality of life in the city.
Of the 140 cities that were evaluated, Dubai was the second most improved city in terms of liveability only behind Tehran.
Not all Sydney residents were taking it well.
Even cities in the top tier are being touched by an increase in violence and global instability. Oh, you mean the magazine that endorsed Bush in 2000?
The EIU scores the cities on a number of factors – healthcare, stability, culture, environment and infrastructure.
“This is a result all Victorians can be so proud of”.
The Top 101. Melbourne, Australia2. Hobart, Darwin, and Canberra were not included in the rankings.
Rounding out the top 10 are Auckland, New Zealand, Helsinki, Finland and Hamburg, Germany. Canada and Australia both scored top marks for healthcare and education, helping their cities climb to the top.
That seems to be the formula.
“Those that score best tend to be mid-sized cities in wealthier countries with a relatively low population density.”
The port city of Tianjin saw the sharpest fall in its livability score among the eight Chinese cities surveyed, with the drop compounded by a decline in its environment score following an explosion at a chemical factory a year ago.
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On average, the global stability score has fallen by 2.4 percent over the past five years, from 73.7 percent in 2012 to 71.3 percent now.
