Vienna Snatches Melbourne’s Crown as World’s Most Liveable City
Vienna has ended Melbourne’s seven-year reign as the world’s most liveable city.
(Bloomberg) -- Vienna has ended Melbourne’s seven-year reign as the world’s most liveable city, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.
The Austrian capital scored a near perfect score of 99.1 out of 100 in the index, whose criteria include stability, healthcare and the environment. Cities in Australia and Canada took six of the top 10 spots, with the U.S. again missing out.
Big financial centers such as London (48th) and New York (57th) suffer from their own success, according to the EIU, with overstretched public transport, higher levels of crime and congestion denting their appeal. Hong Kong (35th) just edged out its local rival Singapore (37th) on the index after improving on stability scores.
Elsewhere in Asia, Osaka (3rd) and Tokyo (7th) both climbed the rankings to their highest position in more than a decade on consistent declines in crime rates and improvements in public transport.
The world’s 10 most liveable cities: |
1. Vienna, Austria 2. Melbourne, Australia 3. Osaka, Japan 4. Calgary, Canada 5. Sydney, Australia 6. Vancouver, Canada 7. Toronto, Canada 8. Tokyo, Japan 9. Copenhagen, Denmark 10. Adelaide, Australia |
Most of the best-performing spots are mid-sized cities in wealthier countries with relatively low population density.
At the bottom end of the table of 140 cities, the lowest-scoring is war-torn Damascus. Those suffering from inadequate infrastructure such as Harare, or in the case of Dhaka, severe pollution, also fare badly.
And the 10 least liveable... |
131. Dakar, Senegal 132. Algiers, Algeria 133. Douala, Cameroon 134. Tripoli, Libya 135. Harare, Zimbabwe 136. Port Moresby, PNG 137. Karachi, Pakistan 138. Lagos, Nigeria 139. Dhaka, Bangladesh 140. Damascus, Syria |
To contact the reporter on this story: Emily Cadman in Sydney at ecadman2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Marcus Wright at mwright115@bloomberg.net, Edward Johnson, Peter Vercoe
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