[size=8]Melbourne ranked world's most liveable city - again[/size]
August 28, 2013 - 1:53PM


Three-peat: Melbourne has topped the most-liveable rankings again. Photo: Wayne Taylor

Melbourne has been crowned the globe’s most liveable city for the third time in a row, nudging out Austrian capital Vienna in The Economist Intelligence Unit Survey.

In the review of 140 cities, Victoria’s capital was given perfect scores for health care, education and infrastructure.

Meanwhile four other Australian cities made this year’s top 10, including Adelaide (number 5), Sydney (number 7) and Perth (number 9).

Conflict was responsible for many of the lowest scores. Damascus in war-torn Syria was ranked the lowest, scoring just 20 per cent for stability.


TOP 10

Melbourne, Australia
Vienna, Austria
Vancouver, Canada
Toronto, Canada
Calgary, Canada
Adelaide, Australia
Sydney, Australia
Helsinki, Finland
Perth, Australia
Auckland, New Zealand

BOTTOM 10

Damascus, Syria
Tehran, Iran
Douala, Cameroon
Tripoli, Libya
Karachi, Pakistan
Algiers, Algeria
Harare, Zimbabwe
Lagos, Nigeria
Port Moresby, PNG
Dhaka, Bangladesh

[size=8]Melbourne retains the crown of most liveable city[/size]

Melbourne remains the most liveable location of the 140 cities surveyed, followed by the Austrian capital, Vienna. Vancouver, which was the most liveable city surveyed until 2011 lies in third place. Over the past six months only 13 cities of 140 surveyed have experienced changes in scores, although 28 cities (20% of those surveyed) have seen changes over the past year. In some cases these are positive improvements in liveability driven by infra¬structural development or easing instability. But in most cases liveability changes in recent years have been driven by civil unrest, with the Arab Spring, European austerity and Chinese discontent all contributing.

Conflict is responsible for many of the lowest scores. This is not only because stability indicators have the highest single scores, but also because factors defining stability spread to have an adverse effect on other categories. For example, the threat of armed conflict will not just cause disruption in its own right, it will also damage infrastructure, overburden hospitals, and undermine the availability of goods, services and recreational activities. The Middle East, Africa and Asia account for all 13 cities, with violence, whether through crime, civil insurgency, terrorism or war, playing a strong role. Nowhere is this more apparent than Damascus. The Syrian capital has seen its liveability score in freefall since the escalation of violence across the country. In the past 12 months Damascus has fallen ten places to the bottom of the ranking. A similar drop took place in Tripoli during the Libyan civil war. Significantly, though, the Libyan conflict is now over, Tripoli remains in the bottom ten cities, reflecting the fact that the rebuilding process for any location plunged into war is a long one.

The concept of liveability is simple: it assesses which locations around the world provide the best or the worst living conditions. Assessing liveability has a broad range of uses. The survey originated as a means of testing whether Human Resource Departments needed to assign a hardship allowance as part of expatriate relocation packages. While this function is still a central potential use of the survey, it has also evolved as a broad means of benchmarking cities. This means that liveability is increasingly used by city councils, organisations or corporate entities looking to test their locations against others to see general areas where liveability can differ.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s liveability rating quantifies the challenges that might be presented to an individual's lifestyle in 140 cities worldwide. Each city is assigned a score for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories:
Stability
Healthcare
Culture and environment
Education
Infrastructure
The categories are compiled and weighted to provide an overall rating of 1–100, where 1 is considered intolerable and 100 is considered ideal. Read more about our methodology

Chew on a fat one Sydney :cool:

Edited by 433: 28/8/2013 08:38:00 PM

Chew on a fat one Sydney :cool:

Edited by 433: 28/8/2013 08:38:00 PM

Stability of what? The ground?

Must be why Wellington didn't rate.

No shame in losing to Melbourne.

Adelaide, on the other hand...

There are so many of these survey's that all conflict each other. I seem to remember one year Sydney, Melbourne and I think Auckland all being top 3 lists like this that were published within days/weeks of each other.

Stockholm riots might of had something to do with it.

In the last 6 months we've had active protests from anti-abortionists, homosexuals, environmentalists and taxi drivers.

It's no race-riots but there's clearly civil unrest.

Nothing on the scale of what happened there.

At least their public transport is on time :lol:

At least their public transport is on time :lol: