Melbourne has been recognised as the world’s most liveable city for the sixth year in succession.
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) prestigious annual Global Liveability Rating, which assesses living conditions in 140 cities worldwide, released its latest ratings earlier this month.
Melbourne once again tops the ranking, followed by Austrian capital Vienna and the Canadian trio of Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary.
Melbourne scored an overall rating of 97.5 (100=ideal), including full marks for education, healthcare and infrastructure.
Since first receiving the top ranking in 2009, Melbourne has maintained its high overall rating across a period in which the world’s average liveability score has fallen, most notably in the areas of stability and safety.
Two more Australian cities – Adelaide (6th) and Perth (7th) also occupy positions in the top ten, while New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, is 8th.
The top ten is rounded off by ninth place Helsinki, the capital of Finland, and German city Hamburg.
However, Sydney has moved out of the top 10 most liveable cities. The harbour city fell four places to 11th, owing to a heightened perceived threat of terrorism.
According to the EIU data, ten cities in Western Europe: Berlin, Oslo, Brussels, Paris, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Zurich, Geneva, Rome and Lisbon, saw declines in liveability, resulting largely from increased fears of terrorism following the terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris.
The bottom of the EIU list is dominated by cities in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Violence, whether through crime, civil insurgency, terrorism or war, plays a strong role in locations in these regions having largely low rankings. Damascus in Syria was ranked the world’s least liveable city. Tripoli in Libya, Lagos in Nigeria, Dhaka in Bangladesh and Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea rounded out the bottom five places.
Article published 30th August 2016