Melbourne Is World's Most Livable City, Damascus The Least

When a city is gets the top ranking in a list of the world's most livable cities for the seventh time in a row, one can hardly not be impressed by its record-breaking performance. We are speaking of Australian city Melbourne here, the capital of the state of Victoria. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Livability Report for 2017, Melbourne received the top honour among the 140 cities surveyed. Melbourne's performance is even more impressive in light of the fact that "over the past six months 35 of the 140 cities surveyed have experienced changes in their ranking position".

Reacting to the news, Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle said in an official release, “We do not take this title for granted, (We will) work constantly to ensure we are protecting and enhancing our liveability for future generations,” adding, “we will use that as part of our branding — never underestimate the importance of marketing that, particularly into our Asian market, into Asia and how important it is.”

Two other Australian cities have made it to the top 10 in the list: Adelaide at the fifth spot, along with Canada's Calgary, and Perth at the seventh spot. Vancouver at the third spot and Toronto at the fourth spot are the other two Canadian cities that have made it to the top 10. Austria's Vienna occupies the second spot in the ranking.

While Syria's Damascus lies at the bottom of the list with its rank of 140, Bangladesh's Dhaka is ranked 137th in the list while Pakistan's Karachi occupies the 134th spot. Lagos (139), Tripoli (138), Port Moresby (136), Algiers (135), Harare (133), Douala (132) and Kiev (131) are the other least livable cities according to the survey.

No Indian city has made it to the top 10 or bottom 10 of the list. Earlier this year, Indian city Hyderabad was ranked 144 in a quality of living survey by Mercer while Pune and Bengaluru occupied 145 and 146 rankings, respectively. The survey had ranked Vienna has the top city to live in.

How does the survey arrive at the livability of a city?

The liveability rating quantifies the challenges that might be presented to an individual's lifestyle in any given location, and allows for direct comparison between locations. Every city is assigned a rating of relative comfort for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Each factor in a city is rated as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable.

Key takeaways from the survey

• The global average liveability score has fallen by 0.8 per cent to 74.8 per cent over the past five years. Weakening stability has been a key factor in driving this decrease. The average global stability score has fallen by two percentage points over the past five years, from 73.4 per cent in 2012 to 71.4 per cent now. According to the report, violent acts of terror across the globe are the prime reason behind this fall. “The ongoing weakening of global stability scores has been made uncomfortably apparent by a number of high-profile incidents that have shown no signs of slowing in recent years ... While not a new phenomenon, the frequency and spread of terrorism have increased noticeably and become even more prominent,” the summary report says.

• However, there has been a higher incidence of positive index movements. Of the 17 cities with an index movement since last year, 12 have seen an improvement in their score, “reflecting positive developments in other categories, despite heightened threats of terrorism or unrest with which cities around the world continue to grapple”.

• Although the most liveable cities in the world remain largely unchanged, there has been movement within the top tier of livability. Of the 65 cities with scores of 80 or more, six have seen a change in score in the past 12 months.

• While most cities in the top tier have registered an improvement in their scores, two of them, Manchester in the UK and Stockholm in Sweden, have seen their scores decline as a result of recent, high-profile terrorist attacks.

• Over the past few years several US cities have registered declines in their scores.

• Although crime rates are perceived as rising in Australia and Europe, cities in these regions continue to boast lower violent and petty crime rates than the rest of the world.

• Global business centres tend to be victims of their own success, says the survey. “The “big city buzz” that they enjoy can overstretch infrastructure and cause higher crime rates. New York, London, Paris and Tokyo are all prestigious hubs with a wealth of recreational activities, but all suffer from higher levels of crime, congestion and public transport problems than are deemed comfortable,” it says.