Posted on 06/25/2023 9:57:42 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Living conditions in cities across the world have fully recovered from the deterioration caused by the covid-19 pandemic, EIU’s latest liveability index shows. It rates living conditions in 173 cities across five categories: stability, health care, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Cities in the Asia-Pacific region have rebounded the most. The index also suggests that life in cities is a bit better than at any time in the past 15 years. Our charts below show which cities topped the ranking.
The liveability survey was designed to help companies calculate hardship allowances for staff who were moving to a new—and possibly less tolerable—city. As a by-product, it also provides a snapshot of the most, and least, desirable cities to live in, at least if you’re an expat. Vienna, with its excellent mix of stability, culture and entertainment, and reliable infrastructure, tops the ranking for the fourth time in five years. Copenhagen, a similarly sized city with many of the same characteristics, is second. Melbourne, a fixture at the top of the ranking in the past, comes in third. In all, nine of the top ten cities are small to mid-sized; all ten, and indeed most of the top 50, are in rich countries. Big cities with high levels of crime, congestion and density tend to fare less well. London—down 12 places from a year ago—comes in 46th and New York is down ten spots to 69th.
Wellington and Auckland have climbed 35 and 25 places compared with a year ago; Hanoi is up 20 and Kuala Lumpur jumped 19 positions. Post-pandemic improvements in education and health-care scores across Asia, Africa and the Middle East were the main reasons for this year’s rise in living standards.
At the bottom of the table, Damascus has been the least liveable city in the index for more than a decade. Tripoli is one space above, although its score is nearly ten points higher than that of Syria’s war-ravaged capital. Kyiv, despite its efforts to protect itself from the war, also features in the bottom ten. It was excluded from the index in 2022 because Russia invaded Ukraine while the data were being collected. Its infrastructure score of 23.2 out of 100 is the lowest in the index, thanks to Russian bombs.
Of the five categories covered by EIU’s survey, only the stability score dropped on average in 2023. Stability scores in many eastern European cities, which fell in 2022 because they are close to Ukraine, rose this year. But stability deteriorated elsewhere. Striking workers in Greece, pension protests in France and deadly clashes in Israel and Peru reduced scores in those countries. Inflation could lead to further falls in stability scores, and thus damage overall liveability scores, in many parts of the world over the next year.
1. Vienna, Austria
2. Copenhagen, Denmark
3. Melbourne, Australia
4. Sydney, Australia
5. Vancouver, Canada
6. Zurich, Switzerland
7. Calgary, Canada
7. Geneva, Switzerland
9. Toronto, Canada
10. Osaka, Japan | Auckland, New Zealand (Tie)
164 Douala, Cameroon
165 Kyiv, Ukraine
166 Harare, Zimbabwe
166 Dhaka, Bangladesh
168 Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
169 Karachi, Pakistan
170 Lagos, Nigeria
171 Algiers, Algeria
172 Tripoli, Libya
173 Damascus, Syria
I was going to guess Wilburton, Ok….. population 2,400….. but it is more like a town instead of a city.
Visited Copenhagen two years ago for the first time in twenty years. Beautiful city, clean, nice people, easy to get around. The downsides: very expensive for dining and drinking, and a long dark winter.
LOL! True! If you've got $10 million, you can make anyplace extremely livable.
Why not just live in Bratislava, since it's only about 45 minutes away, I would think it would be much cheaper.
I really enjoyed the Gdańsk/Sopot area, I was really impressed with Warsaw as well.
Does Bratislava have Sacher Torts?
Prague is great. I spent a couple of months there just before COVID. Reasonably affordable except for housing which is at a premium. Great transport system, lots of good beer, and many cuisines available at good prices.
I haven't been to Poland since 1998 or 1999. It was still pretty poor then, still coming out of the Soviet domination. Bad crime problem back then too with carjackings and burglaries.
What if you have zero interest in living in a city and just want to visit? Unlike Zsa Zsa Gabor, city life ain’t for me
Then which cities are on the list for the best visit?
Poland is nothing like that now. I first went there about 10 years ago, and then last year, and the changes even since then are tremendous.
Don't know, but Vienna is close enough that you can get them there.
Americans will probably consider most cities in the world “unlivable” - in the sense that so many of us like to drive big cars, shoot guns, and have our nearest neighbor’s house be half a mile away. This list just shows that Vienna, Melbourne, etc. offer a superior form of ant colony for those inclined to live under custodial government care. :)
30 years or so ago I made it a challenge to eat a “decent” meal in any one of the euro cities I traveled to for less than $30.... pizza and a coke were just about all you could do. Fish and chips down by the tracks in a local dive could be had as well. Pub grub in the UK was about the best meal you could get.
How could Lagos be anything but LAST PLACE?
No actual war going on there now.
Maybe African optimism counts for something as well.
RE: Then which cities are on the list for the best visit?
Personally, I would recommend the Spanish cities of Barcelona, Sevilla and Valencia. Great culture, art, music, food, and friendly people!
Maybe sarcastic, maybe not.
But they do sound like pretty boring places.
+1, a lady from my office is in Spain as we speak.
I like Málaga a lot, and the Costa del Sol, in general.
“If you want real livability in Europe try Budapest. It was easily my favorite city on that continent and I lived in Budapest twice. I’ve heard Prague is similarly nice.”
I totally agree with you. Been to both, Budapest and Prague. Liked them both. I favor Prague first, as Budapest still has parts of it that were soviet built housing that sucks. Need to be in the Old City part of Budapest, that I loved. Has lots of Art Nouveau architecture surprisingly from the turn of the century.
Prague has the Charles Bridge, and also lovely architecture that wasn’t bombed during WWII. Was in VIenna also, and I loved Vienna. Such history, and not that far from Hungary (the old Austro-Hungarian Empire). In fact I took my boat ride down the Danube in Budapest rather than Vienna. I’d go back to any of these 3 cities in a heartbeat.
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