Four Australian cities have been included in a list of the most liveable cities in the world, but Brisbane is nowhere to be seen.
For the sixth year in a row, Melbourne has topped The Economist‘s list of the world’s most liveable cities.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) index rates 140 cities on healthcare, education, stability, culture, environment and infrastructure.
Melbourne scored an impressive 97.5 out of 100, just edging out Austria’s Vienna (97.4).
Adelaide (96.6) and Perth (95.9) also cracked the top 10, while Sydney, which finished seventh last year, just missed out on a top 10 placing, coming in at number 11. The EIU’s report blames Sydney’s slight drop on a “heightened perceived threat of terrorism”.
“This has been a year undoubtedly marked by terrorism,” the report said.
“While not a new phenomenon, its frequency and spread have increased noticeably and become even more prominent in the past year.”
The EIU’s ratings are somewhat questionable — Melbourne’s liveability score hasn’t changed since 2011, and it relies on some old data, including a crime rate statistic from 2013/14 (despite a 10 percent rise in crime in the city since then).
Brisbane didn’t rate a mention in the report, but at least that’s preferable to being named one of the world’s least liveable cities. The Syrian city of Damascus, currently in the middle of a civil war, ‘topped’ that list.
The world’s most liveable cities, according to The Economist
- Melbourne, Australia (97.5)
- Vienna, Austria (97.4)
- Vancouver, Canada (97.3)
- Toronto, Canada (97.2)
- Calgary, Canada (96.6)
- Adelaide, Australia (96.6)
- Perth, Australia (95.9)
- Auckland, New Zealand (95.7)
- Helsinki, Finland (95.6)
- Hamburg, Germany (95.0)
- Sydney (94.9)
The world’s least liveable cities, according to The Economist
- Damascus, Syria (30.2)
- Tripoli, Libya (35.9)
- Lagos, Nigeria (36.0)
- Dhaka, Bangladesh (38.7)
- Port Moresby, PNG (38.9)
- Algiers, Algeria (40.9)
- Karachi, Pakistan (40.9)
- Harare, Zimbabwe (42.6)
- Douala, Cameroon (44.0)
- Kiev, Ukraine (44.1)
Do you think Brisbane should have made the list? Which city would you take off the list to make room? Have your say in the comments below!
The city livability index is conducted by Mercers and published in the Economist. It is intended for international corporations when deciding how much risk, and therefore cost, there is in sending their executives to work in a particular part of the world.
Melbourne comes up trumphs every year because if you are an executive living in a mansion in Brighton or Kew and sending your kids to an elite private school, it is actually more affordable for your company than sending you to Lagos, where you would need to be housed in a compound and have 24/7 security.
One the other hand, if you are a homeless person, living on the streets, Melbourne really sucks, as it is freezing cold for half of the year. I’d rather be homeless on the Gold Coast quite frankly. Furthermore, if you are on a low income in Melbourne, you are immediately locked out of the housing market in the inner city and need to spend your life driving or commuting from outer suburbs, such as Werribee or Dandenong. This is why the state government spends so much on roads and trains in and around Melbourne.
Victoria is also a much smaller, centralised state than Queensland and as most people live in Melbourne, most of the public funding can be spent in Melbourne on roads, public transport, schools and hospitals. Queensland is very decentralised and regional (half the population lives outside of Bisbane), so state and federal funds must be spent across a vast area. Also Queensland suffers from natural disasters like cyclones and floods, so money must be spent replacing washed out highways in regional areas rather than in Brisbane.
Brisbane is a city with the lowest tolerance. Some people are extremely rude and racist. Rednecked Queenslanders with their desired federal representatives Pauline Hanson, George Brandis, Peter Dutton and things, all these retarded small-hearted mean persons are not deserved to put their capital city on the list. They are the shame of Australia. How could Brisbane be one of the top livable city in the world?
Larry – Truly spoken like a person who has never actually lived in Brisbane. I find it somewhat ironic that you should describe Brisbane folk as bigots and rednecks, and then immediately use the politically incorrect phrase ‘retarded’. Is this actually just aggression displacement for 10 years of State of Origin failure? Just spitballing…