Vienna has displaced Melbourne as the world’s most liveable city, ending a record seven consecutive years at the head of the survey for the Australian city, according to the results of the Global Liveability Index 2018. The two cities are now separated by 0.7 of a percentage point, with Vienna scoring a near-ideal 99.1 out of 100 and Melbourne scoring 98.4.
Two other Australian cities feature in the top-ranked places: Sydney (fifth) and Adelaide (10th), while only one other European city made the top 10, Copenhagen in Denmark, which ranked ninth.
The rest of the top-ranked cities are split between Japan (Osaka in third place and Tokyo tied for seventh, alongside Toronto) and Canada (Calgary in fourth, and Vancouver and Toronto in sixth and seventh, respectively).
Most of the top-ranked cities showed improvements in stability and safety scores compared with the past year. Whereas in the past, cities in Europe have been affected by the spreading perceived threat of terrorism in the region, which caused heightened security measures, the past six months have seen a return to normalcy.
The only cities that have seen a fall in their stability indicators over the past six months are Abu Dhabi (71st) and Dubai (69th) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Colombo (130th) in Sri Lanka and Warsaw (65th) in Poland. In Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the threat of military conflict has increased owing to the UAE’s recent interventions extending its military reach in Yemen and Somalia. The UAE’s deployment of armed forces in Yemen, as well as political hostility with Iran, continue to pose a threat in the country and the region. Sri Lanka’s declaration of a temporary nationwide state of emergency in March, following clashes between Sinhalese Buddhist and Tamil Muslim communities, impacted Colombo’s civil unrest score. The threat of civil unrest also increased in Warsaw as an estimated 60,000 people joined a nationalist march on the occasion of Poland’s Independence Day in November 2017.
New York (57th), London (48th) and Paris (19th) 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.
Global Liveability Index 2018 consists of 140 cities surveyed by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
To read the full report, click here.
