Source: ABC News
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Index carries out Annual Ranking of Cities across the World. The cities are ranked across five categories — infrastructure, stability, education, healthcare and culture and environment. For a record seven years, Melbourne has been topping this ranking as the most liveable city in the world.
However this year Vienna has dislodged the Victorian capital as the most pleasant city to live in. This time a downgraded threat of militant attacks in western Europe, as well as the Austrian capital’s low crime rate, helped nudge Vienna into first place.
The two cities were running neck-and-neck in the annual survey of 140 urban centres for years, and were separated by less than a point.
This time time Vienna scored 99.1 and Melbourne scored 98.4. Vienna scored top spot with an improved security situation and a lower crime rate.
Melbourne scored well in culture and environment, and maximum points in healthcare, education and infrastructure. The survey tends to favour medium-sized cities in wealthy countries with low population density
“Both cities saw an improvement in their score this year. But Vienna’s improvement was a bit more than Melbourne’s so it just sneaked over the top to become number one,” The Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Simon Baptist told ABC Radio Melbourne.
Most liveable cities in the world as per this particular ranking are
• Vienna, Austria
• Melbourne, Australia
• Osaka, Japan
• Calgary, Canada
• Sydney, Australia
As per the rating Australian cities were ranked as :
• 1. Melbourne
• 5. Sydney
• 10. Adelaide
• 14. Perth
• 22. Brisbane
Vienna and Melbourne scored maximum points in the healthcare, education and infrastructure categories. Melbourne extended its lead in the culture and environment component, but that was outweighed by Vienna’s improved stability ranking.
Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp said even though Melbourne lost the top spot, the city had its best score in eight years. Last year Melbourne had scored 97.5.
“We’re a competitive bunch and I know that we’re all going to be working hard to make our way back up to number one in the future,” she said. While law and order has dominated headlines and political debate in Melbourne, Mr Baptist said the city’s security ranking had not changed.
“Melbourne does have a worse ranking for crime than Vienna does, but Melbourne has the same ranking it had last year — it’s just that Vienna’s crime has gone down.
“It’s worth noting that the top 30 or so cities in this index all ranked very, very high.”
Singapore, for example, is rated at number 31 but has a score of 91 our of 100 in security, Mr Baptist said.
Billie Giles-Corti, from RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research, said most Australian cities were very liveable, but it was important for Melbourne to take some lessons from the findings.
“You see people riding around in suits in Vienna going to their meetings on a bike. And it’s safe cycling,” she said.
“You see medium-density housing, really high quality medium-density housing throughout the city, which makes it more intense but high quality living.”
Osaka, which did not make last year’s top 10, is now just 0.7 of a percentage point behind Melbourne.
Damascus, Dhaka named least liveable
The EIU says it survey tends to favour medium-sized cities in wealthy countries, often with relatively low population densities.
Much larger and more crowded cities tend to have higher crime rates and more strained infrastructure, it said.
London, for instance, ranks 48th.
At the other end of the table, Damascus retained last place, followed by the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, and Lagos in Nigeria.
The survey does not include several of the world’s most dangerous capitals, such as Baghdad and Kabul.
Vienna, once the capital of a large empire rather than today’s small alpine republic, has yet to match its pre-World War I population of 2.1 million.
Its many green spaces include lakes with popular beaches and vineyards with sweeping views of the capital.
Public transport is cheap and efficient.
In addition to the generally improved security outlook for western Europe, Vienna benefited from its low crime rate, the survey’s editor Roxana Slavcheva said.
“One of the sub-categories that Vienna does really well in is the prevalence of petty crime … It’s proven to be one of the safest cities in Europe,” she said.
What the Economist says:
“Although both Melbourne and Vienna have registered improvements in liveability over the last six months, increases in Vienna’s ratings, particularly in the stability category, have been enough for the city to overtake Melbourne.
“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.”
“It may be argued that violent crime is on an upward trend in the top tier of cities, but these observations are not always correct. 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.”
“Two other Australian cities feature in the top-ranked places: Sydney (5th) and Adelaide (10th), while only one other European city made the top ten. This is Copenhagen in Denmark, in 9th place.”
“Osaka stands out especially, having climbed six positions, to third place, over the past six months, closing the gap with Melbourne. Osaka’s improvements in scores for quality and availability of public transportation, as well as a consistent decline in crime rates, have contributed to higher ratings in the infrastructure and stability categories respectively.
