A new report was released this week by the Economist Intelligence Unit on the best places to live in the world.
Just as an aside, doesn’t the “Economist Intelligence Unit” sound kinda like some sort of secret service police thing that goes around unearthing conspiracies and bringing economic social science criminals to justice? Because it’s not. It’s just a name the Economist Group gave to a department. As far as I can tell they don’t even carry weapons.
Anyhoo…
Where is the best place to live in the world? Melbourne, apparently.
Toronto ranks number three, right after Vancouver and before Calgary.
Interestingly, six out of the top ten of the best cities to live in are in either Australia or Canada, leaving just four spots for Germany, Finland, Austria, and New Zealand.
The report is released annually since, I think, 2013 and the rankings are based on five main categories which contain subcategories. The main five are: stability, healthcare, culture & environment, education, infrastructure.
Terrorism and the threat thereof has had a big impact on some of the overall rankings.
“Although the top five cities remain unchanged, the past year has seen increasing instability across the world, causing volatility in the scores of many cities. Sydney, for example, has fallen by four places, to move out of the ten most liveable cities, owing to a heightened perceived threat of terrorism.”
Paris has also sharply declined in ranking due to attacks both in the city and surrounding areas.
“Violent acts of terrorism have been reported in many countries, including Turkey, Australia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, France, Belgium and the US. This has been a year undoubtedly marked by terrorism. While not a new phenomenon, its frequency and spread have increased noticeably and become even more prominent in the past year.”
It won’t exactly shock you to learn that the most liveable cities are all in the Western world and the least liveable are mostly in unstable regions like the Middle East and Africa. The worst place to live is Damascus, Syria. So, if you’re fortunate enough to live in one of the better cities, take a moment to be grateful (yes, I’m telling you how to live. Deal with it.)
You can read the full report here. In the meantime here are the top ten best and worst cities to live in the world.
The ten most liveable cities out of 140 ranked by the Economist:
1. Melbourne, Australia
2. Vienna, Austria
3. Vancouver, Canada
4. Toronto, Canada
5. Calgary, Canada
5. Adelaide, Australia (tie)
6. Perth, Australia
7. Auckland, New Zealand
8. Helsinki, Finland
9. Hamburg, Germany
The ten least liveable cities out of 140 ranked by the Economist:
131. Kiev Ukraine
132. Douala Cameroon
133. Harare Zimbabwe
134. Karachi Pakistan
135. Algiers Algeria
136. Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
137. Dhaka, Bangladesh
138. Lagos, Nigeria
139. Tripoli Libya
140. Damascus, Syria