Melbourne Dethrones Vancouver as World’s Most Liveable City

By: EW News Desk Team   Date: 31 August 2011

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EW News Desk Team

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31 August 2011

Melbourne is now the world's most liveable city, according to the 2011 Economist Intelligence Unit Global Liveability Report.

The Australian city usurped Canada’s Vancouver for the top spot in the rankings this year, after Vancouver had previously occupied or shared the top spot for nearly a decade. To add insult to injury, Vancouver's score was also not good enough for the runner-up slot, which went to the Austrian city of Vienna.

Australian cities dominated the ranking this year, with 4 cities including Melbourne ranked among the top ten. These cities were Sydney (6th), Perth and Adelaide (joint-8th).

"Australia, with a low population density and relatively low crime rates, continues to supply some of the world's most liveable cities," said Jon Copestake, editor for the EIU survey, as quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald.

EconomyWatch.com also previously reported back in June this year that Australia might quite possibly be the future best country in the world to live in.

Related: Australia: The (Future) Best Country In The World?

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) gave Melbourne perfect scores for its healthcare, education and infrastructure. However, liveability need not necessarily mean cheaper costs of living as the city was also ranked as the 7th most expensive city in the world in another recent EIU report.

The EIU’s Global Liveability Report takes into account five broad categories – stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure – before assigning scores for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors in the categories. The categories are compiled and weighted to provide an overall rating of 1–100, where 1 is considered intolerable and 100 is considered ideal. Melbourne overall rating score was 97.5, above Vienna’s 97.4 and Vancouver’s 97.3

Unsurprisingly, ratings for European cities fell in the wake of the eurozone debt crisis. Greece’s capital of Athens for instance dropped from 62nd to 67th place. Its new ranking places it just below Uruguay’s capital city Montevideo. 

At the other end of the spectrum, Harare in Zimbabwe was given the lowest score among the 140 cities surveyed. Its score of 38.2 came in just behind Bangladesh’s Dhaka and Papua New Guinea’s Port Moresby.

Read EIU's full Global Liveability Report


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