EU’s Vienna Beats Australia’s Melbourne in 2018 World’s Most Liveable City Ranking
For the first time a city from Europe and the EU, Austria’s capital Vienna, has been ranked first in the Most Liveable City ranking of the Economy Intelligence Unit.
Vienna has prevailed over Melbourne, Australia, in the EIU’s 2018 Global Liveability Index.
The annual global survey of the Economist Intelligence Unit annual global survey ranks a total of 140 cities based on criteria such as political and social stability, crime, education and access to healthcare.
Vienna and Melbourne have been neck and neck in the Most Liveable City ranking, with the Australian city retaining the title for the past seven editions.
The Austrian capital Vienna often tops a larger ranking of cities by quality of life compiled by consulting firm Mercer.
The city’s low crime rate and a reduced risk of terrorist attacks in Western Europe has now helped propel it to the top of the EIU survey as well.
“While in the past couple of years cities in Europe were affected by the spreading perceived threat of terrorism in the region, which caused heightened security measures, the past year has seen a return to normalcy,” the EIU said in a statement about the report published on Tuesday.
“A long-running contender to the title, Vienna has succeeded in displacing Melbourne from the top spot due to increases in the Austrian capital’s stability category ratings,” it said.
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.
Japan’s Osaka, Canada’s Calgary, and Australia’s Sydney completed the top five of the 2018 Most Liveable Cities, according to EIU.
Spots 6 to 10 were left for Vancouver, Canadal; Tokyo, Japan; Toronto, Canada; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Adelaide, Australia.
The EIU says the Global Liveability Index tends to favor medium-sized cities in wealthy countries, with lower population densities, as crowded cities tend to have higher crime rates and more strained infrastructure.
Former capital of the Austrian Empire (Austria – Hungary in 1867 – 1918), Vienna is yet to reach the population figure of 2.1 million it had before World War I.
“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,” said the survey’s editor Roxana Slavcheva.
The 10 Least Liveable Cities in 2018, according to the EIU, are Damascus, Syria; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Lagos, Nigeria; Karachi, Pakistan; Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea; Harare, Zimbabwe; Tripoli, Libya; Douala, Cameroon; Algiers, Algeria; Dakar, Senegal
The survey does not include several of the world’s most dangerous capitals, such as Iraq’s Baghdad and Afghanistan’s Kabul.
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