Where are the world's most liveable cities?

Toronto ranked fourth most livable city, Vancouver first

Toronto – Sorry Toronto, give the bragging rights to Vancouver.  According to an annual ranking system from The Economist, Vancouver, British Columbia has been ranked the most livable city in the world.  Vancouver edged out Toronto, Ontario by 0.8 points.

The Economist Intelligence Unit released its annual ranking of the most livable cities in the world.  The ranking scores each city on a scale from 0 to 100 and it uses five factors: culture, education, environment, health care, infrastructure and stability.

Last year’s survey suggested that the western Canadian city of Vancouver was the most livable in the world, while the Zimbabwe’s Harare was dead last.  One year later, has anything changed?  Not really.

This year’s rankings show that Vancouver (98.0), Vienna, Austria (97.9); Melbourne, Australia (97.5); Toronto, Ontario (97.2) and Calgary, Alberta (96.6) were the top five most livable cities on Earth.  Harare was, once again, garnered 37.5 percent due to instability, crime and the utter collapse of the country.

"These rankings are used by employers assigning hardship allowances as part of expatriate relocation packages," the report stated.  "So you might be surprised by the position of a city such as Detroit, whose image has been rather battered in recent years. Yet in 40th place, it is considered a more liveable city than both London and New York in 54th and 56th positions."

The bottom cities in the survey included, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea; Lagos, Nigeria; Algiers, Algeria and Karachi, Pakistan.  Harare was listed as "intolerable" to "undesirable" to "uncomfortable" in most of the categories.

"Of the poorer scoring cities, only 11 cities occupy the very bottom tier of liveability, where ratings fall below 50% and most aspects of living are severely restricted," the report added.  "Africa and Asia account for all 11 cities, with violence, whether through crime, civil insurgency, terrorism or war, playing a strong role."

In an interview, U.S. journalist and author, Jonathan Winkler, who now lives in Ottawa, said that he disagrees with these results and doesn’t understand where they get their facts from.  Winkler explains that the cost of living, in Toronto for example, is increasing at a rapid pace and local reports suggest economic hardship is in the future.

“There was a report that came out in autumn,” said Winkler.  “It concluded that two-thirds of the city’s residents are going to earn incomes less than $30,000 and 15 percent are going to be middle-income earners and a only a few percent are going to be affluent.  I mean, how does the Economist make these statistics?”

He concluded by stating that the only part of the ranking system he agrees with is Harare.  “I find it amazing that Harare is continually ranked last in quality of life in most other studies, yet we always turn a blind eye to these African nations.”