Best Cities: Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto figure in top 10 most liveable cities list

If they say Canada is the best country to live in, there are reasons for it. The Economist, one of the top news magazines of the world, has come out with its latest liveability index encompassing all five continents. And the index, by a sister company of the Economist, not only lists top 10 liveable cities but also 10 least liveable cities.

The good news for Canadians is that three of their cities – Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto – figure in the top 10 most liveable cities. The list is topped by Vienna of Austria. Copenhagen of Denmark is at number 2.

Interestingly,  Vancouver and Calgary  have climbed up the ladder ahead of Toronto on the most liveable cities list.

London (UK) and New York (USA), too, have gone down in their ranking. India’s New Delhi, and China’s Beijing, occupy much lower ranking then London and New York.

The Economist report says that “Living conditions in cities across the world have fully recovered from the deterioration caused by the covid-19 pandemic,” eiu’s latest liveability index   shows. “It rates living conditions in 173 cities across five categories: stability, health care, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Cities in the Asia-Pacific region have rebounded the most. The index also suggests that life in cities is a bit better than at any time in the past 15 years.

Top 10 Most Liveable cities

1. Vienna

2. Copenhagen

3. Melbourne

4. Sydney

5. Vancouver

6. Zurich

7. Calgary

8. Geneva

9. Toronto

10. Osaka

11. Auckland

It further says that “the liveability survey was designed to help companies calculate hardship allowances for staff who were moving to a new—and possibly less tolerable—city. As a by-product, it also provides a snapshot of the most, and least, desirable cities to live in, at least if you are an expat. Vienna, with its excellent mix of stability, culture   and entertainment, and reliable infrastructure, tops the ranking for the fourth time in five years. Copenhagen, a similarly sized city with many of the same characteristics, is second. Melbourne, a fixture at the top of the ranking in the past, comes in third. In all, nine of the top ten cities are small to mid-sized; all ten, and indeed most of the top 50, are in rich countries. Big cities with high levels of crime, congestion and density tend to fare less well. London—down 12 places from a year ago—comes in 46th and New York is down ten spots to 69th.

“Wellington and Auckland have climbed 35 and 25 places compared with a year ago; Hanoi is up 20 and Kuala Lumpur jumped 19 positions. Post-pandemic improvements in education and health-care scores across Asia, Africa and the Middle East were the main reasons for this year’s rise in living standards.

“At the bottom of the table, Damascus has been the least liveable city in the index for more than a decade. Tripoli is one space above, although its score is nearly ten points higher than that of Syria’s war-ravaged capital. Kyiv, despite its efforts to protect itself from the war, also features in the bottom ten. It was excluded from the index in 2022 because Russia invaded Ukraine while the data were being collected. Its infrastructure score of 23.2 out of 100 is the lowest in the index, thanks to Russian bombs.

“Of the five categories covered by eiu’s survey, only the stability score dropped on average in 2023. Stability scores in many eastern European cities, which fell in 2022 because they are close to Ukraine, rose this year. But stability deteriorated elsewhere. Striking workers in Greece, pension protests in France and deadly clashes in Israel and Peru   reduced scores in those countries. Inflation could lead to further falls in stability scores, and thus damage overall liveability scores, in many parts of the world over the next year.

10 Least Liveable cities:

1. Damascus

2. Tripoli

3. Algiers

4. Lagos

5. Karachi

6. Port Moresby

7. Dhaka

8. Harare

9. Kyiv

10. Douala

Prabhjot Singh