The world’s top 10 best and worst livable cities
Vancouver, Canada.
Canada and Australia have the world's most livable cities, according to an annual ranking.
The Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Livability Ranking placed cities from those two countries in eight out of the top ten spots, with Vienna and Helsinki the only two European metropoles in the top 10.
The analysis of 140 cities looks at factors such as crime, unrest, education, pollution, healthcare and public transportation.
Canadian cities Toronto and Vancouver both received perfect 100-point scores for stability, healthcare and education.
Melbourne and Vienna were given perfect scores for infrastructure. No American city made it in the top 10.
Australian and Canadian cities have dramatically lower homicide rates than American cities, while also having been spared the deep financial crisis that has lowered the rankings of European cities.
Bogota, Colombia has seen the sharpest rise on the list as violence has waned. Cities in Africa have also climbed the list while North African and Middle Eastern cities dropped due to unrest and political turbulence.
“Livability often seems static on a year-to-year basis. But looking at movement over a longer period we can see some significant trends emerging," said Jon Copestake, EIU’s editor of the survey, in a statement.
"While the threat of terror had a defining influence on livability in the last decade, we can clearly see that civil unrest has already had a significant impact on livability in this decade.”
Dhaka, Bangladesh and Damascus bottomed out the ranking due most likely to soaring violence.
Here are the top 10 best and worst out of 140 cities looked at.
Top 10 most livable cities:
1. Melbourne, Australia
2. Vienna, Austria
3. Vancouver, Canada
4. Toronto, Canada
5. Calgary, Canada
5. Adelaide, Australia
7. Sydney, Australia
8. Helsinki, Finland
9. Perth, Australia
10. Auckland, New Zealand
Top 10 least livable cities:
131. Tehran, Iran
132. Douala, Cameroon
133. Tripoli, Libya
134. Karachi, Pakistan
134. Algiers, Algeria
136. Harare, Zimbabwe
137. Lagos, Nigeria
137. Port Moresby, PNG
139. Dhaka, Bangladesh
140. Damascus, Syria
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