Melbourne: the best city in the world

Photo: Hai Linh Truong

MELBOURNE is the best city in the world to live in, according to The Economist.

The city was given a score of 97.5 per cent in the latest Economic Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Global Liveability Survey, which ranks the liveability of 140 cities around the world.

Previous champion Vancouver slipped down to third place in the ranks, scoring 97.3 per cent.

Other Australian cities that made the Top 10 list included Sydney which ranked sixth, while Perth and Adelaide shared the eighth spot.

According to a report in The Age, EIU survey editor Jon Copestake said Australia continued to “supply some of the world’s most liveable cities” because of its low population density and relatively low crime rates.

The EIU assesses the liveability of a city by assigning it a rating of relative comfort with regards to the city’s stability, culture, environment and infrastructure. Access to healthcare and quality of education is also judged.

To ensure the score covers as many indicators as possible, relevant subcategories such as prevalence of crime, level of censorship and quality of telecommunications and public transport are taken into consideration too. These factors are scored as acceptable to intolerable, and then weighted to produce an overall rating for each city.

A score of 100 means that living conditions in a city are ideal, while 1 means that it is intolerable. Any city with a rating of 80 or more is perceived to have little or no challenges to living standards.

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle told The Age he was “absolutely delighted” that he “can legitimately say that Melbourne is the best city in the world”.

‘‘At times we can be critical of public transport, city safety and rising prices, but the reality is that in world terms we are the [most] liveable city in the world,’’ he said.

Most international students Meld interviewed said they were not surprised.

“Melbourne has awesome transportation, wages, shopping and food,” Jessica Yong said.

But Andy Ng said he personally disagreed.

“Costs are generally quite high and there are not many things to do at night compared to Asian cities,” he said.