Vienna is world’s most liveable city

Vienna has been named the world’s most liveable city by the Economist Intelligent Unit’s (EIU) 2019 Global Liveability Index.

It is the second year running that Austria’s capital has taken top spot. According to the Index, Vienna benefits from abundant green spaces and excellent public services. It is obviously a popular tourist haunt due to its imperial history and renowned classical music scene.

Vienna held off Australian city Melbourne to take top spot. Until last year, Melbourne had been the Index’s long-term number one city.

The EIU’s index ranks 140 cities by five headline criteria. Stability and culture & environment are the two most important categories, weighted equally at 25 per cent of the total. Healthcare and infrastructure are also matched at 20 per cent, with education coming in last with a 10 per cent weighting.

This year, Vienna scored an impressive overall total of 99.1 – 0.7 points ahead of Melbourne.

Sydney was up two places from fifth to third place, although the Index notes it has a way to go before it catches Melbourne.

“Sydney has risen from fifth to third, thanks to an improvement in its culture and environment score, reflecting an increased focus on combating and mitigating the impacts of climate change, as outlined by the city’s ‘Sustainable Sydney 2030’ strategy,” the EIU said. ““With both cities already scoring very highly across all categories, there is only limited potential for Sydney to displace either Melbourne or Vienna at the top of the rankings. No other city in the top ten saw a change to its score.”

Japanese city Osaka was fourth, with three Canadian cities – Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto – taking the next three spots. Denmark’s Copenhagen, Tokyo, Japan and yet another Australian city, Adelaide, rounded up the top ten.

At the other end of the table, Damascus in war-torn Syria remained the worst-ranked city, below Lagos in Nigeria and the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, which swapped places from last year.

Article published 9th September 2019