EXCLUSIVE: By Andrew Batt
Bangkok remains just outside the top 100 Most Livable Cities according to this year’s annual survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
The Thai capital was listed in 101st place alongside Almaty in Kazakhstan and Amman in Jordan, and was one place higher than its 2011 ranking. The city scored highly in the education category but low in stability.
Jon Copestake, Editor of the survey, said: "Asia is very much a two tiered region when it comes to liveability. We have hubs like Hong Kong and Singapore with high liveability driven by strong infrastructure, healthcare and stability. On the other hand the region is home to some of the least secure and poorest locations for liveability. In the middle we have countries like China which are seeing economic rapid gains feeding slowly into their liveability scores."
Melbourne retained its title as the world’s most livable city for the second year running while Singapore failed to make it onto the top 50 list. The Austrian city of Vienna was placed second, with the Canadian cities of Vancouver and Toronto taking third and fourth places respectively.
The Japanese city of Osaka is Asia’s most liable city, ranked in 12th place, while Tokyo was placed in 18th position and Hong Kong in 31st slot.
The cities of Abidjan, Tehran, Douala, Tripoli, Karachi, Algiers, Harare, Lagos, Port Moresby and Dhaka were propping up the list, with conflict cited by the report as one of the main reasons for the low rankings.
Andrew Batt, International Group Editor of PropertyGuru, said: "As one of the most trustworthy and independent surveys, the Most Livable Cities report is one that needs to be taken seriously. To those living in the Thai capital its lowly ranking may come as somewhat of a surprise, but for those looking from outside it’s clear there are issues that need to be addressed in order for the city to rise in this particular report."
The liveability report surveys 140 locations around the world to assess the best or the worst living conditions. It originated as a means of testing whether Human Resource Departments needed to assign a hardship allowance as part of expatriate relocation packages. It has since evolved as a broad benchmarking tool used by city councils, organisations or corporate entities looking to test locations against one another.
Cities are scored on political and social stability, crime rates and access to quality health care. It also measures the diversity and standard of cultural events and the natural environment; education (school and university); and the standard of infrastructure, including public transport.
Every city is assigned a rating of relative comfort for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability; healthcare; culture and environment; education; and infrastructure. Each factor in a city is rated as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable. For qualitative indicators, a rating is awarded based on the judgment of in-house analysts and in-city contributors. For quantitative indicators, a rating is calculated based on the relative performance of a number of external data points.
The scores are then compiled and weighted to provide a score of 1–100, where 1 is considered intolerable and 100 is considered ideal. The liveability rating is provided both as an overall score and as a score for each category. To provide points of reference, the score is also given for each category relative to New York and an overall position in the ranking of 140 cities is provided.
A summary of the full report is available at www.eiu.com/liveability2012
The Top 10 Most Livable Cities
1. Melbourne, Australia
2. Vienna, Austria
3. Vancouver, Canada
4. Toronto, Canada
5. Calgary, Canada, and Adelaide, Australia
7. Sydney, Australia
8. Helsinki, Finland
9. Perth, Australia
10. Auckland, New Zealand
Most Livable Cities in Southeast Asia
(with global ranking)
52. Singapore
77. Kuala Lumpur
101. Bangkok
118. Jakarta
120. Hanoi
122. Ho Chi Minh
124. Phnom Penh
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