How the rating works
The concept of liveability is simple: it assesses which locations around the world provide the best or the worst living conditions. Assessing liveability has a broad range of uses, from benchmarking perceptions of development levels to assigning a hardship allowance as part of expatriate relocation packages. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s liveability rating quantifies the challenges that might be presented to an individual's lifestyle in any given location, and allows for direct comparison between locations.
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 each 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.
Here is the top 5 out of 140 in the world!
1) Living in Vancouver in Canada
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, the best city to live in in 2011 for quality of life is Vancouver on Canada’s western coast. It topped the charts in 2008, 2009 and now it’s topped the 2010 index which indicates where we all should be living in this current year.
2) Living in Melbourne in Australia
The top ranking Australian city for yet another year is Melbourne, it managed to beat Vienna to second place this year however, whereas last year the two cities’ final positioning in the index were reversed.
3) Living in Vienna in Austria
Having lived in Vienna I am always surprised to see it ranking so well in these indices – however, on paper the city does indeed have a lot going for it. Culturally it has unrivalled international offerings of course, and as we all know, education and healthcare standards in Austria are very high – so of course Vienna scores well there. However, as an expat destination it is cold and unfriendly.
4) Living in Toronto in Canada
There is a strong rivalry between Vancouver and Toronto on many levels, and the fact that Toronto falls a few places behind its rival will only add fuel to this ongoing fire! However, Toronto should be proud of its fourth place in the Economist Intelligence Unit index.
5) Living in Calgary in Canada
The final ‘winning’ entrant in the top five most liveable cities in the world according to the latest Economist Intelligence Unit index is Calgary – also in Canada! And it has strengthened its position as an attractive place to live since the last index where it was forced to sit in joint fifth position with Perth.
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