# Vancouver - World's Most Liveable City !!!



## Hed_Kandi (Jan 23, 2006)

LONDON - Vancouver is the world's easiest city to live in while Harare is the toughest, a survey said Monday putting Europe and north America at the top while many African and Asian cities struggle behind.

Canadian and Australian cities hold six of the top 10 slots in the Economist Intelligence Unit's liveability poll, which ranks cities on five factors: health-care, stability, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.

"At the other end of the ranking, most of the poorest-performing locations are in Africa or Asia, where civil instability and poor infrastructure present significant challenges," said the survey's authors.

In ratings ranging from zero (intolerable) to 100 per cent (ideal), Vancouver scores 98 per cent, "benefiting from strong Canadian infrastructure," while Harare languishes on 37.5 "thanks to the unfolding crisis in Zimbabwe."

At the top end of the global easy-living scale, Vienna is in second place followed by Melbourne, Toronto, Perth, Calgary, Helsinki and Geneva, with Sydney and Zurich in joint ninth place.

The Japanese city of Osaka is just outside the top 10 on 13th place, and Tokyo is at joint 19th with Frankfurt.

European cities where life is generally not hard include Stockholm and Hamburg, Germany in 14th place, as well as Paris in 17th spot, Frankfurt in 19th, Copenhagen in 21st and Berlin in 22nd.

"With the exception of high scores in Australasia and some Asian centres, most of the better-scoring locations are based in the more developed regions of western Europe and North America," said the study.

A string of U.S. cities fill the rankings from 30th to 50th position — Washington DC in 35th place, Los Angeles in 48th — followed by another smattering of European conurbations: London is in 51st spot, Rome 52nd while Athens has western Europe's lowest showing in 63rd spot, on 81.2 per cent.

Any city with a score above 80 per cent "will have few, if any, challenges to living standards," said the survey.

Lower down the orders come Moscow in 69th spot, Beijing in 76th, Johannesburg on joint 92nd with Brazil's Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, and Bangkok in 100th place.

The bottom rankings are occupied by a swathe of Asian and African cities: Manila in 108th, New Delhi in joint 114th spot with Cairo, Mumbai in 120th, Nairobi 122nd and Lusaka 126th.

Cities scoring below 50 per cent — which "present daily challenges to living standards" according to the authors — include Tehran in 129th place, Karachi, Pakistan in 135th and Lagos in 136th.

The bottom three are Algiers, Dhaka and Harare — where President Robert Mugabe called Sunday for leaders to "make Africa a continent of opportunity for all its people," as Zimbabwe struggles to emerge from an economic meltdown.

http://www.calgaryherald.com


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## Matchut (May 2, 2008)

I would think that the "most livable cities" are pretty expensive for people actually living there.


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## Fizmo1337 (Mar 26, 2009)

Yes and in another survey Zürich will be first, in another one Copenhaghen and in another one Oslo. 

gg


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## _00_deathscar (Mar 16, 2005)

Fizmo1337 said:


> Yes and in another survey Zürich will be first, in another one Copenhaghen and in another one Oslo.
> 
> gg


You forgot the Aussie craze - Melbourne and Sydney would top other rankings.


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

I think "most liveable" means different things to different people. We all choose the city we find "most liveable" for ourselves and for our personal needs. These rankings don't mean a lot.


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## Plumber73 (Mar 3, 2005)

I'm sure someone out there finds Harare to be the most livable. 

I find these surveys are becoming so Meh.


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

Well, it's more interesting to view these things as rough estimates. Top 20 or bottom 20? There are lessons to be learned in comparing these rather than #1 vs #2.


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## Dancing Banana (Jul 8, 2009)

funny how some threads get closed (cities on the up) and others dont.


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## foadi (Feb 15, 2006)

i wouldnt live there


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## PortoNuts (Apr 26, 2008)

Taller said:


> I think "most liveable" means different things to different people. We all choose the city we find "most liveable" for ourselves and for our personal needs. These rankings don't mean a lot.


Yeah, exactly. This rankings are meaningless because every person would come up with a different ranking.


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## yianni (Sep 27, 2008)

**

i was born and raised there and i am gone 
case closed


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

foadi said:


> i wouldnt live there


Did you really dislike it that much when you were there?


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## Spoolmak (Aug 4, 2007)

Wtf? How many of these do they do a year? This has lost all meaning


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## Vanman (May 19, 2004)

Yeah I agree I'm pretty sick of these surveys. It's almost as if there are new ones every week with varying results. No place on earth can be described as "the most livable". Once a city has the basics down like sanitation, potable water, electricity etc, everything else is totally subjective. No city can be everything to everyone.


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## Jan (Jul 24, 2002)

Great article here that looks at this listings from another perspective.


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## thecarlost (Nov 6, 2005)

Taller said:


> I think "most liveable" means different things to different people. We all choose the city we find "most liveable" for ourselves and for our personal needs. These rankings don't mean a lot.


Sure it doesn't. 

Articles like this begin wrong whenever they start with "The most...". Most businesses oriented publications like, i.e. Forbes, may approach these ranks on a model they stablish based on their readers preferabilities.

Nonetheless, this is something lots of people would feel attracted to read to and hence finishing with a different view from what they thought before reading it.


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## bayviews (Mar 3, 2006)

Plumber73 said:


> I'm sure someone out there finds Harare to be the most livable.
> 
> I find these surveys are becoming so Meh.



Rarely does any mostly black city anywhere seem to make any of those most "livable city" lists. 

Vancouver has few blacks.


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## Skybean (Jun 16, 2004)

foadi said:


> i wouldnt live there


You sure? There are a lot of Asians.


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## Hed_Kandi (Jan 23, 2006)

bayviews said:


> Rarely does any mostly black city anywhere seem to make any of those most "livable city" lists.
> 
> Vancouver has few blacks.


ROFL!!! :lol:


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## *UofT* (Jul 25, 2004)

I was there for 16 months, its an okay city

Yes the air is fresh, mountain view is pristine. 

Overall though I didn't like the city, the weather did it for me. Rains wayyyyy too much, roads are tiny, and real estate is far too expensive for what its worth.

Some smaller towns in the Canadian rockies have an even better view of the rockies, with fresher air and cheaper real estate in my opinion.

Kelowna, Cranbrook are nice.


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