Melbourne Remains World's Most Liveable City

[StevieF8]

Melbourne has topped 140 rivals to be crowned the most liveable city in the world.

 

For the second year in a row, Melbourne has been ranked as the best place to live in the Global Liveability Survey, taking into account healthcare, education, infrastructure, culture and crime.

 

Adelaide climbed the rankings to fifth place, outperforming Sydney and Perth.

 

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle says it is great news for Melbourne.

"Overall it is a remarkable testament to our remarkable city and I think we should be very proud of that," he said.

"Too often, even in our own wonderful city, it's a bit easy to find the things that we think have gone wrong.

"What this tells us is that on a world scale, that there isn't a more liveable city and I think that's a great outcome for our city."

 

Cr Doyle says the survey adds to Melbourne's marketing potential.

"It's something that has a direct spin-off, not just for our hospitality and tourism but for international students," he said.

"People look for destinations, and it's a very competitive world for those international students, so there are all sorts of ways that we can weave this into the remarkable narrative about Melbourne, when we go overseas or when we are locally beating the drum for our city."

 

Brisbane was number 20

 

 

[h=4]The world's top 10 most liveable cities:

 

1. Melbourne

2. Vienna, Austria

3. Vancouver, Canada

4. Toronto, Canada

5. Calgary, Canada

5. Adelaide

7. Sydney

8. Helsinki, Finland

9. Perth

10. Auckland, New Zealand[/h]55. London

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-14/melbourne-remains-worlds-most-liveable-city/4198294?section=sa

[Lambethlad]

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/melbourne-named-worlds-most-livable-city/story-e6frf7kf-1226450114864

 

Melbourne has come out on top of the EIU survey again. Dhaka in Bangladesh was the worst.

[Afro Developer]

The only way I can see Melbourne being the worlds most liveable city is if you've got a thing for ugly buildings and crap weather. Personally, I can't wait to get out of the worlds most "liveable" city.

[Harpodom]

The only way I can see Melbourne being the worlds most liveable city is if you've got a thing for ugly buildings and crap weather. Personally, I can't wait to get out of the worlds most "liveable" city.

Where you going to afro?

[blobby1000]

What a load of crap. Its probably because the police failed to report "50% of the violent crime against the person" in the last 12 months.

 

Melbourne Smells (have you not been paying attention?)

[Freckleface]

I don't live in Melb but I spend a couple of days there most weeks and I really like it.

[Harpodom]

Its a lovely city to visit for sure, I love going there on the train either for a lads night out or a family day out.

 

But living there? No thanks. Been there, done that.

[pablo]

I think these surveys are ok for a rough guide to things,but would anyone base where they migrated to on them?

I know Vancouver is always up there on these surveys because B.C and Canada was my original choice of where to migrate,but halfwit me didnt think brickies could get in,found out halfway thru the Aus process they could(typical me:wacko:),too late and costly then to change tho.

Anyway,these surveys.....other surveys will probs award it to other cities as well no doubt,so for me i dont take much notice tbh,i counted melb out simply because it was too big and the climate didnt "seem" what i wanted,Adelaides in 5th anyway,and thats close to where we want to go...

[flag of convenience]

It's getting a little ridiculous year after year the same survey placing Melbourne or Vancouver as the number one world city as to make it meaningless. Calgary at number 5 and Perth number 9....please let's get real...do those doing the judging actually travel?

Only two non Anglo cities in the top 10. Helsinki....come on anyone ben there? Nice enough but a little dull and very expensive. Thought the result was compiled for American business executives? With the US$ being what it is Australian cities are hardly value for Americans.

 

There's another thread already on this today....

[flag of convenience]

I don't live in Melb but I spend a couple of days there most weeks and I really like it.

 

I've never spent more than a few weeks at any onetime there and agree with you do like it. But to declare it number one most livable city in the world is fantastical to say the least.

[pablo]

Its a lovely city to visit for sure, I love going there on the train either for a lads night out or a family day out.

 

But living there? No thanks. Been there, done that.

 

How come yer didnt like it h,just curious thats all,i "assumed" Geelong was a burb of Melb tbh,not intending to move there i never checked,i take it Geelong is a town in its own right then...

[Harpodom]

How come yer didnt like it h,just curious thats all,i "assumed" Geelong was a burb of Melb tbh,not intending to move there i never checked,i take it Geelong is a town in its own right then...

Wash your mouth out!

 

Geelong is very much a distinct entity mate, 70k from Smellbum. Personally I think its a much better place to live, particularly for young families. Much more compact. Much less up its own arse.

 

No one has mentioned the pretentiousness of Melburnians, you dont get any of that in Geelong.

[Rugby Lad]

It's getting a little ridiculous year after year the same survey placing Melbourne or Vancouver as the number one world city as to make it meaningless. Calgary at number 5 and Perth number 9....please let's get real...do those doing the judging actually travel?

Only two non Anglo cities in the top 10. Helsinki....come on anyone ben there? Nice enough but a little dull and very expensive. Thought the result was compiled for American business executives? With the US$ being what it is Australian cities are hardly value for Americans.There's another thread already on this today....

 

 

I really don't know how they compile these surveys but they seem massively biased to the anglosphere and to boring places. I mean have you been to Vancouver? or Vienna? or Adelaide (any city that has 1.2m inhabitants and is approx 140km from N to S yet describes itself as a quiet, country town is doing something wrong in my book)?

 

I think places like London, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Paris which are truly world cities are too divisive (love 'em or hate 'em) and so people go for middling, compromise, nice enough to vote for, boring enough not to hate places like ..................... Melbourne etc.

 

Also what about cities like Madrid, Istanbul, Buenos Aries, Milan, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Florence, Bangkok, Barcelona, Berlin, Cape Town, Reijkevic, Hong Kong, Prague, Mumbai, Krakow, Rome etc. etc? Far more culture, history and "life / vibe" than any Canadian or Australian city?.

[Surf N Turf]

I live here and love it but I wish they'd shut up about how great it is. It's a city expanding at too rapid a rate already and the quality of life is taking a dive accordingly.

 

Let's big up....er.....Geelong! Yes, that lovely backwater that is a paradise known to so few. Including many who have visited.

[flag of convenience]

I really don't know how they compile these surveys but they seem massively biased to the anglosphere and to boring places. I mean have you been to Vancouver? or Vienna? or Adelaide (any city that has 1.2m inhabitants and is approx 140km from N to S yet describes itself as a quiet, country town is doing something wrong in my book)?

 

I think places like London, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Paris which are truly world cities are too divisive (love 'em or hate 'em) and so people go for middling, compromise, nice enough to vote for, boring enough not to hate places like ..................... Melbourne etc.

 

Also what about cities like Madrid, Istanbul, Buenos Aries, Milan, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Florence, Bangkok, Barcelona, Berlin, Cape Town, Reijkevic, Hong Kong, Prague, Mumbai, Krakow, Rome etc. etc? Far more culture, history and "life / vibe" than any Canadian or Australian city?.

 

I understand why London or Paris are not chosen that love them both and have lived and worked in both and I would prefer those type of cities ....but for second tier cities there are so many that fit the bill way ahead of what was chosen. I mean how can Helsinki be considered better than beautiful Stockholm or Bergen or Berne? Melbourne is not even particularly attractive ..Berlin has far more urban grit, individualism and quirkyness ...CapeTown one of my favourite cities has the geographic location to leave Melbourne in the dust.....as for bull humping rodeo loving Calgary....really. What about beautiful third tier cities like Hamburg, Toulouse, Geneva, Edingburgh,.....? Never been to South America but can imagine BA, Rio, etc etc....dullness does seem a common theme in a lot of the cities chosed though.

[Guest guest17301]

Capetown? Why do you think so many SA move to Australia?? Its not particularly liveable. Australian cities are...its not necessarily about the beauty/quirkiness/individuality...its about the achievability of a safe® more pleasant, easier life in terms of access to amenties and infrastructure that 'people' value

[northshorepom]

The rough methodology is here:

http://www.eiu.com/site_info.asp?info_name=The_Global_Liveability_Report_Methodology&page=noads

 

You can't access the full methodology or scoring breakdown though, or see any detail of where some of the other cities mentioned above come in.....for that, you have to cough up a few K $. Funny that

:wink:

 

If you look at the above it's not hard to see why the cities that come high are where they are - bear in mind that it is a "measure" (inverted commas intended as it's pretty subjective) of negative factors rather than positive ones, if that makes sense - so it looks like a city scores a neutral score if it has good healthcare and education provision, access to cultural events, and scores down if it doesn't have these things. Most of the factors look like they will have a binary response - eg, does censorship exist, yes/no? - in which case most 1st world free democracies are going to score "high" and they'll only fluctuate with alterations in things like the crime rate. Places in "big" countries are always going to get marked down in the stability section because the risk of terror attack or civil unrest is always going to be higher.

 

Originally the measure was intended as a way of weighing up cities that were unliveable rather than liveable (if you delve into the history of it) - in order to suggest to global companies what sort of weighting they should be putting in peoples' pay when they second them to a dump. So I suspect the ranking of cities at the bottom will tell you more than those at the top, if you see what I mean

 

I'm sure Melbourne's lovely though

:biggrin:

[Perthbum]

Good article.

 

 

HOW to measure the immeasurable? Trying to rank the world's best cities is like trying to quantify the finest mother on mother's day—most of us have a biased interest. Even the most wordly cosmocrats place different emphasis on different features of a city.

For years, this newspaper's sibling, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), has rated the world's top cities in a livability survey. This considers 30 indicators of varying weights in five broad areas, including social stability, infrastructure, education and culture. As an innovative experiment to improve the index, the EIU partnered with BuzzData, a firm that lets users share information, to run a contest encouraging people build upon the ranking.

The winning method looked at seven new indicators related to "spatial" qualities (available here). These included the amount of green space and urban sprawl, as well as pollution, isolation and even cultural assets. The good news is that these features are probably important ones when judging a city. The bad news is that they may not have been applied in quite the right way, since the resulting list (below) comes up with a few oddities.

[TABLE]

[TR]

[TD]Major citiies

[/TD]

[TD]Spatial Adjusted Liveability Index

[/TD]

[TD]EIU Liveability index (major cities only)

[/TD]

[TD]Change in rank (excl. smaller cities)

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Hong Kong

[/TD]

[TD]1

[/TD]

[TD]10

[/TD]

[TD]9

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Amsterdam

[/TD]

[TD]2

[/TD]

[TD]8

[/TD]

[TD]6

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Osaka

[/TD]

[TD]3

[/TD]

[TD]3

[/TD]

[TD]0

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Paris

[/TD]

[TD]4

[/TD]

[TD]5

[/TD]

[TD]1

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Sydney

[/TD]

[TD]5

[/TD]

[TD]2

[/TD]

[TD]-3

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Stockholm

[/TD]

[TD]6

[/TD]

[TD]4

[/TD]

[TD]-2

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Berlin

[/TD]

[TD]7

[/TD]

[TD]7

[/TD]

[TD]0

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Toronto

[/TD]

[TD]8

[/TD]

[TD]1

[/TD]

[TD]-7

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Munich

[/TD]

[TD]9

[/TD]

[TD]9

[/TD]

[TD]0

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Tokyo

[/TD]

[TD]10

[/TD]

[TD]6

[/TD]

[TD]-4

[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

Consider the top-rated city, Hong Kong. It moved up nine notches from tenth. Does it deserve the crown based on its spatial features? To be sure, it has lush vegetation. But that is because the city sits on such a vertical, tropical rock that it is impossible to build in many places. And although hiking trails at the peak are only a ten minute cab ride from downtown, one can only enjoy it a few months of the year, after the monsoon runs dry and the suffocating humidity and heat burns away. Meanwhile, Hong Kong is losing expats by the droves because of pollution: a generation of school children are condemned to carrying asthma inhalers since their little lungs are speckled with contaminants blowing across the harbour from mainland China. That might not sound so livable to some, particularly if the rankings are "spatially adjusted".

Next, look at Osaka (at third place) versus Tokyo (at number ten). Even the EIU's ranking places both Japanese cities in this order. Yet might it suggest a limitation to the data-driven approach? After all, anyone who has lived in Japan—other than Osaka natives—would prefer the glamorous world capital to the industrial provincial city that is falling on hard economic times. Moreover, the EIU index was originally designed for human resource managers to adjust salaries in tune with the ease with which expats could live abroad. Tokyo teems with English speakers and signs in Chinese; Osaka is as insularly Japanese as always.

A third shortcoming is that the spatially adjusted ranking doesn't include many of the top cities of the EIU's index since they were below the population cut-off that the contest winner, Filippo Lovato, used in his sample. This is a particular pity, since it would have been very interesting to see how the rankings directly compare—a point made by Gulliver in a post today.

The new indicators themselves are clever but perhaps overly laden with values that do not lend themselves to quantifiable comparisons. What "sprawl" means in Memphis (a grimy over-extension of the city) is different than Tokyo (an orderly expansion of the world's biggest metropolis). And is "isolation" a feature or a drawback when the world is connected by networks of wires and airplanes? In Mr Lovato's indicators it is a negative; to residents of cities like Seattle and Vancouver, it is probably a benefit.

That said, the EIU report acknowledges that everyone will grumble over the rankings: we all have our favourite places based on individual criteria. Some of the runner-ups created interactive rankings that let people weigh their preferences, which seems like a useful feature. In the end, the EIU's decision to adopt an "open data" philosophy, to partner with BuzzData and to experiment with a crowdsourced method to improve the ranking was an excellent one. Congratulations to Mr Lovato and a hat-tip to the judges: David Eaves, an open-government expert; Nathan Yau of Flowing Data; Hilary Mason at bit.ly; and the EIU's Jon Copestake and Charles Barber.

 

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[northshorepom]

dullness does seem a common theme in a lot of the cities chosed though.

 

See the methodology posted above. If it has access to health, transport, culture, education then anywhere will get a par score. Safe = liveable in the terms of the survey

 

It doesn't make somewhere the "best" place to live - but that's a subjective matter anyway. Some people like dull. I rather like Helsinki, but I wouldn't want to live there

:-)

[Guest guest17301]

Does dull equal safe?

[northshorepom]

Not necessarily. Edgy is rarely dull, but again it doesn't mean you'd want to live there. I've had a ball in Moscow in my time, but I wouldn't live there in a million years

[bunbury61]

Melbourne has topped 140 rivals to be crowned the most liveable city in the world.

 

For the second year in a row, Melbourne has been ranked as the best place to live in the Global Liveability Survey, taking into account healthcare, education, infrastructure, culture and crime.

 

Adelaide climbed the rankings to fifth place, outperforming Sydney and Perth.

 

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle says it is great news for Melbourne.

"Overall it is a remarkable testament to our remarkable city and I think we should be very proud of that," he said.

"Too often, even in our own wonderful city, it's a bit easy to find the things that we think have gone wrong.

"What this tells us is that on a world scale, that there isn't a more liveable city and I think that's a great outcome for our city."

 

Cr Doyle says the survey adds to Melbourne's marketing potential.

"It's something that has a direct spin-off, not just for our hospitality and tourism but for international students," he said.

"People look for destinations, and it's a very competitive world for those international students, so there are all sorts of ways that we can weave this into the remarkable narrative about Melbourne, when we go overseas or when we are locally beating the drum for our city."

 

Brisbane was number 20

 

 

The world's top 10 most liveable cities:

 

1. Melbourne

2. Vienna, Austria

3. Vancouver, Canada

4. Toronto, Canada

5. Calgary, Canada

5. Adelaide

7. Sydney

8. Helsinki, Finland

9. Perth

10. Auckland, New Zealand

 

55. London

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-14/melbourne-remains-worlds-most-liveable-city/4198294?section=sa

 

shows how opinions differ ..........admittedly i have only visited once .........hated the place

[flag of convenience]

Capetown? Why do you think so many SA move to Australia?? Its not particularly liveable. Australian cities are...its not necessarily about the beauty/quirkiness/individuality...its about the achievability of a safe® more pleasant, easier life in terms of access to amenties and infrastructure that 'people' value

 

I've been to Cape Town a number of times including a spell of living there.When you say Saffies move to Australia that is true though in numbers much less than Kiwis.(similar populations if taking race into account) A number of folk move to CapeTown from other regions of RSA because safety issues amoung other things.

I know folk from CT that tried WA and didn't find it to their liking at all. Far too restrictive. That part of the world has some of the most natural beauty found anywhere in the world,although I've yet to check out Rio as that may well compare.

Some of the suburbs of CapeTown would make Pepperment Grove(WA) look almost ordinary.Most of the crime is in the townships although one does need to be aware of surrondings in some areas more than others.

Jo'Burg of course is another proposition as is sadly to sad Durban where it is rather easy to come to grieve.

[bunbury61]

shows how opinions differ ..........admittedly i have only visited once .........hated the place

 

vienna 2nd ......my a..e .......i was there last year .......its s,ite ...........no swiss or german cities in the top 10 .......no Munich .....no Lucerne ? ....

[Perthbum]

I've been to Cape Town a number of times including a spell of living there.When you say Saffies move to Australia that is true though in numbers much less than Kiwis.(similar populations if taking race into account) A number of folk move to CapeTown from other regions of RSA because safety issues amoung other things.

I know folk from CT that tried WA and didn't find it to their liking at all. Far too restrictive. That part of the world has some of the most natural beauty found anywhere in the world,although I've yet to check out Rio as that may well compare.

Some of the suburbs of CapeTown would make Pepperment Grove(WA) look almost ordinary.Most of the crime is in the townships although one does need to be aware of surrondings in some areas more than others.

Jo'Burg of course is another proposition as is sadly to sad Durban where it is rather easy to come to grieve.

Whats Empangeni in kwa Zulu natal like these days? Worked in Richards bay and the scenery is to die for.