Melbourne Named World's Most Liveable City for Fifth Consecutive Year

Melbourne has topped The Economist's liveability rankings for a fifth consecutive year.

 

While 20 per cent of the cities surveyed by the magazine's Intelligence Unit experienced declines in liveability over the past year, Australian cities were found to be "a relative picture of stability".

 

None of the five Australian cities saw their ranks change in this year's report, with Melbourne ranked the most liveable, Adelaide fifth, Sydney seventh, Perth eighth and Brisbane 18th.

 

The world's five most liveable cities were Melbourne, Vienna, Vancouver, Toronto, Adelaide and Calgary.

 

The editor of the survey, Jon Copestake, said while Melbourne remained top for a fifth year, the "hostage siege in Sydney late last year has put Australia on a high terror alert, which could affect future scores" for Australian cities.

 

The rankings are the result of scores for "lifestyle challenges" in 140 cities worldwide, and issues such as housing affordability are not considered.

 

The report is used by some multinational companies to decide on relative pay for employees when they move cities for work. The report recommends a percentage amount employees should get on top of their salary for moving to a city with a poor liveability rating.

 

Each of the 140 cities chosen is assigned a rating of "relative comfort" for 30 factors across five categories: stability, healthcare, culture along with the environment, education and infrastructure.

Each factor in a city is then rated as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable, to reach a score out of 100.

 

Committee for Melbourne chief Kate Roffey said there were always questions about rankings, "and in particular how and what they measure, but there is no doubt The Economist Intelligence Unit ranking … is a significant achievement".

 

She said while Melbourne ranked well in both The Economist survey and a recent ranking by Monocle magazine - in which the city was in the top five - Melbourne still had much to do regarding "city-shaping infrastructure projects, maximising access to jobs ... and making sure we remain a liveable city for everyone by providing more affordable housing".

 

 

 

 

Four C Realty

Caroline He