Important Facts For Prelims
Global Liveability Index: EIU
- 11 Jun 2021
- 3 min read
Why in News
Auckland (New Zealand) has topped the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Global Liveability Index of 140 cities around the world.
Key Points
- About Global Liveability Index:
- The index takes into account more than 30 qualitative and quantitative factors spanning five broad categories: stability (25%), healthcare (20%), culture and environment (25%), education (10%), and infrastructure (20%).
- Due to the pandemic, the EIU added new indicators such as stress on health-care resources as well as restrictions around local sporting events, theatres, music concerts, restaurants and schools.
- Each factor in a city is rated as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable.
- General Scenario:
- Overall, the Covid-19 pandemic caused liveability to decline - as cities experienced lockdowns and significant strains on their healthcare system. This led to an unprecedented level of change in the rankings, with many of the cities that were previously ranked as the most liveable tumbling.
- Austria's Vienna, number one in both 2018 and 2019, has completely dropped out of the top 10 after being heavily affected by Covid-19, and now ranks 12.
- Auckland rose to the top of the ranking owing to its successful approach in containing the Covid-19 pandemic, which allowed its society to remain open and the city to score strongly on a number of metrics including education, culture and environment.
- Damascus remains the world's least liveable city, as the effects of the civil war in Syria continue to take their toll.
- Most of the previous ten least liveable cities remain in the bottom ten this year, including Dhaka (Bangladesh) and Karachi (Pakistan) in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.
- However, there is a strong contingent of cities in the APAC region at the top of the rankings, with Osaka, Adelaide, Tokyo and Wellington rounding out the top five.
- Apart from cities in New Zealand, Australia and Japan, other cities in the Asia-Pacific region such as Taipei (Taiwan) (33rd) and Singapore (34th) have also performed well.
- Overall, the Covid-19 pandemic caused liveability to decline - as cities experienced lockdowns and significant strains on their healthcare system. This led to an unprecedented level of change in the rankings, with many of the cities that were previously ranked as the most liveable tumbling.
- Top 3 Liveable Cities:
- Auckland (New Zealand), Osaka (Japan), Adelaide (Australia).
- Bottom 3 Liveable Cities:
- Damascus (Syria), Lagos (Nigeria), Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea).
