By Ishaya Ibrahim
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research and analysis outfit of the London based The Economist magazine, has released its latest liveability survey which rated Vienna, the Austria city as the most liveable city in the world.
The liveability report assesses 140 cities around the world that provides the best or worst living conditions.
The cities are assessed on five broad categories: Stability, Healthcare, Culture and Environment, Education, and Infrastructure. Each category is assessed on 100 points.
On the Stability category, the researchers allocate lower points to cities with high petty crime rates, violent crime, threat of terror, threat of military conflict and the threat of civil unrest or conflict.
The Healthcare indicator measures the quality of private and public healthcare facilities, and the availability of over-the-counter drugs.
The Culture & Environment indicator looks at the average weather conditions of a city, the prevalence of corruption, whether there are social or religious restrictions, censorship, availability of sporting facilities, Food and drinks, and consumer goods and services.
For the category on Education, the researchers based their findings on the availability and quality of private and public education.
The Infrastructure looks at the quality of road network in the city, public transportation, availability of good quality housing, quality of energy provision, quality of water provision and quality of telecommunications.
The report says Vienna is the most liveable of the 140 cities surveyed by The EIU, displacing Melbourne which was the best city to live in 2018.
Melbourne, the Australian city, came second this year after being at the top spot for seven consecutive years. Vienna scored 99.1 out of 100 points, while Melbourne scored 98.4 points.
The survey found the war torn Syrian city of Damascus as the most unliveable city in the world with 30.7 points. It finished 140.
Surprisingly, Lagos came next in the ranking of unliveable cities, taking the 139 position out of 140 with 38.5 points.
For Vienna, which is rated as the best city in the world, it got 100 points in all the categories, including Stability, Healthcare, Education and Infrastructure except Culture & Environment. It got 96.3 points on that indicator.
Lagos got 20 points on Stability, 37.5 points on Healthcare, 53.5 points on Culture and Environment, 33.3 points on education and 46.4 points on Infrastructure.
The points represent the standards of each of the categories. Any of the categories with 80 to 100 points means there are few, if any, challenges to living standards in the city. But 50 points and below means that living standards are severely restricted.
