TOP TEN LIVEABLE CITIES

World's Most Liveable Cities

The Economist's World's Most Liveable Cities 2011 (Top 10)[7]
	City	Country	Rating
1	Melbourne	Australia	97.5
2	Vienna	Austria	97.4
3	Vancouver	Canada	97.3
4	Toronto	Canada	97.2
5	Calgary	Canada	96.6
6	Sydney	Australia	96.1
7	Helsinki	Finland	96.0
8	Perth	Australia	95.9
9	Adelaide	Australia	95.9
10	Auckland	New Zealand	95.7

The city of Melbourne in Australia was ranked as the world's most livable city in 2011^[8]

The Economist Intelligence Unit's livability also uses data from the Mercer consulting group and shows cities in Canada, Australia, Austria, Finland and New Zealand as the ideal destinations thanks to a widespread availability of goods and services, low personal risk and an effective infrastructure. It does not take into account the cost of living as a factor in 'livability'. The Economist Intelligence Unit has been criticized by the New York Times for being overly anglocentric, stating that "The Economist clearly equates livability with speaking English."^[9]
The August 2011 report placed Melbourne, Australia as the most livable city in the world, with Vienna, Austria taking second place followed by Vancouver, Canada. ^[10]
Other Canadian cities also ranked highly in the survey, with Toronto and Calgary holding the 4th and 5th positions respectively. Three other Australian cities (Sydney at 6th and Perth and Adelaide tied at 8th) claimed positions in the top ten.
Harare, Zimbabwe was rated the worst city in the world to call home. African and South Asian cities were generally the worst performing in the EIU's rankings.
Honolulu at 26th tops American cities in the list just ahead of Pittsburgh, ranked 29th, and Los Angeles (which rose to) 44th and New York (which held onto) 56th place.
London moved up one place to 53rd while Paris came in at number 16.
The top Asian city was the Japanese city of Osaka at number 12, tying with Geneva, and beating the Japanese capital of Tokyo, which was placed 18th.^[11]

[edit] Quality of living survey

Mercer 2010 Quality of Living Survey[12]
	City	Country	Rating
1	Vienna	Austria	108.6
2	Zurich	Switzerland	108
3	Geneva	Switzerland	107.9
4	Auckland	New Zealand	107.4
	Vancouver	Canada	107.4
6	Düsseldorf	Germany	107.2
7	Frankfurt	Germany	107
	Munich	Germany	107
9	Bern	Switzerland	106.5
10	Sydney	Australia	106.3

Vienna, Austria

The Mercer Quality of Living Survey is released annually, comparing 221 cities based on 39 criteria. New York is given a baseline score of 100 and other cities are rated in comparison. Important criteria are safety, education, hygiene, health care, culture, environment, recreation, political-economic stability and public transportation.^[13]
The list helps multi-national companies decide where to open offices or plants, and how much to pay employees.
In the 2010 list of cities, the top of the list is dominated by Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; and Switzerland and Germany both have 3 cities in the top 10. The first entries from other countries are Singapore at 22, the USA at 31, and Japan at 37. Baghdad was at the bottom of the list. Of the 25 cities at the bottom, 15 are in Africa. Compared to lists for previous years, cities in South Asia (mainly India), East Asia (mainly China), the Middle East and Eastern Europe are clearly on the rise.
Mercer also has a 'Personal Safety' list, which is also dominated by EU and Swiss cities: the top five are Luxembourg, Bern, Geneva, Helsinki and Zurich.
2010 year’s ranking also identifies the cities with the best eco-ranking based on water availability and drinkability, waste removal, quality of sewage systems, air pollution and traffic congestion. Calgary is at the top of this index (score 145.7), followed by Honolulu in second place (score 145.1) and Ottawa and Helsinki in joint third (score 139.9). Wellington in New Zealand (5), Minneapolis (6), Adelaide (7) and Copenhagen fill the next four slots, while Kobe, Oslo and Stockholm share ninth place. Port-au-Prince in Haiti ranks at the bottom of this table with a score of only 27.8.^[14]

[edit] Most Liveable Cities Index

Monocle's Most Livable Cities Index 2010
	City	Country	2009
1	Munich	Germany	(04)
2	Copenhagen	Denmark	(02)
3	Zurich	Switzerland	(01)
4	Tokyo	Japan	(03)
5	Helsinki	Finland	(05)
6	Stockholm	Sweden	(06)
7	Paris	France	(08)
8	Vienna	Austria	(07)
9	Melbourne	Australia	(09)
10	Madrid	Spain	(12)

Munich, Germany

Since 2007 the lifestyle magazine Monocle publishes an annual list of liveable cities. The list in 2009 was named "The Most Liveable Cities Index" and presented 25 top locations for quality of life. The winning city in 2008 was Copenhagen, Denmark and the 2009 winner was Zurich, Switzerland.
Important criteria in this survey are safety/crime, international connectivity, climate/sunshine, quality of architecture, public transportation, tolerance, environmental issues and access to nature, urban design, business conditions, pro-active policy developments and medical care.
The 2010 rankings continued thus: Berlin (11), Sydney (12), Honolulu (13), Fukuoka (14), Geneva (15), Vancouver (16), Barcelona (17), Oslo (18), Montreal (19), Auckland (20), Singapore (21), Portland (22), Kyoto (23), Hamburg (24) and Lisbon (25)