EIU Releases The Global Top Ten Most Liveable Cities List

Do they have rodent plagues in the featured Australian cities?

So they're all in the Antipodes, Japan, or Switzerland. And the ten worst are all in Africa or the Middle East (except for Caracas and one in Papua New Guinea). Where does that leave Dubuque? Waco? Truckee?

The world’s most livable cities 2021

1. Auckland, New Zealand

2. Osaka, Japan

3. Adelaide, Australia

4. Wellington, New Zealand (tied)

4. Tokyo, Japan (tied)

6. Perth, Australia

7. Zurich, Switzerland

8. Geneva, Switzerland (tied)

8. Melbourne, Australia (tied)

10. Brisbane, Australia

THE 10 LEAST LIVEABLE

131. Caracas, Venezuela

132. Douala, Cameroon

133. Harare, Zimbabwe

134. Karachi, Pakistan

135. Tripoli, Libya

136. Algiers, Algeria

137. Dhaka, Bangladesh

138. Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

139. Lagos, Nigeria

140. Damascus, Syria

How the scores of the top ten cities were tabulated.

Formerly high raking Canadian cities slip lower the list.

Tokyo, where the population density is 16,000 per sq mile? No thanks.

I wonder do they based their rankings on cleanliness and friendliness at all?

Brisbane is only number ten? It should be number one.

These lists are BULLSHIT

They should have a Top Ten Best cities to TAKE A CRAP in.

I think that list would then start at the bottom (no pun intended), R10.

I lived in Wellington, NZ for four years while working in the American Embassy. I am not surprised NZ is all over that list as it is the most beautiful country I have ever seen, from the semi-tropics in the north to the frozen tundra of the south island. Everything is breathtaking, including the people.

R12- I don't doubt it's beautiful but there's not much scope in New Zealand.

R13 What part of NZ have you visited?

One person's liveable is another person's hellhole. I would be happy to visit most of the top 10, but long-term? Not sure about that. I don't want to live somewhere very isolated, very expensive or with a culture as strict and repressive as Japan's...besides, they don't make it easy for foreigners to settle there, from what I understand.

I guess they didn't take genital pixellation into account.

Auckland seemed fairly boring and only a relatively small amount of it is walkable. Adelaide is actually quite nice and does seem livable. Melbourne really doesn't seem any more livable than say, Seattle or lakefront Chicago. Zurich seems interesting for a city its size and Switzerland has a lot to see.

Of course, Damascus is going to top the list of unlivable places, they just had a civil war.

R6 How does one explain the fall of Canada? I thought from the very beginning they had handled the COVID crisis well.

Adelaide Australia?

Did an Australian write this list?

R18 The 2019 rankings for Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto were at numbers five, six, and seven.

Honolulu did well this year at #14, I guess that is why so many celebrities live there.

For all the NY haters who insist living in a shoe box is equivalent to being in prison - notice how Tokyo, which has even smaller living spaces than NYC, is still one of the best places to live in the world. Size doesn’t equal quality of life.

New York is the best place in the universe. Don't bother me with facts; my mind is made up!

Heavily weighted toward “dull”

R19 Adelaide has always been seen, on DL at least as "The Wichita of Australia".

But that is quite unfair. It's a beautifully planned city that is well integrated into its surroundings. I have never been to a city center that is so green before, the air is so clean. With a Mediterranean climate leaning to four seasons that is nearly perfect.

It is also the most affordable city on the list. The people there are really open and friendly. Warm and helpful to outsiders. There is a great emphasis on leisure time and activities, and exceptionally good food and wine to try. Also, the SA culture is unique as they share a border with every Mainland state in Australia, besides the capital.

Intact dong is one of the criteria for best cities, right?

No one would mistake it for a list of the Top 10 Most Beautiful Cities in the World

This year's list is heavily skewed by COVID-related quality-of-life issues. That's the reason the antipodean cities did so well this time around: they didn't have the lockdowns, because they had their COVID "bubble".

Vienna, on the other hand, which has been #1 in recent years, got hammered this time because the Austrian government hit the kill switch on EVERYTHING, with lockdowns, mask mandates etc. Who'd want to live under those conditions in even the most beautiful city?

Assuming the pandemic abates, next year's list will look different.

Sydney and Melbourne should be the only Australian cities on that list and I'm being generous.. Australia is one of the most boring places I've ever lived in and most of the population are ugly and unsophisticated.

All i want to know is which aussie city is closet to Bondi Beach! do the bodybuilders and muscle men still wear speedos and bikini's? i know the lifeguards still do!...

Everybody rates cities on a very personal level of gut-feeling of aesthetics, or salary and professional advancement, of the fuckability of the residents, or cost-of-living, or proximity to travel opportunities, or quality of life in some combination. This is yet another vague assignment of numbers, 1 to 100, in vague categories of Stability, Healthcare, Culture&Environment, Education, and Infrastructure.

How are the the infrastructure prospects in Prague? How is the stability in San Gimignano?

I don't know why the places rated sites (sites whose sole purpose is these sort of thing and selling the data) don't develop more complex rankings and let users select from criteria to focus on their individual deciding factors.

Bullshit list. A bunch of Australian and Swiss troglodytes compiled a list. Big fucking deal!

Where is Los Angeles? Uh??? UH?! We have Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Palisades, North Hollywood Gay Spa...etc etc

It's interesting to me that Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide are all in the top 10 but Sydney is not. I thought everyone in Sydney was really arrogant about thinking they lived in the best Australian city?

In Adelaide all seems to breathe peace and freedom, and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.

I would die of boredom if I lived in some of these provincial cities on theist, particularly Adelaide.

I'm sure New Zealand is lovely but their vowels drive me up the wall.

Bed is "bid" or "beed" (hold the vowel sound out a long time). Fish and chips is "fush and chups". Terms is "tombs". Boots is "boats" -- really unnerving.

And of course they've got the Aussie rising terminal which makes them all sound like middle schoolers (rise in pitch on sentences that aren't questions)

Ugh.

I do find it amusing that these lists don't take into account rental/housing costs.

Just waiting for the basic DO Americans to wake up and pile in on Adelaide, Tokyo, Auckland etc.

Which none of you have a hope in hell of visiting, or having visited.

* DL no DO ^^^

R17 Auckland is actually easily walkable unless you’re a fat fuck yank, sweating as you shuffle to the next MacDonalds or Starbucks.

R37, I'm an American who used to visit my sister in Tokyo when she worked for Revlon there not long ago. The Shinjuku crush of suffocating crowds on sidewalks and in subways, locals pointing at the "gaijin", businessmen routinely vomiting all over after themselves and everyone in proximity after several drinks too many, ridiculously expensive everything, digital cyber overload, electronic overkill, constrictive conformity. Pass.

R40 Which just goes to show how subjective these things are. I’m not American but have spent time in Japan as an expat and while I can see your point about crowds (although no worse in my experience in, say, Central Hong Kong, or any central London tube station at around 6pm on a Friday), my experience in Tokyo has been different. I’ve found the people incredibly polite and considerate, the culture fascinating, the restaurant and bar scene about as good as it gets and have loved how clean, ordered and efficient everything is. The only reason that I haven’t moved there (and there have been work opportunities) is that I don’t speak the language. It’s possible to live in Japan while not speaking Japanese but that’s not how I roll.

I prefer to take my pick from a list more like this:

Welp. The list is clearly racist. So...

Last night I dreamed of Adelaide

Australia has only vaccinated 5% of their population. They are under lockdown again.

But sure - Adelaide sounds great. Let’s all move to Adelaide, Australia.

Probably the survey wasn't done with the intent to stir people to decide "Let's all move to Adelaide -- right this very fucking minute!"

R45 and with a whopping total of 4 deaths.

Reviewing that "least liveable" list, I'm surprised Mogadishu isn't on it. It was for some time the most dangerous city in the world.

I'd be interested in visiting Japan and New Zealand.

Australia, not so much.

Switzerland is also not on my list of places to spend more time than it takes to change trains. Beautiful scenery, but I'll admire it from the windows of the express to Venice.

r47 still couldn't pay me to live in Australia...

R17: You have downtown which is fairly compact and some old streetcar suburb type neighborhoods and then you have miles and miles (or km and km as the case may be) the same ugly, unwalkable sprawl that we have here. Aukland is basically like a lot of medium sized US cities, which is not a compliment.

R39, yes, all four blocks of the CBD are very walkable. The belt of sprawl beyond that? Maybe less so.

I have visited New Zealand several times. It is the most beautiful country in the world. But I always found Aukland to be pretty, but dull.

I lived in Syndey for several years and loved it. It is a much better place to live than Aukland.

I hate Zurich. It's what Europe would be like if the Nazis had won the war.

r51 r52 A-U-C-K-L-A-N-D

I've been to Zurich (top 10) and Algiers (bottom 10). I like Algiers a lot more. Zurich is boring.

[quote]A-U-C-K-L-A-N-D

See? It's so boring nobody even remembers what it's called.

r22 New Yorkers are so brainwashed and blind. Desirable New York took its last breath in the 90's.

New York is just turning into a place for Arabs, Russians, and Chinese to launder money.

Excuse me, R37, but your provincialism is showing. I’ve been to Perth, Tokyo, Auckland, Hong Kong, and even Tashkent. Bet you can’t say that.

Oh, I say, old chap, R58, we got there long ago! Pip pip!

Wow, R59, you’ve visited five other cities! Such a cosmopolitan!

[quote]still couldn't pay me to live in Australia...

--Someone who has never left Witchita Falls

Australia will be inconsolable.

I don't know about "liveable". Adelaide might be the world's most "dieable" city. Not that you're LIKELY to meet your end there, but if you do it will be in a way that makes the cops say "First time I've seen THAT." The freaks there be truly freaky. Somebody murdered a heap of zoo animals once. Somebody kidnapped THREE children aged under 10 from a beach. At once. Armie Hammer would probably find his peeps in Adelaide.

Its tourist authority had a marketing campaign a few years ago that was a black-and-white TV and cinema commercial with Nick Cave's "Red Right Hand" as the soundtrack. I'm not joking.

Adelaide was number 3 on the "shit towns of Australia" list. I don't know much about it other than its time zone is a half hour off from the rest of the world and that it's known for its serial killers.

I'm in Canada. We get a lot of Australians coming through here. Some of them are hot and have big dicks.

More like 105 cities in 20+ countries, r61 - I’ve lost track. Now regale us with your travel history - we can’t wait to find out more!

Sadly I have not been to many of the best places, but I have visited many of the worst places. This due to work in global public health.

Lagos is the worse on that list. Dreadful traffic and violence. I had to shut myself behind an iron cage at night to seal off the bedrooms to protect from home invasions and the inevitable murders that accompany home invasions there.

Edit: I have not been to Algiers.

R67 but have you been to you?

Did Darfur make the list?

Honolulu should be higher up the list. It probably would have been, but for the fact that there are so damn many Australians either living or visiting there.

Honolulu is like a kitschy, Japanese Miami.

Meanwhile 40% of San Franciscans want to escape that gutter

R71 At least our buildings don't fall down at the slightest soft breeze.

Honolulu has rainforest, volcanic craters and different kinds of beaches. Much more livable than Miami.

[quote] How does one explain the fall of Canada?

R74 It also has Brit-Brit who has been sending Instagram posts from Maui. See? The crazies love us too!

[quote] New York is just turning into a place for Arabs, Russians, and Chinese to launder money.

How pathetic.

r 73 Touché!

R78. Be sure to capitalize the "R" so it will link.

r73 Touché!

You don't need to capitalize the 'r', but you DO need it to be right next to the number, without any intervening blank spaces.

The one thing you will find with Aussies, when the borders open they love to show the country off, and will often go to great lengths so visitors will have a good time.

Another thing you will find with Aussies, is when they travel they never stop talking about "in Australia we do this, oh this isn't as good as in Australia, I'm from Australia" etc.

Aussies who travel a lot often don't point to superlative places in their own country. They may have a favorite or two, but it's not unusual to hear it described as the "brown continent". Many have not been remarkable places like Kangaroo Island. People from rather provincial cities like Adelaide seem happy to hear about someone visiting those places even if they haven't been back for ages.

[quote]Another thing you will find with Aussies, is when they travel they never stop talking about "in Australia we do this, oh this isn't as good as in Australia, I'm from Australia" etc.

There's some truth to that, but they don't hold a candle to the Americans.

Americans want to compare everything to the yardstick of America and then rank and rate. It's never just observational, "interesting to have to be more mindful of crossing streets because they drive in the other direction," instead everything is a fucking competition, "stupid fucking Brits with their stupid jacked up teeth and stupid can't understand what they're saying accents, of course they drive on the wrong side of the stupid road just to be retarded and do something the wrong way, just like you have to ask them for ice, stupid ice, and then they give you just a little, in a stupid tiny glass, and that stupid Angus Steakhouse in Piccadilly Fucking Circus, it wasn't even all that!"

If you want to fuck an Aussie without leaving the continent, go to Whistler BC. They tend to be drunk messes, but they put out.

To R42...I like your list better. Bergen, Norway(I could live there), I go there for work twice a year(the men, the scenery, the food) I met a crane operator there(Josef) in Bergen. OMG!! He could have been a Calvin Klein model; even my str8 boss noticed the sexual attraction between us.

So glad Toronto didn’t make it. It is a filthy shithole filled with very rude people.

R87: Yes, all decisions to move to another country or continent should be strongly grounded in beauty (in its various forms.)

r88 = fat

Looking at those scores of cities is interesting. Melbourne scored the lowest of any city for Health (83). Perth scored the lowest for Culture & Environment, yet was the only city with 100 in 3 areas (Healthcare, Education, Infrastructure). Brisbane scored lowest for Infrastructure (it must have the old monorails from Expo '88 running as PT). Tokyo and Osaka the only cities to score perfect '100's in Stability.

Stand back bitches, this is Adelaide's time to shine!

I'm a born and bred Wellingtonian. It's turned into shit hole (and I've lived in SE Asia, China, Russia and Mongolia).

It has sewerage coming up the street because successive councils have been too inept to deal with the ageing victorian pipes. The weather is shit - it's the windiest city in the world. The wages are subpar for the millions of dollars you have to spend to live in the drafty, mouldy, damp houses.

The creativity of the place came from artists and creatives who could afford to live there. They've now been driven out and replaced by English and South African middle-managers and government workers. So very very dull.

Others have been driven out of the city itself so live in the suburbs, and because the roads haven't kept up with the population growth people have to leave to go to work at 6 in the morning or get stuck in traffic for 2 hours.

All the homeless people were rounded up during covid and have been put into apartments in the central city which is now disgustingly full of piss, drunks, meth, and violence.

Wellington is grotty.

(R83) If I came from Australia, I wouldn't brag about it.

How can it be the most livable when it doesn't even have public transport?

R95 I'm not sure if you mean Auckland, but Ardern has promised light rail within her first 10 years. But you are right, they are badly lagging behind the Australian cities on the list.

r96 It's too scrasely populated and sprawled out, like the whole country itself. I see no difference between Auckland and your average city of the Midwestern United States such as Indianapolis or Des Moines

But what they do have in cross-country travel looks good. Traveling the whole length of the North Island (648km) for less than $200 NZ dollars sounds like a good deal to me, maybe they should start charging more?

As a courtesy to visiting Australians I have learned the lyrics and choreography to the Vegamite song.

R96 Ardern also promised 100,000 new homes in 10 years. What's happened to that? Oh yeah - after building less than 100 they've scrapped it.

I took some Kiwis on a tour of Tijuana once and a couple were afraid to eat the salad at the restaurant Cesar's. You know, like in Caesar salad? I explained to them that this wasn't some dive and was where the famous salad originated, but no dice. So much for their fabulous education system--it's so easy to be "well educated" when you shut out the whole world and have already killed off most of the indigenous. Cheers, Auckland!

Looking again at the list it really is mystifying to pick these cities as "most liveable." Granted the selection criteria are so vague as to be malleable to the the desired outcome.

It's not that livability criteria are something that everyone would agree upon, but the top results, individually but more as a whole, just don't overlap with most halfway informed conceptions of livability.

Are you American r101? Because if you'r judging a nation's education system on a few NZers that you've met, you'll understand how the rest of the world views you.

Kiwis are known more for their passive-aggressiveness. Aussies are the ones who are more cloddishness.

[quote]As a courtesy to visiting Australians I have learned the lyrics and choreography to the Vegamite song.

But apparently not how to spell it.

Take to account the number of uncut cocks and none of these cities would be in the top 10. 🤮

Where’s Bangkok ?

After all it’s the most visited city

I thought that was Paris, R108.

Interesting.

Bangkok will never make a list of most livable. I used to live there and I came to like it, but a top 10 livable city----doubtful. Tokyo makes sense because everything works and they do density well. Singapore also is a "city that works" but it is surprisingly dull and people seem rather glum despite the plenty.

[quote]Granted the selection criteria are so vague as to be malleable to the the desired outcome.

The criteria don't look vague to most people R102. From OP's link: [bold]"Classifying 140 cities across five categories including stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure, this year’s edition of the review has been highly affected by the global pandemic".[/bold]

It's basically places that weren't badly affected by covid.

At least they're honest that the survey doesn't take into account the intangible qualities that make a city livable (none of which apply to anywhere in Australia or New Zealand).

North South envy

The only reason Auckland was picked as most livable is because of how "it managed to keep the rona under control". Since it's ALLLLLL about the rona now, the world has become rona-centric and people don't die of anything else anymore. Zzzzzzzzzzz