Every year The Economist Intelligence Unit has a Global Livability Survey to uncover the world's most livable city. The survey covers, stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure and presented to residents in 140 cities globally. For the second year in a row, Melbourne, Australia was at the top of the list making it the world's most livable city.
Vienna came in second with Vancouver and Toronto taking third and fourth. Calgary and Adelaide tied for fifth place. Canada had an overwhelming appeal on the survey with many of its major cities making the top five.
The Economist Intelligence Unit's website states, "The score and ranking of the top 65 cities remain identical to six months ago. This may primarily reflect renewed stability as some economies begin to recover from the global economic crisis of a few years ago, although the continuing crisis in the euro zone and tighter fiscal budgets may have also slowed planned improvements, meaning that scores have remained static rather than moving up or down."
The concept of livability asseses which cities provide the best or worst living conditions. The ones that seemed to top the list are mostly mid-sized cities with low population density in wealthier countries.
For Japan, Osaka ranked 12th overall making it the highest in Asia. Tokyo came in at 18th and Hong Kong at 31. For the United States the tropical beach-side city of Honolulu was the most livable coming in at 26th with Pittsburg at number 30.
Those at the bottom of the list include Tehran, Douala, Tripoli, Karachi, Algiers, Harare, Lagos, Abidjan and Dhaka with conflict in the regions being a major reason.
