The most liveable cities in the world

It is hard to know whether cities actually go out to "win" the annual award, by The Economist, as the most liveable city in the world, but Australia has again fared handsomely in the 2014 awards (just announced) with Melbourne said to be the most liveable city in the world.

"Melbourne remains the most liveable location of the 140 cities surveyed, followed by the Austrian capital, Vienna. Vancouver, which was the most liveable city surveyed until 2011 lies in third place. Over the past six months only 13 cities of 140 surveyed have experienced changes in scores, although 28 cities (20% of those surveyed) have seen changes over the past year. In some cases these are positive improvements in liveability driven by infra¬structural development or easing instability. But in most cases liveability changes in recent years have been driven by civil unrest, with the Arab Spring, European austerity and Chinese discontent all contributing."

"The concept of liveability is simple: it assesses which locations around the world provide the best or the worst living conditions. Assessing liveability has a broad range of uses. The survey originated as a means of testing whether Human Resource Departments needed to assign a hardship allowance as part of expatriate relocation packages. While this function is still a central potential use of the survey, it has also evolved as a broad means of benchmarking cities. This means that liveability is increasingly used by city councils, organisations or corporate entities looking to test their locations against others to see general areas where liveability can differ."

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