Global Liveability Index by The Economist: Two Australian cities make the top 10 most liveable cities in the world – but Sydney ISN’T on top
Melbourne has overtaken Sydney in a prestigious global ranking of ‘livable’ cities, but both cities have fallen from last year. Yet they are still comfortably in the top 10.
Melbourne ranked fourth and Sydney seventh in The Economist magazine’s Global Liveability Index, which annually ranks cities for its aspirational business and executive audience.
The magazine ranked 173 cities based on scores for healthcare, culture, environment, stability, infrastructure and education. However, affordability was not taken into account.
Melbourne ranks fourth with an overall index of 97. Last year the city ranked third, with top scores for healthcare and education. However, for infrastructure the city lost points due to ‘an acute housing crisis’ that affected several regions.
Sydney was only slightly behind Melbourne on the index with a score of 96.6, but that was enough to drop the city from fourth place last year to seventh, where it is tied with Canada’s Vancouver.
New Zealand also managed to just break into the top 10, while Auckland tied with Japan’s Osaka for ninth and 10th places.
The Economist said housing shortages are plaguing many regions of the world, but singled out two countries for special mention.
“The situation is particularly worrying in Australia and Canada, where rental housing availability is lower than ever and purchase prices continue to rise despite rising interest rates,” the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report said.
Melbourne has claimed Sydney’s honourable title after beating its NSW rival in a liveability ranking by the venerable magazine The Economist
For the third year in a row, the Austrian capital Vienna is the most liveable city, after achieving ‘perfect’ scores in four of the five categories.
For culture and environment, the score was lower due to a perceived lack of major sporting events.
Denmark’s Copenhagen retained its second place from last year, while the Swiss city of Zurich climbed from sixth to third place.
The Canadian city of Calgary finished in a tie for fifth place, along with the Swiss city of Geneva.
Damascus in Syria was still at the bottom of the list last year with the dubious title of ‘least livable city in the world’.
Libya’s Tripoli, Algeria’s Algiers and Nigeria’s Lagos completed the bottom four, with none of these cities improving their overall score from 2023.
EIU Deputy Director Barsali Bhattacharyya said global livability had increased marginally by 2024, but stability risks were emerging.
“Still high inflation, coupled with high interest rates and other economic headwinds, led to another year of frequent protests around the world,” he said.
“Since we conducted our research, there have been increased incidents of civil unrest and demonstrations around the world.”
Sydney has fallen three places from its position in last year’s liveability rankings to seventh place
According to Mr Bhattacharyya, protests such as those on US campuses against Israel’s military actions in Gaza indicate “a continuing pressure on livability that is unlikely to abate in the foreseeable future”.