Economist Magazine: World's 'Most Livable Cities' In 2013

Business and political weekly magazine 'The Economist' has released its 2013 list of the world's 'Most Livable Cities' in its Global Liveability Ranking Report.

The list which is prepared by The Economist Intelligence Unit helps business leaders prepare for opportunity, empowering them to act with confidence when making strategic decisions. 

The ranking provides scores for lifestyle challenges presented in 140 cities worldwide and it has found out that since 2008, the average global liveability score has fallen by 0.6 percent, led by a 1.3 percent fall in the average stability score.

The last five years has seen civil unrest becoming a globally destabilising factor with a number of different reasons for discontent. The largest of these has been the Arab Spring, in the Middle East and North Africa, starting in Egypt and culminating in civil war in Syria and Libya. The cities of Damascus, Tripoli and Cairo have seen the sharpest five-year declines, with the Syrian capital seeing a 20 percent fall in liveability and moving to the very bottom of the ranking.

Using criteria based on an examination of each city's culture and environment, education, healthcare, infrastructure and stability, here are in order the top ten most liveable cities, according to the magazine:

1.   Melbourne

2.    Vienna

3.    Vancouver

4.    Toronto

5.    Calgary

6.    Adelaide

7.    Sydney

8.    Helsinki

9.    Perth

10.                 Auckland.

Half of the bottom ten cities are from Africa: Douala, Cameroon; Tripoli, Libya; Algiers, Algeria; Harare, Zimbabwe and Lagos, Nigeria.

To get full details: https://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=Liveability2013