Democracy Index 2010

Liveability ranking 2011:Liveable cities worldwide

An EIU webinar about the findings of the global liveability ranking

Jon CopestakeSenior Editor, Cost of living, liveability

March 2nd 2011

About the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)

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Visit www.eiu.com to register for free macroeconomic information on 187 countries

Today’s Presenter

Jon Copestake

Senior Editor

What is being measured?

• Liveability looks at what challenges a city can present to people living there. The survey ranks 140 cities worldwide in terms of how “liveable” they are.

• The survey mixes qualitative scores submitted by correspondents in each city with some national quantitative data. Some 30 indicators are compiled in total across five broad categories:

StabilityHealthcareCulture and environmentEducationInfrastructure.

• These are vetted, weighted and combined to create an overall score for each location – where 100=ideal and 0=intolerable.

How are the scores interpreted?

The resulting scores can be divided into five “tiers” of liveability.

Score Liveability

80–100 There are few, if any, challenges to living standards

70–80 Day–to–day living is fine, in general, but some aspects of life may entail problems

60–70 Negative factors have an impact on day-to-day living

50–60 Liveability is substantially constrained

50 or less Most aspects of living are severely restricted

• This shows broadly which cities fall into which categories of liveability. • It also provides a sliding scale for firms to allocate “liveability” allowances when relocating to expatriates

new locations. • For example moving an expatriate to a city scoring under 50 in terms of liveability might mean a salary

increase of 20%

What the survey is used for

• The survey started out as a means of calculating allowances for expatriates moving to “hardship” destinations.

• It has evolved to become a broad means of benchmarking how a city fairs generally according to the indicators that are included.

• It also allows private and public sector organisations to compare locations on a range of simple and easy to understand categories.

• As a ranking it is widely covered by the media and generates a strong public response to the findings.

Liveability index: how cities score

• Of 140 cities some 64 achieve scores of over 80% where there are no tangible challenges to liveability.

• This reflects two factors:1. The selection process is based on places that firms or people

would be inclined to invest in or locate to. Ruling out many of the most inhospitable places.

2. Many cities are in fact quite liveable. Most large cities have the infrastructure to support some level of liveability, otherwise people would not live there.

• Cities that do best tend to be mid-sized cities in developed economies with lower population densities.

Large enough to support activities, but small enough to prevent an overburdened infrastructure

• Cities that do worst tend to suffer the knock on effects that poor stability can bring to other categories.

War or unrest can tax infrastructure, healthcare, cultural availability and education.

Liveability index: survey highlights

• One feature of the survey is that global hubs tend to become victims of their own success.

• Big cities attract lots of people and offer a big city buzz. This gives strong cultural activity benefits.

• But this can negatively impact other factors. More people can mean higher crime and a greater burden on infrastructure.

• In the survey this is reflected in a number of smaller cities outdoing larger cities from the same country.

• Osaka outscores Tokyo, Manchester is more liveable than London and Pittsburgh performs best in the US, with New York in 56th.

Liveability: Regional scores

Average regional scores

• Western Europe and North America fair best.• Asia and Australasia have some of the best and the worst cities in the ranking• Infrastructure hampers Eastern European Average• Latin America scores well on culture, but poorly on stability• MENA scores will worsen as current unrest filters into liveability• Sub-Saharan Africa suffers most for stability and healthcare

76.280.876.075.274.576.0World average

50.856.564.239.845.051.1Sub-Saharan Africa

67.767.253.463.571.564.1Middle East & North Africa

67.276.778.866.161.769.4Latin America

67.177.474.672.671.172.1Eastern Europe

72.577.067.869.474.271.8Asia & Australasia

92.398.391.993.486.091.3North America

92.893.893.195.586.992.0Western Europe

InfrastructureEducationCulture &

environmentHealthcareStabilityAverage

ratingRegion

Liveability: The top ten

The top 10 cities in the ranking

95.710AucklandNew Zealand

95.98AdelaideAustralia

95.98PerthAustralia

96.17SydneyAustralia

96.26HelsinkiFinland

96.65CalgaryCanada

97.24TorontoCanada

97.43ViennaAustria

97.52MelbourneAustralia

981VancouverCanada

Score (100=ideal)RankCityCountry

• Vancouver is top• Australian and Canadian cities dominate the top of the ranking• But only 2.3% separates the top ten cities

Liveability: The bottom ten

The bottom ten cities in the ranking

• Zimbabwe is worst (of those surveyed)• Asia and Africa are home to the poorest performing locations.• All cities fall below the interval where liveability is considered severely restricted.

37.5140HarareZimbabwe

38.7139DhakaBangladesh

38.9138Port MoresbyPNG

39137LagosNigeria

39.4136AlgiersAlgeria

40.9135KarachiPakistan

44134DoualaCameroon

45.8133TehranIran

48.3132DakarSenegal

48.5131ColomboSri Lanka

Score (100=ideal)RankCityCountry

Questions and Answers

Download the free report, or buy the full ranking

Visit www.eiu.com/liveability

to download a free overview of the findings, or purchase the full ranking for 2011

Thank you.

Contact for more information:

Holly DonahueMarketing ManagerEconomist Intelligence Unithollydonahue@economist.com+1 212 541 0596