Sorry expats, after a seven-year hot streak, Melbourne is no longer the most liveable city in the world.

The popular destination for panicky South Africans was bumped to second place in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2018 ranking of the world’s most liveable cities, missing out on the top spot by just 0,7%.

Perth, another beloved expat destination, didn’t even make the top 10.

The list assesses healthcare, environment, culture, stability, infrastructure, and education in 140 countries worldwide.

Austrian city Vienna came out on tops, with an overall score of 99,1%.

CNN reports that:

EIU attributes Austria’s capital’s rise to the top to increased security scores due to a return to relative stability across much of Europe after high-profile terrorist attacks in recent years.

Melbourne’s unseating isn’t the only noticeable shift after years of very little change among the highest ranks.

Who else made the list?

Japan’s Osaka and Tokyo have now moved up into the top ten, coming in third and seventh place respectively.

Both cities achieved their highest ranking on the survey this year thanks to a decline in crime rates as well as improvements in public transportation.

“Osaka stands out especially, having climbed six positions, to third place, over the past six months, closing the gap with Melbourne,” the EIU’s annual ranking report summary says.

Osaka is now separated from the former top-ranked city by only 0,7 of a percentage point, in large part due to the quality and availability of public transportation.

Helsinki and Hamburg, who held ninth and 10th place last year, have been dropped from the list and replaced by Copenhagen and Adelaide respectively.

According to the report, global business centers tend to be victims of their own success. “The ‘big city buzz’ that they enjoy can overstretch infrastructure and cause higher crime rates,” it says.

For instance, New York (57th), London (48th) and Paris (19th) are all prestigious hubs with plenty of great recreational activities, but all suffer from higher levels of crime, congestion and public transport problems than are deemed comfortable.

That said, “they still sit within the highest tier of liveability, especially when contrasted with the worst-scoring locations.”

Meanwhile the French capital and the UK’s Manchester, whose rankings have fallen in previous years due to terrorist attacks, recorded the biggest improvements of the past 12 months in overall scores and stability ratings.

Hong Kong, which saw a dramatic fall in its rankings back in 2015, rose back up to 35th place with an overall score of 91,3%.

Fellow Asian cities didn’t do as well.

However, fellow Asian cities Kuala Lumpur, Kathmandu, Colombo and Dhaka didn’t fare as well, with all four listed among the nine cities whose livability ranking has declined in the past year.

Puerto Rico’s San Juan, which was hit by two hurricanes in 2017, experienced the sharpest fall, dropping 21 places down the list to 89th place, with a score of 69.8%.

Unsurprisingly Syria’s war-torn capital Damascus continues to languish at the bottom of the list, with an overall score of 30.7.

Bangladesh’s Dhaka and Nigeria’s Lagos were just above at 139th and 138th place, scoring 38.0% and 38.5% respectively.

On a larger scale, global livability has improved for the second year in a row, increasing from 74.8% last year to 75.7% in 2018.

For the sake of brevity, here’s the top 10:

1. Vienna, Austria
2. Melbourne, Australia
3. Osaka, Japan
4. Calgary, Canada
5. Sydney, Australia
6. Vancouver, Canada
7. (tie) Toronto, Canada
7. (tie) Tokyo, Japan
9. Copenhagen, Denmark
10. Adelaide, Australia

If you’re wondering which city gets the prize for the most liveable city in South Africa – spoiler alert, it isn’t Cape Town.

[source:cnn]