| Azlan Othman |
BANDAR Seri Begawan (BSB) is the third most liveable city in Southeast Asia after Singapore and Kuala Lumpur in the latest ranking by The Economist magazine.
Melbourne in Australia remained the most liveable of the 140 cities in the Global Liveability Ranking by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the corporate cousin of the prestigious publication, very closely followed by the Austrian capital, Vienna.
The Aussie city topped the list for the sixth year in a row in the survey in which six of the top 10 cities are in Australia or Canada. But Sydney, Australia’s largest city, dropped out of the top 10 due to fears over terrorism.
Damascus is the lowest-ranked city with a rating of just 30.2 out of 100, scoring poorly in all categories (understandably, due to Syria’s ruinous civil war).
Singapore is the most liveable city in Asia after Osaka, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Kiev, the only European city in the bottom 10, performs better for health care and education but has a low stability score due to Ukraine’s ongoing conflict with Russia.
Increased instability over the past year has caused a drop in the score of nearly a fifth of the 140 cities surveyed. Ten of these cities are in western Europe, notably Paris, which has suffered multiple terrorist attacks. Some American cities, including Atlanta, San Francisco and Chicago have also dropped down the rankings after spikes in civil unrest.
The index, measured out of 100, considered 30 factors related to safety, health care, educational resources, infrastructure and the environment to calculate scores for 140 cities.
The EIU’s liveability rating quantifies the challenges that might be presented to an individual’s lifestyle in any given location, and allows for direct comparison between locations. It measures which locations around the world provide the best or the worst living conditions.
“Although the top five cities remain unchanged, the past year has seen increasing instability across the world, causing volatility in the scores of many cities. Sydney, for example, has fallen by four places, to move out of the 10 most liveable cities, owing to a heightened perceived threat of terrorism,” the report said.
“The continuing weakening of global stability scores has been made uncomfortably apparent by a number of high-profile incidents that have not shown any signs of slowing in recent years. Violent acts of terrorism have been reported in many countries, including Turkey, Australia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, France, Belgium and the US. This has been a year undoubtedly marked by terrorism. While not a new phenomenon, its frequency and spread have increased noticeably and become even more prominent in the past year,” it added.
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