10 Most Livable Cities in the World: 2024
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The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2024 global livability index increased only marginally from last year as improvements in health care and education in several developing market cities offset declines in infrastructure and stability across a number of cities in advanced economies.
Overall, the average score across the 173 cities in EIU’s survey increased to 76.1 out of 100, held back by geopolitical conflicts, civil unrest and a housing crisis across many of the surveyed cities.
Meanwhile, the cost-of-living crisis drags on in many countries, with housing costs emerging as one of the stickiest elements of inflation, particularly in Australia and Canada, where the availability of rental properties is at an all-time low and purchase prices have continued to rise despite interest-rate increases — and adding fuel to anti-immigration sentiment.
EIU noted that since it conducted its latest survey between Feb. 12 and March 17, more instances of civil unrest and demonstrations have occurred — riots in New Caledonia and campus protests across the United States — suggesting that livability is likely to continue under stress in the near future.
Western Europe remains the best-performing region for livability, with top scores for stability, health care, culture and environment, and infrastructure. The region’s 30 cities in this year’s ranking reported an average score of 92 out of 100, but the overall score was down slightly from last year, owing to some deterioration in the stability category amid increasing instances of disruptive protests — including ones in Germany, Ireland and Belgium — and crime.
North America is the second best-performing region for livability, with the top score for education. The 25 cities on the list score an average of 90.5, a small decline from last year as infrastructure scores fell in Canada because of an ongoing housing crisis.
Cities from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa dominated the bottom of the livability rankings. Damascus, Syria, is still rated by far the least comfortable city to live in (particularly for stability and health care), with an index score of 30.7 out of 100. EIU said it is troubling that the four cities at the bottom of the list — Lagos, Nigeria; Algiers, Algeria; Tripoli, Libya; and Damascus — have shown no improvement in their overall scores since last year.
Hong Kong showed the biggest improvement, its ranking jumping from 61 to 50 on the back of gains in its stability and health care scores. Improvements in health care and education indicators also pushed other Asian cities up the rankings, including Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City and Bangalore.
Tel Aviv experienced the biggest drop, tumbling from 92 to 112 because of deterioration in its scores for stability, culture and environment, and infrastructure. EIU said this points to the damage inflicted by the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the ensuing war against the organization in Gaza.
EIU assigned each city surveyed a rating for relative comfort for 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across the broad categories of stability, health care, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Researchers then compiled and weighted the scores to provide a score from 1 to 100, where 1 is considered intolerable and 100 is considered ideal. The livability rating is provided both as an overall score and as a score for each category.
See the accompanying gallery for the world’s 10 most livable cities in 2024, according to EIU
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