Singapore is Asia's most liveable city:
survey
SYDNEY, April 28 - Vienna has beaten Zurich to be crowned the
place with the best quality of living in an annual survey in which
European cities dominated the top 10.
Management consultancy Mercer said Vienna scored the highest for
overall quality of living in the 215-city survey after improvements
in Austria's political and social environment, knocking the Swiss
city of Zurich into second position.
Third in the list came another Swiss city, Geneva, followed by
Vancouver, Canada, and Auckland, New Zealand, in shared fourth
place.
Baghdad, Iraq, came last despite slight improvements in its
infrastructure and moves to encourage investment.
Three German cities made the top 10 -- Dusseldorf, Munich and
Frankfurt -- with the list rounded out by Bern in Switzerland and
Sydney, Australia.
The highest U.S. ranking in the 2009 Worldwide Quality of Living
Survey was Honolulu which came 29th while Washington and New York
remained in positions 44 and 49 respectively.
London came 38th in the list which is designed to help
governments and companies formulate international packages for
their employees.
"As a result of the current financial crisis, multinationals are
looking to review their international assignment policies with a
view to cutting costs," said Slagin Parakatil, senior researcher at
Mercer, in a statement.
"Many companies plan to reduce the number of medium to long-term
international assignments and localise their expatriate
compensation packages where possible though the hardship allowance,
based on quality of living criteria, will remain an essential
component of the package."
Singapore was the
top-scoring Asian city, coming in 26th which was up six places from
a year ago due to its growing importance as a financial centre and
its wide range of international and private schools.
Beijing moved up three places to 113, boosted by improvements in
public transport facilities from the Olympics last August.
Singapore also came
first in a separate ranking based on city infrastructure, which
examined standards of electricity, water, telephone, mail, public
transport, traffic congestion and the range of international
flights from local airports.
Singapore was followed in the infrastructure rankings by Munich,
Copenhagen, and Tsukuba in Japan. Again, Baghdad came last.
The rankings, based on a point-scoring index in which New York
is the base city with 100, are based on 39 quality-of-life
determinants such as political stability, schooling, recreation,
housing and natural environment.
In Central and South America, San Juan in Puerto Rico retained
the highest ranking at 72 followed by Montevideo at 79.
"Political and security issues, and the incidence of natural
disasters, continue to hinder the improvement of quality of living
in the region. Shortages of consumer goods have also contributed to
a decline in quality of living in some cities," said Parakatil.
--Reuters