Taipei is the 27th-most liveable city in the world, according to this year’s Global Liveable Cities Index released on Tuesday in Singapore, which ranks 64 cities around the globe.
Geneva, Switzerland, topped the rankings, in which seven of the top 10 most liveable cities are in Europe and only two are in Asia — Singapore in third place once again and Hong Kong in eighth.
Auckland, New Zealand rounds out the top 10.
Thirty-sx Asian cities were surveyed and seperately ranked.
Taipei ranked sixth in Asia after Singapore, Hong Kong and the Japanese cities of Kobe, Tokyo and Yokohama.
The index, conducted by the Asia Competitiveness Institute at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, covers 64 European, Asian, Middle Eastern, North and South American cities.
It is based on five categories: economic vibrancy and competitiveness; environmental sustainability and friendliness; domestic security and stability; social cultural conditions; and political governance.
The study was first commissioned by Sinagpore’s Centre for Liveable Cities in 2008, but the first report was not published until last year.
The institute has said its index is more representative of ordinary residents’ concerns when compared with other rankings that typically measure either a city’s world “clout” or its comfort level, because it does both.
A major difference is that the index uses indicators that apply to ordinary residents earning the median income, instead of expatriates or the social elite.
Taipei placed 24th in economic vibrancy and competitiveness, 30th in environmental sustainability and friendliness, eighth in domestic security and stability, 33rd in social cultural conditions and 25th in political governance.
However, the results for Taipei show a huge gap compared with this year’s Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Global Liveability Survey released in August, which put Taipei in 61st place in the world.
The EIU’s survey assesses living conditions in the 140 cities it ranked, scoring each one on more than 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability; healthcare; culture and environment; education; and infrastructure.
Melbourne, Australia, topped the EIU’s survey for the third consecutive year, followed by Vienna, Vancouver and Toronto.
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