Taipei City was again rated the best place to live in the country, followed by Hsinchu City and Tainan City, according to the results of an annual survey released by CommonWealth magazine earlier this week.
Rounding out the top 10 this year were Taichung City, Penghu County, Taoyuan County, Kaohsiung City, Miaoli County, Hualien County and Chiayi City, in that order.
Taipei County recorded the largest improvement, leaping eight notches from 21st place last year to 13th this year.
The second-largest improvement was recorded by Kaohsiung City — the host of the World Games 2009 — whose ranking was up by six notches.
On the other hand, Keelung City and Yunlin County were at the bottom of the list for the third consecutive year.
Among those seeing the greatest regression were Chiayi City, whose ranking plunged from fourth last year to 10th this year, and Taichung County, whose ranking dropped from 12th three years ago to 20th this year.
This year’s survey evaluated a total of 54 indicators grouped into five categories: economy, environment, governance, education and social welfare. Besides official statistics, the measurement also included opinion surveys conducted among 10,225 residents in the 23 counties and cities around Taiwan between July 18 and Aug. 14.
Hsinchu City was also the top performer in terms of governance, with approximately 70 percent of residents describing the city government as highly efficient. It was followed by Taoyuan County, Penghu County, Taichung City and Taipei City, in that order.
In terms of education, Hsinchu Mayor Lin Junq-tzer (林政則) was named the local government chief who paid the greatest attention to education, whereas Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) was rated fourth from the bottom, even though Taipei City enjoys the richest educational resources nationwide.
Chiayi City and Hualien County performed the best in terms of social welfare. While Chiayi City has the country’s highest number of physicians and hospital beds per population, Hualien County was cited for its efforts in improving child welfare.
On the approval ratings of local government chiefs, Hsinchu Mayor Lin and Taoyuan County Commissioner Eric Chu (朱立倫) were again the top two performers, with 74 percent of Hsinchu residents and 73 percent of Taoyuan residents expressing satisfaction with their respective administration.
Though enjoying high visibility, Hau and Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) took 17th place and 21st place respectively.
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