How to Decide if a City Is Livable

Ranking livability, the Economist’s EIU (Economic Intelligence Unit) looked at 173 cities.

The Most Livable Cities

According to the Economist, Vienna is the world’s most livable city:

Continuing from the top 6 to their top 10, we have Sydney, Australia and Vancouver, Canada tied for number 7 while Auckland, New Zealand and Osaka shared the number nine spot. At 23, Honolulu was the highest ranking U.S. city.

Meanwhile, the bottom six were Dhaka, Karachi, Lagos, Algiers, Tripoli, and Damascus. Still, Dhaka, Karachi, Algiers, and Tripoli had slightly higher education scores as did Karachi and Algiers for healthcare. But Damascus was dismally low for all indicators.

Our Bottom Line: Livability Criteria

Through 30 indicators divided into five criteria, the EIU ranked the cities. Those ranks included a scale that decided if a city’s indicator was “acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable.”

Looking at the indicators for each of the five criteria, we can see what might be placed in a livability bucket. For Stability, they emphasize crime, terror, and military conflict. Next, for Healthcare, we have the availability and quality of public and private healthcare as well as over-the-counter drugs. After that, the Culture and Environment slot includes weather, religious restrictions, corruption, censorship, and consumer goods and services. Then, with Education, it is all about availability and quality. Lastly, Infrastructure, focuses on transportation, housing, energy, telecommunications, and housing.

Finally, though, we wanted to see what other indices said about livability. The Mercer Index for 2023 had criteria that were similar to the EIU. But, while they also had Vienna as number 1, their top 6 was somewhat different (compared to the EIU 2023 and 2024) and, at number 241, Khartoum was last.

My sources and more: Many of today’s facts are from the EIU Global Livability Index 2024. From there, we moved to the Mercer Index. (I should note that the EIU spelled “liveable” with an “e” while the U.S. has does not.)