News: The Economist Intelligence Unit has released its Global Liveability Index 2019
Facts:
About Global Liveability Index:
- The index assesses which locations around the world provide the best or the worst living conditions. 140 cities are assessed.
- Each city is assessed on 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: a) stability, b) healthcare, c) culture and environment, d) education, and e) infrastructure
- Each factor in a city is rated as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable.
- Factor-wise scores are then compiled and weighted to provide a score of 1–100, where 1 is considered intolerable and 100 is considered ideal.
Key takeaways from the Global Liveability Index 2019
- Vienna (Austria) has been ranked the most liveable city followed by Melbourne (Australia), Sydney (Australia), Osaka (Japan) and Calgary (Canada)
- New Delhi has been ranked 118th as compared to 112th in 2018. The downgrade in rank has been due to problems linked to climate change (air pollution, water scarcity) and rising crimes. Mumbai has been ranked 119th.
- Among the BRIC countries, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) ranked 89th, Moscow (Russia) ranked 68th, Beijing (China) ranked 76th.
- The world’s least liveable cities were Damascus (Syria), Lagos (Nigeria), and Dhaka (Bangladesh)
Additional Information:
BRIC
- BRIC is an acronym used to represent four countries that have similar economic development. The four countries are Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The acronym was first used in 2001 by economist Jim O’Neill.
- Since 2009 BRIC countries has held annual international summits.
- In 2010, South Africa was officially admitted as a BRIC nation following an invitation from China and the other BRIC nations, making the current acronym BRICS, for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
