Cover Story
Lagos, Damascus emerge world’s worst cities in 2019
Damascus, capital city of war torn Syria and Lagos, Nigeria are the world’s worst cities to live in according to the Economist’s Global Liveability Index 2019.
According to the report, Damascus at number 140, is the most unlivable city in the world in 2019, closely followed by Lagos at 139.
Other cities in the top ten most unlivable cities include Dhaka, Bangladesh 138; Tripoli, Libya 137; Karachi, Pakistan 136; Port Moresby, PNG 135; Harare, Zimbabwe 134; Douala, Cameroon 133; Algiers, Algeria 132 and Caracas, Venezuela 131.
The report however said Vienna, Austria is the world’s most livable city at number 1, followed by Melbourne, Australia at number 2; Sydney, Australia 3; Osaka, Japan 4; Calgary, Canada 5; Vancouver, Canada 6; Toronto, Canada 7; Tokyo, Japan 8; Copenhagen, Denmark 9 and Adelaide, Australia 10.
“Vienna remains the most liveable city in the world, just ahead of Melbourne,” the report said.
“Vienna remains the most liveable of the 140 cities surveyed by The Economist Intelligence Unit. After displacing Melbourne from the top spot in 2018, ending a record run of seven consecutive years, Vienna retained its position at the head of the survey in 2019. The two cities continue to be separated by 0.7 percentage points, with Vienna scoring 99.1 out of 100 and Melbourne 98.4.
“Two other Australian cities feature in the top ten: Sydney (in third) and Adelaide (tenth), while only one other European city, Copenhagen in Denmark (ninth), scores among the best. The other topranked cities are split between Japan (Osaka in fourth and Tokyo in joint seventh) and Canada (Calgary) in fifth, and Vancouver and Toronto in sixth and joint seventh, respectively).
“The cities within the top ten remain unchanged from our previous update, but there has been some movement in their ranking.
“Sydney has risen from fifth to third, thanks to an improvement in its culture and environment score, reflecting an increased focus on combating and mitigating the impacts of climate change, as outlined by the city’s “Sustainable Sydney 2030” strategy.
“However, Sydney remains behind its great rival, Melbourne. With both cities already scoring very highly across all categories, there is only limited potential for Sydney to displace either Melbourne or Vienna at the top of the rankings.
“No other city in the top ten saw a change to its score. Over the past year we have observed that average scores for stability have risen, reflecting, in very general terms, a slight diminishing of the perceived threat of terrorism, after a period of acute concern.
“Some of these improvements have been considerable but from a very low base (such as Tripoli in Libya and Jakarta in Indonesia), while others have seen smaller improvements to already acceptable scores (such as Seattle and Houston in the US, and Seoul in South Korea). Paris in France is the highest ranked city to have seen a deterioration in its stability score, owing to the ongoing anti-government gilets jaunes protests that began in late 2018. In the emerging world, the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka triggered a downgrade for Colombo, while the growing instability between the US and Iran was behind a reduction in the stability score for Tehran.
“Among the other categories, a deterioration in culture and environment scores is of concern. A slew of cities in emerging markets that are among the most exposed to the effects of climate change have seen their scores downgraded. These include New Delhi in India, which suffers from appalling air quality, Cairo in Egypt (where air quality is also a major issue) and Dhaka in Bangladesh. A lack of a concerted global effort to tackle climate change risks further downward revisions in these scores, threatening to offset improvements in the other categories, such as education and infrastructure, which remain on a broadly upward trend.
“Despite the risk to future scores posed by climate change, a longer-term view suggests that overall liveability has been improving in recent years. In our sample of global cities, the average liveability score has increased by 0.5 percentage points, to just under 76, over the past five years, driven primarily by higher scores in the stability category. Devastating terrorist attacks in New Zealand and Sri Lanka in the past year are a reminder that threats to security are still apparent, but perceptions of the danger posed by terrorism have diminished in recently
“Among the 56 cities that have registered improvements to their overall liveability rankings over the past five years, four cities stand out. Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire, Hanoi in Vietnam, Kiev in Ukraine and Belgrade in Serbia have seen increases of 5 percentage points or more. In the last 12 months.
“Belgrade has jumped further up the index, from 82nd place to 77th, as a result of upgrades to its infrastructure and healthcare scores; it is now mid-ranked among cities in Eastern Europe. Hanoi has seen improvements almost across the board this year, with higher stability, culture, education and infrastructure scores. However, in a diverse region, it remains in the bottom third of Asian cities.
“Following largely peaceful and democratic presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine in 2019, we have upgraded Kiev’s stability rating relative to a year ago, enabling a small rise in its ranking; however, the legacy impact of the city’s previously low stability scores (due to the ongoing conflict with Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine) continues to weigh on Kiev’s overall ranking.
“Finally, Abidjan’s upward trajectory has stalled in the past year, but Côte d’Ivoire’s diversifying economy and strengthening governance have driven upgrades in previous years.
“Conflict and economic crisis define the cities that have struggled in our index over the past year. We have downgraded scores in four of the five categories for Caracas in Venezuela, as the government’s fight for legitimacy has impeded its ability to provide basic services for its citizens. Its stability score has not moved, but only because it was very low a year ago. The effect has been to pull the city down another five places in the index, to 131st place. New Delhi has also fallen down the index because of downgrades not just to its culture and environment score, but also stability, owing to rising crime rates.
“Detroit in the US is another city that continues to struggle, with major depopulation and urban decay resulting in a high incidence of crime, a collapse in local government tax revenue, swathes of vacant homes and inadequate infrastructure.
“Overall, our index remains dominated by medium-sized cities in wealthy countries. These cities have well-funded public healthcare systems, compulsory and high-quality education, and functional road and rail infrastructure. The provision of these services is assisted by the presence of fully democratic electoral systems and generally low levels of corruption. The presence of Tokyo in the top ten demonstrates that it is possible to scale up these characteristics, but maintaining these levels of performance in cities with two, three or four times as many people is challenging, especially when such cities also tend to be greater magnets for crime and terrorism. This is why other large “global” cities in advanced economies, such as London and New York, score lower than Vienna and Melbourne (and Tokyo) for stability and infrastructure but are able to match (or exceed) them for culture and environment.
“We note the continued gradual improvement of cities in emerging markets in infrastructure, education and healthcare, as well as, in many cases, stability. However, these gains appear to be coming under threat from the effects of climate change, which in the index is reflected in the culture and environment category. The incidence of extreme weather events, such as flooding and heatwaves, is rising around the world, and cities in emerging markets are often the most directly affected and the least resilient. That said, we see climate change as a global phenomenon, which threatens the liveability of cities at the very top of the index too. Only a co-ordinated global effort to limit the rising temperature of the planet will succeed in maintaining current levels of liveability across the world.”
