eiu liveability ranking 2011
TRANSCRIPT
Democracy Index 2010
Liveability ranking 2011:Liveable cities worldwide
An EIU webinar about the findings of the global liveability ranking
Jon CopestakeSenior Editor, Cost of living, liveability
March 2nd 2011
About the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)
Research arm of The Economist Group for business executives650 analysts and industry specialists worldwide covering
• Analysis and forecasting for over 200 countries and territories
• Risk assessment
• Industry data and trends: automotive, consumer goods, energy, financial services, healthcare, technology
• Market sizing
• Custom client research
Visit www.eiu.com to register for free macroeconomic information on 187 countries
Today’s Presenter
Jon Copestake
Senior Editor
What is being measured?
• Liveability looks at what challenges a city can present to people living there. The survey ranks 140 cities worldwide in terms of how “liveable” they are.
• The survey mixes qualitative scores submitted by correspondents in each city with some national quantitative data. Some 30 indicators are compiled in total across five broad categories:
StabilityHealthcareCulture and environmentEducationInfrastructure.
• These are vetted, weighted and combined to create an overall score for each location – where 100=ideal and 0=intolerable.
How are the scores interpreted?
The resulting scores can be divided into five “tiers” of liveability.
Score Liveability
80–100 There are few, if any, challenges to living standards
70–80 Day–to–day living is fine, in general, but some aspects of life may entail problems
60–70 Negative factors have an impact on day-to-day living
50–60 Liveability is substantially constrained
50 or less Most aspects of living are severely restricted
• This shows broadly which cities fall into which categories of liveability. • It also provides a sliding scale for firms to allocate “liveability” allowances when relocating to expatriates
new locations. • For example moving an expatriate to a city scoring under 50 in terms of liveability might mean a salary
increase of 20%
What the survey is used for
• The survey started out as a means of calculating allowances for expatriates moving to “hardship” destinations.
• It has evolved to become a broad means of benchmarking how a city fairs generally according to the indicators that are included.
• It also allows private and public sector organisations to compare locations on a range of simple and easy to understand categories.
• As a ranking it is widely covered by the media and generates a strong public response to the findings.
Liveability index: how cities score
• Of 140 cities some 64 achieve scores of over 80% where there are no tangible challenges to liveability.
• This reflects two factors:1. The selection process is based on places that firms or people
would be inclined to invest in or locate to. Ruling out many of the most inhospitable places.
2. Many cities are in fact quite liveable. Most large cities have the infrastructure to support some level of liveability, otherwise people would not live there.
• Cities that do best tend to be mid-sized cities in developed economies with lower population densities.
Large enough to support activities, but small enough to prevent an overburdened infrastructure
• Cities that do worst tend to suffer the knock on effects that poor stability can bring to other categories.
War or unrest can tax infrastructure, healthcare, cultural availability and education.
Liveability index: survey highlights
• One feature of the survey is that global hubs tend to become victims of their own success.
• Big cities attract lots of people and offer a big city buzz. This gives strong cultural activity benefits.
• But this can negatively impact other factors. More people can mean higher crime and a greater burden on infrastructure.
• In the survey this is reflected in a number of smaller cities outdoing larger cities from the same country.
• Osaka outscores Tokyo, Manchester is more liveable than London and Pittsburgh performs best in the US, with New York in 56th.
Liveability: Regional scores
Average regional scores
• Western Europe and North America fair best.• Asia and Australasia have some of the best and the worst cities in the ranking• Infrastructure hampers Eastern European Average• Latin America scores well on culture, but poorly on stability• MENA scores will worsen as current unrest filters into liveability• Sub-Saharan Africa suffers most for stability and healthcare
76.280.876.075.274.576.0World average
50.856.564.239.845.051.1Sub-Saharan Africa
67.767.253.463.571.564.1Middle East & North Africa
67.276.778.866.161.769.4Latin America
67.177.474.672.671.172.1Eastern Europe
72.577.067.869.474.271.8Asia & Australasia
92.398.391.993.486.091.3North America
92.893.893.195.586.992.0Western Europe
InfrastructureEducationCulture &
environmentHealthcareStabilityAverage
ratingRegion
Liveability: The top ten
The top 10 cities in the ranking
95.710AucklandNew Zealand
95.98AdelaideAustralia
95.98PerthAustralia
96.17SydneyAustralia
96.26HelsinkiFinland
96.65CalgaryCanada
97.24TorontoCanada
97.43ViennaAustria
97.52MelbourneAustralia
981VancouverCanada
Score (100=ideal)RankCityCountry
• Vancouver is top• Australian and Canadian cities dominate the top of the ranking• But only 2.3% separates the top ten cities
Liveability: The bottom ten
The bottom ten cities in the ranking
• Zimbabwe is worst (of those surveyed)• Asia and Africa are home to the poorest performing locations.• All cities fall below the interval where liveability is considered severely restricted.
37.5140HarareZimbabwe
38.7139DhakaBangladesh
38.9138Port MoresbyPNG
39137LagosNigeria
39.4136AlgiersAlgeria
40.9135KarachiPakistan
44134DoualaCameroon
45.8133TehranIran
48.3132DakarSenegal
48.5131ColomboSri Lanka
Score (100=ideal)RankCityCountry
Questions and Answers
Download the free report, or buy the full ranking
Visit www.eiu.com/liveability
to download a free overview of the findings, or purchase the full ranking for 2011
Thank you.
Contact for more information:
Holly DonahueMarketing ManagerEconomist Intelligence [email protected]+1 212 541 0596