Global Quality of Living City Rankings 2007: Zurich on top

[Gonking]

The 2007 Worldwide Quality of Living Survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting has found that four of the world’s five top-scoring cities for health and sanitation are in North America. Calgary ranks top with a score of 131.7, followed by Honolulu, which scores 130.3. Helsinki – the only European city in the top five – follows closely in the rankings with a score of 128.5. Ottawa and Minneapolis take fourth and fifth places with scores of 127.2 and 125.7 respectively.

Scores are based on the quality and availability of hospital and medical supplies and levels of air pollution and infectious diseases. The efficiency of waste removal and sewage systems, water potability and the presence of harmful animals and insects are also taken into account. ​

Cities are ranked against New York as the base city which has an index score of 100. The analysis is part of Mercer’s Worldwide Quality of Living Survey, covering 215 cities, which is conducted to help governments and major companies to place employees on international assignments. ​

The lowest-ranking city for health and sanitation is Baku in Azerbaijan, which scores just 27.6. Other low-scoring cities include Dhaka in Bangladesh, Antananarivo in Madagascar and Port Au Prince in Haiti, which score 29.6, 30.1 and 34 respectively. ​

Rankings for overall quality of living
Mercer’s overall ranking for quality of living has revealed that Zurich again ranks as the world’s top city, with a rating of 108.1. The city narrowly out-ranks Geneva, which scores 108. Vancouver and Vienna follow in joint third place and score 107.7. ​

Cities in Europe and Australia continue to dominate the top end of the rankings for overall quality of living. Auckland and Düsseldorf share joint fifth place and score 107.3 points. Frankfurt and Munich follow with scores of 107.1 and 106.9 respectively. Bern and Sydney both score 106.5 points and share joint 9th place. ​

The analysis is based on an evaluation of 39 quality of living criteria for each city including political, social, economic and environmental factors, personal safety and health, education, transport and other public services. ​

Baghdad remains the world’s least enticing city for expatriates with a score of 14.5. Other low-scoring cities for overall quality of living include Brazzaville in Congo (29.5), Bangui in the Central African Republic (30.6) and Khartoum in Sudan (31). In latinamerica, Montevideo ranks highest in 76th place. Port Au Prince is the lowest-ranking city in the region, in position 212 with an index of 34.​

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