Revealed: 2018's best and worst cities to live in
The Austrian capital Vienna has been named the world’s best city to live in for the ninth consecutive year.
Mercer’s 20th annual Quality of Living survey compared 231 major metropolises, examining factors such as crime, healthcare, education, public services, recreation, housing and personal freedom.
The top 20 cities have remained almost entirely unchanged, with Zurich, Auckland, Munich and Vancouver completing the top five.
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Four more German cities (Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Berlin and Hamburg) made the top 20, along with three more Swiss cities (Geneva, Basel and Bern), two more Canadian cities (Toronto and Ottawa), another from New Zealand (Wellington), two from Australia (Sydney and Melbourne) and one each from Denmark (Copenhagen) and the Netherlands (Amsterdam). The only new entry to the top 20 was Luxembourg City, which nudged out Stockholm. The terror attack in the Swedish capital, on April 7, 2017, is responsible for the city’s fall.
Conversely, the highest UK city, London, came 41st – down one place since last year, with persistent traffic and pollution problems blamed.
The highest US city, San Francisco, came 30th, but increasing crime rates saw Los Angeles (64th) drop six places.
Singapore (25th overall) and Montevideo (77th) are the highest ranking cities in Asia and Latin America, respectively.
Port Louis in Mauritius (83rd) is the top African city for quality of living, followed by the Durban (89th), Cape Town (94th) and Johannesburg (95th).
Propping up the table was Baghdad, followed by Bangui (Central African Republic), Sana’a (Yemen), Port au Prince (Haiti) and Khartoum (Sudan).
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The report highlighted big improvements for Eastern European capitals, with Sarajevo’s overall score improving by 21.5 per cent, Bratislava’s by 19.1 per cent, Belgrade’s by 18.3 per cent, and Zagreb’s by 15 per cent.
“The driving factors have been improvements in public services, transportation offerings and personal safety, as well as better availability of recreational facilities and consumer goods,” said Martine Ferland, Senior Partner and President of Mercer’s EuroPac Region. “As a result of increased living standards, a competitive labor market and talent availability, many of these cities have started attracting multinational businesses setting up new operations.”
In Western Europe, Oslo (25th) and Lisbon (38th) rose six and five places, respectively.
Cities beyond Europe showing major gains included Shanghai (+15.7%), Maputo in Mozambique (+15 per cent), New Delhi (+13.8 per cent), Dubai (+12 per cent), Abu Dhabi (+12.1 per cent), Guangzhou, China (+11.4 per cent) and Algiers (+11.2 per cent).
Mercer, a New York-based human resources consulting firm, isn’t the only organisation to produce an annual “liveability” survey. The Economist Intelligence Unit does likewise, but rates Melbourne at number one, ahead of Vienna and Vancouver. PwC’s ranking puts London on top, followed by Paris and New York. Telegraph Travel readers’ favourite city, meanwhile, is Cape Town.
Which really is the world's best city?
What makes Vienna the world's greatest city?
By Nick Trend
So, for the ninth year in a row, Vienna has been rated the world’s most “liveable” city. The survey, by consultants Mercer, compares the “political, social and economic climate, medical care, education, and infrastructural conditions such as public transportation, power and water supply.” Oh and “recreational offers”. Personally I wouldn’t rank the power and water supply any higher than most other European cities, but I do agree that there is something very special about Vienna - and not just as a place to live. It is hugely underrated as a tourist destination, and those recreational offers are absolutely outstanding.
Sure, you will see plenty of coach tours thronging to the Spanish Riding School, and excited tourists bumping along the cobbled streets of the old town in open horse-drawn carriages. But head for the main museum - the Kunsthistorisches, that fabulously grand neo-Renaissance palace of art and culture just off the Ringstrasse - and you will be able to walk in without queuing. This despite that fact that it has one of the greatest collections of old masters in Europe - easily rivalling the Prado, the National Gallery, the Hermitage and the Louvre. Highlights from what was once the Habsburgs’ royal collection include three of the Seasons paintings by Bruegel, and seminal work by Rubens, Titian, Velasquez, Vermeer, Durer, Raphael - it’s a long long list and a great one. Yet it gets just 850,000 visitors a year - that’s one tenth of the number which floods into the Louvre.
Perhaps you prefer something more modern? Head round the corner to the Leopold Museum for radical 20th-century works by Egon Schiele. Or up to the Belvedere Palace for a spectacular collection of Klimts. And if you enjoy palaces, the two great Habsburg Imperial residences, the Hofburg (home to the Spanish Riding School) and the Schonbrunn are extraordinarily extravagant architectural testaments to power, wealth and influence of the family which, for centuries, reigned absolute over vast swathes of central Europe.
If your eyes are glazing over, Vienna isn’t just about art and history. This is a city which wears its culture lightly, a city with its own vineyards, and more to the point, where cafe society was invented. Nowhere has the art of relaxing over coffee or hot chocolate been elevated to such heights, or accompanied by such good cake and quite so much whipped cream.
Suitably refreshed you will no doubt be up for some musical culture. Here too Vienna is a non-pareil. The city of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven does not rest on its musical laurels - the great tradition still thrives, and it is still home to one of the world’s greatest orchestras - the Vienna Philharmonic - the State Opera, lively chamber music scene; (and, I’m told, a growing reputation for rock festivals).
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But my final salute is more prosaic - it goes to Vienna’s public transport system. Not the metro which serves the suburbs, but the red-and-white trams which circumnavigate the Ringstrasse. You can walk across the old town in half an hour. But to appreciate the monumental grandeur of one of Europe’s most remarkable avenues, you need to take the tram. Sit back and enjoy the view as you trundle past the coffee shops, and parks, the Steinway showroom, the grand hotels, the Hofburg palace and, most impressively of all, a succession of some of the most imposing architecture of the 19th century, from the splendid Burg theatre to the neoclassical parliament, and of course, the great neo-Renaissance domes of the Kunsthistorisches museum.
That tram ride sums it all up. The great achievement of Vienna is that way that it manages to keep its grandeur on a human scale. It has the charm, scale and good looks of an English cathedral city, and yet the history and traditions and sophistication of one of Europe’s great historic capitals.
