Melbourne has supplanted Vancouver as the world’s most livable city, according to The Economist’s Livability Index.
The change interrupts Vancouver’s multi-year string of No. 1 rankings in the survey, which measures political stability, health care, culture, the environment, education and infrastructure. Vancouver is now ranked No. 3, behind the Australian city and Vienna, Austria.
However, a discrepancy on the part of the magazine’s surveyors casts doubt over the legitimacy of the downgrade.
“In the latest survey for July 2011, a small adjustment in Vancouver’s score for transport infrastructure, reflecting intermittent closures of the key Malahat highway (on Vancouver Island), resulted in a 0.7 percentage point decline,” the document reads.
Vancouver finished 0.2 percentage points behind Melbourne due to the geographic mix-up. Toronto ranked No. 4 and Calgary No. 5, all with livability ratings above 96 per cent. All told, 140 cities are included in the survey, with Harare, Zimbabwe receiving the lowest livability rating of just 38.5 per cent.
Local news from metronews.ca/vancouver
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