Melbourne named world's most livable city for the seventh year in a row

SYDNEY – The Australian city of Melbourne was named the world’s most livable city for a record seventh year in a row in a global survey that was released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) on Wednesday.

Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, received perfect scores for health care, education and infrastructure, giving it a final score of 97.5 out of 100 in this year’s Global Liveability Report.

Austria’s capital, Vienna, was ranked second, just 0.1 point behind Melbourne, while Canada’s Vancouver followed closely in third place.

New York, London, Paris and Tokyo, an overview of the report said, “are all prestigious hubs with a wealth of recreational activities, but all suffer from higher levels of crime, congestion and public transport problems than are deemed comfortable.”

The annual survey ranked 140 global cities based on stability, health care, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.

In a statement, Lord Mayor of Melbourne Robert Doyle described the announcement as “an amazing feat that all Melburnians should be extremely proud of.”

“No city in the world has topped the EIU’s Liveability Index for seven consecutive years in its own right,” Doyle said.

Victorian State Premier Daniel Andrews also described the first-place ranking as a “win for all Victorians,” adding, “We’ll continue working hard every day to make Melbourne even better.”

Sydney, Australia’s most populous city, fell four spots to 11th place due to “growing concerns over possible terror attacks over the past three years.”

Rounding out the top 10 were Toronto and Calgary of Canada; Adelaide and Perth in Australia; Auckland, New Zealand; Helsinki, Finland; and Hamburg, Germany.

The report cited instability as one of the key factors for the low scores of the least livable cities, which included Damascus, Syria; Lagos, Nigeria; and Tripoli, Libya.