Singapore is among top 10 most liveable cities in APAC

As a global city, Singapore is no stranger to being on “best” lists. Recent accolades it has picked up include the country with the “best business environment” (EIU), “freest economy in the world” (The Heritage Foundation), fourth most competitive economy in the world (International Institute for Management Development), and eighth place in Schroders’s global city index.

Therefore, it was with little surprise that it did not make it into the top ten cities in the latest Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranking of the most liveable cities in the world. The Southeast Asian city did however sneak into the top among Asia-Pacific cities in tenth place.

This year’s EIU liveability index, which provides a snapshot of the most, and least, desirable cities to live in, recorded the highest global average score in 15 years, showing that living conditions in cities across the world have fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic which disrupted lives and impacted lifestyles.

The index rates living conditions in 173 cities across five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.

Of the categories covered by the survey, only the stability score dropped on average in 2023. Although stability scores in many eastern European cities, which fell in 2022 because they are close to Ukraine, rose this year, stability deteriorated elsewhere.

Stability scores were negatively affected by striking workers and protests in various European cities like Greece and France as well as deadly clashes in Israel and Peru. The EIU said that “inflation could lead to further falls in stability scores, and thus damage overall liveability scores, in many parts of the world over the next year.”

The index revealed that cities in the Asia-Pacific region have rebounded the most with eight of the ten biggest upward movers coming from the region. New Zealand’s Wellington rose 35 spots to take 23rd place, while Auckland rose 25 places to land at number 10. Hanoi, Vietnam moved up 20 places to 129, whereas Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia jumped 19 positions.

Post-pandemic improvements in education and healthcare led to an improvement in scores across Asia. These two factors are also the main reason scores in Africa and the Middle East rose.

The EIU named Vienna, the “City of Music”, also known as the “City of Dreams”, the most liveable city in the world for the fourth time in five years.  

The Economist report credited Vienna for its excellent mix of stability, culture and entertainment, and reliable infrastructure. Copenhagen, a similarly sized city with many of the same characteristics, is second. Melbourne, which regularly features among the top in the ranking came in third place. Fellow Aussie city Sydney is fourth.

Canada has three cities in the top ten – Vancouver in fifth, Calgary in 7th and Toronto in 9th. The other cities that made it into the top ten are Zurich (6th), Geneva (joint 7th), Osaka (10th) and Auckland (joint 10th).

As an expat, the downside of living in these cities is that you should not expect to receive any form of “hardship” compensation. The liveability survey was designed by the EIU to help companies calculate hardship allowances for staff who were moving to a new and possibly less tolerable city.

In all, nine of the top ten cities are small to mid-sized. All ten, and indeed most of the top 50, are in rich countries. Big cities with high levels of crime, congestion and density tend to fare less well.

Of the 10 cities to slip farthest down the rankings, three were in the UK — Edinburgh, Manchester and London — and two in the US, Los Angeles and San Diego. London fell 12 places from a year ago to 46th and New York tumbled ten spots to 69th.

Most Chinese cities were “broadly stable when compared to last year’s results,” according to the survey.

The four Indian cities in the study, New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore, are ranked between positions 45 and 50 among Asia-Pacific cities.

In the Asia-Pacific region, Karachi, Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea) and Dhaka are the three least desirable cities to live in. In the global rank, they are in positions 169, 168, and 167 respectively.

At the bottom of the global table, Damascus took the dubious honour of the least liveable city in the world. It has held this place in the index for more than ten years. Tripoli is one space above in 172, although its score is nearly ten points higher than that of Syria’s war-ravaged capital.

Kyiv, despite its efforts to protect itself from the war, also features in the bottom ten. It was excluded from the index in 2022 because Russia invaded Ukraine while the data were being collected. Its infrastructure score of 23.2 out of 100 is the lowest in the index, thanks to Russian bombs.

“The shift towards normality after the pandemic has overall boded well for global liveability in 2023,” Upasana Dutt, head of the liveability index at EIU, said in a statement. “Education has emerged stronger with children returning to schools, alongside a significantly reduced burden on hospitals and healthcare systems, with some notable improvements in cities across developing economies of Asia and the Middle East.”

“As the world’s political and economic axis continues to shift eastwards, we expect the cities in these regions to move slowly up our liveability rankings.”