By Abigail Burns
Staff Writer
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) recently published the annual Global Livability Ranking and Report for 2015.
This ranking compares 140 cities from around the world and uses 30 factors, such as safety, health care and the environment, to assign each city a score, according to Marketwatch.
Australia was highlighted with two cities in the top five, including Melbourne, Australia, the only city in the world to rank number one on the list for five years running, according to ABC.
Also topping the list is the city of Adelaide, Australia, which tied for fifth with Calgary, Alberta.
Canada also had two other cities in the top five, with Vancouver, British Columbia, and Toronto ranking third and fourth on the list. In fact, seven of the top 10 ranking cities were in Canada and Australia.
According to eiu.com, these cities have relatively few challenges to living standards. This may not be surprising, as Canada and Australia are well known for maintaining low murder rates and a good healthcare system.
The main focus of this list usually falls on the cities that make up the top five most livable cities in the world.
However, this year the attention turned to the cities that made the last five spots on the list, making them the least livable cities in the world. This is because these cities reflect a marked increase in global instability over the last 12 months, according to eiu.com.
“The ranking, which provides scores for lifestyle challenges in 140 cities worldwide, shows that since 2010, average livability across the world has fallen by 1 percent, led by a 2.2 percent fall in the score for stability and safety.
While this may seem marginal, it highlights that 57 of the cities surveyed have seen declines in livability over the last five years,” according to eiu.com.
Eiu.com and Marketwatch each name incidents such as the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, civil unrest in America and the terrorist shootings in France and Tunisia as just a few of the factors as to why the livability score dropped in over 50 cities worldwide.
Damascus, Syria, is ranked last on the list as the least livable city.
The Syrian capital saw the biggest fall in livability scores over a five-year period, said ABC.
Over five years, the city dropped by a score of 27, and ended up with an overall rating of 29.3 out of a possible score of 100, according to eiu.com.
The ranking on eiu.com also states that there were no cities that scored a perfect 100, but the top five most livable cities all had overall ratings between 97.5 and 96.5.
As for the United States, Honolulu, Hawaii, placed 19th. This was the only U.S. city that ranked in the top 30, according to Marketwatch.
