People
living in Lagos are inhabiting the third worst city for humans to live
in the world according to the newly released ranking of the 2018 Global
Liveability Index released by The Economist Intelligence Unit and World
Bank.
Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial nerve center, is the third worst city to live in among 140 cities worldwide, PREMIUM Times reports.
The revelation is according to the Economist Intelligence Unit,
EIU’s 2018 ranking of the world’s most liveable cities. The city was
ranked 138th of the 140 countries ranked by the EIU.
With a relatively low score of 38.5 per cent, the city was just a
little above Syria’s war-torn capital, Damascus, and Bangladesh’s Dhaka.
Both cities are hotbeds of violence, destruction and war.
The new ranking saw the Australian capital, Melbourne, lose the
title of world’s most liveable city after a seven-year reign after
dropping to second by just 0.7 percent. The city was piped to the post
by Vienna, which received an overall score of 99.1 percent.
According to the EIU, Austria’s capital’s rise to the top was
attributed to increased security scores due to a return to relative
stability across much of Europe after high-profile terrorist attacks in
recent years.
The annual list assesses stability, healthcare, culture and
environment, education and infrastructure in 140 different cities of the
world.
On a larger scale, the ranking showed, global liveability has
improved for the second year in a row, increasing from 74.8 per cent
last year to 75.7 per cent in 2018.
In the new ranking, published Monday, Japan’s Osaka and Tokyo have
now moved up into the top ten, coming in third and seventh place
respectively. Both cities achieved their highest ranking on the survey
this year thanks to a decline in crime rates as well as improvements in
public transportation.
According to the report summary, “Osaka stands out especially,
having climbed six positions, to third place, over the past six months,
closing the gap with Melbourne.
“It is now separated from the former top-ranked city by a mere
0.7 of a percentage point. Osaka’s improvements in scores for quality
and availability of public transportation, as well as a consistent
decline in crime rates, have contributed to higher ratings in the
infrastructure and stability categories respectively.”
Hamburg and Helsinki, that held tenth and ninth place last year,
have dropped out of the top ten, while this year’s ninth place spot went
to Copenhagen, which achieved a score of 96.8 per cent.
Canada, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver also performed relatively well, the report said.
The report noted that global business centres tend to be victims of
their own success because the ‘big city’ buzz they enjoy could
overstretch infrastructure and cause higher crime rates. It noted that
New York (57th), London (48th) and Paris (19th), for instance, are all
prestigious hubs with numerous recreational activities but they all
suffer from higher levels of crime, congestion and public transport
problems.
The report showed without much surprise that Syria’s war-torn
capital, Damascus, continues to languish at the bottom of the list, with
an overall score of 30.7 per cent. It was followed by Bangladesh’s
Dhaka and Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial centre.
In 2017, Lagos was ranked the second worst city to live in after Damascus.