Vancouver is the fourth-best city in the world to live in, according to a U.K. survey released Wednesday. The 2010 Quality of Living Survey by British consultancy firm Mercer named Vienna as the best city, while war-torn Baghdad is the worst. Overall, it placed Europe at the top of the rankings, with Asia and Africa trailing.
The Austrian capital “retains the top spot as the city with the world’s best quality of living,” Mercer said. The Swiss cities of Zurich and Geneva followed in second and third places respectively, while Vancouver and Auckland, New Zealand, were joint fourth.
For its annual survey, Mercer assessed the quality of living in 221 cities worldwide, measuring them against New York with an index score of 100 points as the base city.
Vienna, which also took the No. 1 spot last year, scored a total 108.6 points, while Baghdad scored the lowest with just 14.7 points. European cities continued to dominate the top 25 cities in the survey, Mercer said, while Canadian cities also had a strong showing.
Among those in the top 25 were Ottawa at No. 14, Toronto, 16, and Montreal at 21. In Britain, London ranked No. 39, Birmingham, 55, and Glasgow, 57. In the U.S., the highest-ranking entry was Honolulu in 31st place, followed by San Francisco in 32nd. Singapore was the top-scoring Asian city in 28th place, followed by Tokyo in 40th.
Baghdad ranked 221st, remaining at the bottom of the list. Also near the bottom were Bangui in the Central African Republic, N’Djamena in Chad, Khartoum in Sudan and Tbilisi in Georgia.
Mercer also awarded cities eco-rankings based on water availability and drinkability, waste removal, quality of sewage systems, air pollution and traffic congestion.
Calgary was top of that list (it ranked 28th in the overall survey), followed by Honolulu in second place and Ottawa and Helsinki in joint third place.
Port-au-Prince in Haiti ranked at the bottom of the eco-rankings, Mercer said.
