Nigeria’s commercial nerve center, Lagos, has been dubbed one of the least liveable cities in the world coming second to war-torn Syria’s Damascus on the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2017 Global Liveability Report.
According to the report, continued threat from groups such as Boko Haram acts as a constraint to improving stability in Lagos, bringing the state to 139 position of the 140 countries on the liveability report.
The EIU said it considered in its report, stability, healthcare, infrastructure, education, culture and environment, which made up the scores that was used for ranking the top and bottom cities surveyed.
The report also used other factors like crime, climate, corruption and censorship in calculating the rankings.
The 2017 Global Liveability Report notes that a decade of decline in the ease of living has now stabilised, although a number of cities have suffered from the “spreading perceived threat of terrorism.”
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The five most improved cities over the past five years are Tehran, Dubai, Abidjan, Harare and Colombo, although they all remained in the lower half of the 140 cities included.
The biggest decliners are Kiev, Damascus, Tripoli, Detroit and Moscow.
EIU noted that cities moving up the ranking are located largely in countries that have enjoyed periods of relative stability after previously reported falls in liveability. “These include, for example, Kiev in Ukraine, Tripoli in Libya and Colombo in Sri Lanka.
“Unfortunately, the improvements have been marginal and have not seen liveability recover from previous levels or resulted in large shifts up the ranking. Amsterdam, Reykjavik, Budapest, Singapore and Montevideo are among those that have seen both their ranks improve. In total, there are 12 cities with scores that have improved over the past 12 months, up from seven.
“The impact of declining stability is most apparent when a five-year view of the global average scores is taken. Overall, the global average liveability score has fallen by 0.8 per cent to 74.8 per cent over the past five years. Weakening stability has been a key factor in driving this decrease. The average global stability score has fallen by two per cent over the past five years, from 73.4 per cent in 2012 to 71.4 per cent now.
“Over five years, 95 of the 140 cities surveyed have seen some change in their overall liveability scores. Of these cities, an overwhelming 66 have seen declines in liveability, but there is a silver lining, as this number is actually down from 69 just six months ago. Two cities in particular, Damascus in Syria and Kiev, have seen significant declines of 16 and 21 percentage points respectively, illustrating that conflict is, unsurprisingly, the< key factor in undermining wider liveability” the report read.
The EIU’s top 10 cities to live in are Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, in Australia, Vienna in Austria, Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary in Canada, Auckland of New Zealand, Helsinki in Finland and Hamburg of Germany.
