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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

We’re STILL Number Four!

Mercer’s Quality of Living worldwide city rankings 2010 has been released and Auckland is still ranked fourth in the world for cities’ quality of living, again tied with Vancouver. Sydney, the highest ranked Australian city, was at number ten.

This year Mercer also ranked “Eco-Cities”, and Auckland ranked only 13th-equal. Wellington, however, was ranked 5th (it was ranked 12th for quality of life). Adelaide, at 7, was the highest-ranked Australian “Eco-city”; Sydney didn’t make the top 50. The criteria for this were: “Water availability, water potability, waste removal, sewage, air pollution and traffic congestion”. That last one gets Auckland every time.

Among American cities, Honolulu (at 31) was the highest ranked US city for quality of living, followed by San Francisco (32) and Boston (37). Minneapolis was the highest ranked US “Eco-city” (6th place). Pittsburgh was tied with Auckland for 13th place among the world’s “Eco-cities”.

Mercer conducts an annual Quality of Life Survey “to help governments and multi-national companies compensate employees fairly when placing them on international assignments.” In other words, this is a sort of “expat’s love list”.

Like last year, I take these rankings at face value. I’m also still pleased that Auckland rates better than any Australian city for quality of living, and that New Zealand still has two cities in the top twelve, while Australia has only one. Again. Even among “Eco-cities”, New Zealand has a higher-ranking city that Australia has. Not there’s competition or anything.

The top-ten cities in the world for 2010 are basically the same as last year:
1. Vienna (Austria)
2. Zurich (Switzerland)
3. Geneva (Switzerland)
4. Auckland (New Zealand) and Vancouver (Canada)
6. Dusseldorf (Germany)
7. Frankfurt (Germany) and Munich (Germany)
9. Bern (Switzerland)
10. Sydney (Australia)

The rankings in the Asia-Pacific region are:
1. Auckland (4th overall)
2. Sydney (10th)
3. Wellington (12th)
4. Melbourne (18th)
5. Perth (21st)

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