3 Canadian cities ranked among world’s top 10 most livable places

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Three Canadian cities have made a list of the world’s top 10 most livable, though two slipped in the rankings from last year as other cities muscled their way to higher scores, according to a long-running ranking of 173 metropolises.

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Vancouver scored highest out of the three Canadian cities, coming in fifth place, followed by Calgary in seventh and Toronto in the ninth spot, the report from the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Global Liveability Index 2023, released on June 21, said.

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Last year, all three also made the top 10, though Calgary outranked Vancouver and Toronto, coming in third while the others placed fifth and eighth, respectively.

The index, which the EIU publishes annually, ranks cities out of a total 100 points, based on scores in five categories including stability, health care, culture, environment, education and infrastructure. Scores this year improved overall and came in at the highest in 15 years among the 140 cities originally included in the index, reflecting the end of pandemic restrictions in many cities and improvements to health care and education. But stability scores dropped in many locations as high inflation and mistrust of government brought unrest.

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“A shift back toward normality after the COVID-19 pandemic and incremental improvements in livability made by many developing countries have been the biggest drivers of changes in EIU’s global livability rankings,” the report summary said.

This year, Vancouver recorded a total ranking of 97.3 out of 100 based on scores of 95 for stability, 100 for both health care and education, 97.2 for culture and environment and 96.4 for infrastructure.

Calgary and Toronto scored 96.8 and 96.5, respectively. Calgary posted perfect scores in stability, health care, education and infrastructure but was pulled down by a culture and environment score of 86.7.

Toronto also recorded 100 points across the board in stability, health care and education, along with 94.4 in culture and environment. But an infrastructure score of 89.3 weighed on its ranking.

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The three cities all scored higher in stability this year than they did in 2022. “In the Canadian cities of Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, scores for stability are up compared with last year, when these cities were impacted by anti-vaccine protests,” the report said.

Vienna, Austria, placed first in the ranking, scoring 98.4 followed by Copenhagen, Denmark, at 98 and Melbourne, Australia, with 97.7.

Here is the full list of the top 10 cities:

1. Vienna, Austria

2. Copenhagen, Denmark

3. Melbourne, Australia

4. Sydney, Australia

5. Vancouver, Canada

6. Zurich, Switzerland

7. Calgary, Canada

8. Geneva, Switzerland

9. Toronto, Canada

10. Osaka, Japan; and Auckland, New Zealand

Making up the bottom 10:

164. Douala, Cameroon

165. Kyiv, Ukraine

166. Harare, Zimbabwe

166. Dhaka, Bangladesh

168. Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

169. Karachi, Pakistan

170. Lagos, Nigeria

171. Algiers, Algeria

172. Tripoli, Libya

173. Damascus, Syria

• Email: gmvsuhanic@postmedia.com | Twitter: gsuhanic

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