Global Liveability Index 2024

Importance of this topic

Global Liveability Index is important in all three stages of UPSC.
Questions can be asked directly from it in the preliminary exam.
It can be linked to GS-1 (Geography), GS-2 (Social Justice) and GS-3 (Economy) of the mains exam.
Knowledge of this topic will be important for the candidate to understand global cities in the interview.
This report will useful for effective essay writing.

Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)'s Global Liveability Index 2024, Vienna (capital of Austria) has topped the index as the most liveable city for the third consecutive year.
Denmark's Copenhagen maintained its second position
Switzerland's Zurich moved up from 6th place (2023) to 3rd on the 2024 list.

Note:- No Indian City is ranked on the 2024 list of top 10 liveable cities in the world.

The EIU Index ranks 173 cities across the world with the aim of showing how comfortable these cities are to live in.
The index ranks cities based on 30 indicators divided into 5 categories:
- Stability
- Healthcare
- culture and environment
- education
- infrastructure

Top10 Liveability Cities:

Bottom 10 Liveability Cities:

The 10 most livable cities in Asia

Asian cities continue to grow in their livability scores globally.
Notably, Hong Kong recorded the biggest jump in this year’s study, moving up from 61st place to 50th in rank.

Asia’s 10 most livable cities:

Key Highlights:

The average score across the 173 cities showed marginal improvement to 76.1 out of 100 due to geopolitical conflicts, civil unrest and a housing crisis across the globe.
Western Europe was the best-performing region for livability globally, scoring an overall 92 out of 100. However, it has dropped since last year due to an increase in protests and crime, which weighed on the stability category, according to the report.
North America was the second best region, scoring an average of 90.5 out of 100, and ranking highest for education. The ongoing housing crisis in Canada has dragged down the region’s infrastructure scores, EIU said.
Four Asia-Pacific cities-Melbourne and Sydney (Australia), Osaka (Japan) and Auckland (New Zealand) have been featured in the top ten most liveable cities in the world.
Pakistan’s Karachi, and Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka are amongst the least liveable cities in the world as they feature in the bottom 10 of the list.
The bottom of liveability rankings is dominated by cities from Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa.

About Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU):

EIU is the research and analysis division of the Economist Group the sister company to The Economist newspaper.
Headquarters- London, The United Kingdom
Founded-1946