UK cities drop in most liveable cities for 2023 ranking
A ranking of 172 global cities has found that the UK’s largest population hubs are struggling to improve their ‘liveability’ for their residents. The research considered life in cities across five key metrics – ‘stability’, ‘healthcare’, ‘culture’, ‘education’ and ‘infrastructure’ – and found that London, Manchester and Edinburgh had each failed to noticeably improve on their offering to residents from last year’s evaluation.
Each year, hundreds of studies are released trying to determine where the ‘best’ places to live are, according to a various tweaked and changed methodologies. While determining how ‘happy’ a city is, or where the ‘best place to live and work’ might be is ultimately arbitrary, depending entirely on how an individual subjectively values any number of ineffable variables.
The latest of these comes from Economist Intelligence – the professional services wing of London-headquartered magazine The Economist – which has found that the UK cities are seeing their ‘liveability’ fall away. Looking at a range of criteria – including ‘stability’, ‘healthcare’, ‘culture’, ‘education’ and ‘infrastructure’, the study found that no UK cities were present in the top 10 for liveability – while three saw the biggest fall in standards among 172 cities around the world.
One recent study found London was the world’s ‘most attractive mega centre’ along similar lines – including the best ‘economic opportunities’ and ‘quality of life’ found in any of the planet’s largest population centres. In stark contrast, though, London tumbled 12 places down Economist Insights Unit’s list to rank 46th.
Whether this dire evaluation will see investment in the UK capital, or its draw to international talent dry up in the coming months – or whether the city will simply point to a different report declaring it something like ‘the most fun city to live in’ – remains to be seen. However, it was not the only UK location to see its stock decline. London fell just beneath Manchester – at 46th – despite the North West’s technology hub falling 16 places itself. Meanwhile, Scotland’s capital of Edinburgh fell by 23 places, to hit 58th place. But what is causing this apparent collapse in standards?
According to the study, “none of these cities have seen a particularly sharp decline in their index scores, but they have failed to make the gains that many other cities – particularly in Asia – have made in the past year.” This is backed up by the researchers’ calculations that liveability is improving faster in Asia Pacific, which saw average index scores rise by four points, than in Western Europe – where already high standards have seen improvements slow to less than a single point of improvement.
When it came to the top performers, however, little seems to have changed. Austria’s Vienna has retained its top spot – with an index score of 98.4, including perfect scores in healthcare, education, infrastructure and stability. Denmark’s Copenhagen followed close behind, along with Australia’s Melbourne and Sydney.
Vancouver, Zurich, Calgary, Geneva, Toronto, Osaka and Auckland rounded out the top 10. Every single member of the leading cohort scored a rating of 100 in education, while none scored lower than 95 for healthcare. Even they cannot take those ratings for granted, though. As Asia and the Middle East make gains in terms of infrastructure and education – and as the list does not seem to account for human rights in its calculations of liveability – more cities in those regions are expected to push into the upper echelons of the ranking.
Upasana Dutt, head of the Liveability Index at Economist Insights Unit, said, “As the world’s political and economic axis continues to shift eastwards, we expect the cities in these regions to move slowly up our liveability rankings.”
