Of all the idiotic ‘awards’ handed out, The Economist’s ‘Most Liveable City’ must surely rank near the top, which has ranked Melbourne the most liveable city in the world for seven years in a row.
MB has always derided The Economist’s index because it only ranks the comfort of cities for executives, rather than ordinary folk, and its report is sold to corporations so they can decide on extra pay levels for executives who move abroad.
There’s another index called the Mercer Quality of Living Index, which looks at which cities provide the best quality of life. This index this month ranked no Australian city in the top 10 of most liveable:
It’s worth noting the urban/metropolitan populations of these top 10 cities:
- Vienna: 2.6 million
- Zurich: 1.8 million
- Auckland: 1.7 million
- Munich: 6 million
- Vancouver: 2.5 million
- Dusseldorf: 1.2 million
- Frankfurt: 2.3 million
- Geneva: 1 million
- Copenhagen: 2 million
- Basel: 550,000
As you can see, only one of these cities (Munich) has a bigger population than Sydney (5 million) and Melbourne (4.7 million).
Liveability in both Sydney and Melbourne has unambiguously been badly eroded over the past decade as each city’s populations have swelled by 770,000 and 960,000 people respectively, without a commensurate boost in public services and infrastructure.
The result has been a shocking decline in housing affordability, worsening traffic congestion, and crush-loaded public transport, schools and hospitals.
Worse, Infrastructure Australia projects that liveability will continue to worsen in both Sydney and Melbourne as their respective populations balloon to 7.4 million and 7.3 million respectively by 2046 on the back of mass immigration:
Most liveable city my foot!
