Auckland, New Zeland Tops List of World's Most Livable Cities in 2021

Covid-19 is shattering Europe’s claims to have some of the world’s most liveable cities, according to a new ranking.

Vienna, which topped the Economist Intelligence Unit’s index from 2018 to 2020, tumbled to 12th in the survey as a second wave of the virus racked the continent’s health services. Frankfurt, Hamburg and Dusseldorf suffered the sharpest declines, while the U.S. cities of Honolulu and Houston showed some of the biggest gains. Auckland took the No. 1 spot, rising from sixth as New Zealand’s success in containing the outbreak allowed it to keep restaurants, theaters and schools open.

“The extent to which cities were sheltered by strong border closures, their ability to handle the health crisis and the pace at which they rolled out vaccination campaigns drove significant changes in the rankings,” The EIU said.

Although the new rankings upended some long-held assumptions about the best places to live, the fallout from the global pandemic in some of the world’s key population centers was clear. The average global liveability score fell by seven points from the pre-pandemic level, the EIU said.

Australia and New Zealand dominated the rankings, with six of the top 10 places occupied by the two countries, where tighter border controls allowed residents to live relatively normal lives, according to the report. Elsewhere, the picture was “grimmer,” particularly in Europe, although Canadian cities also showed sharp falls, led by Montreal, it said.

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